3. Please
Neither of us speaks for what seems like an eternity, until finally he does.
"Catnip." He says with a slight smile, and for some reason, I feel not familiarity at the sound of the pet name, but instead a strange fear. I wonder about it absently but then remind myself that I haven't seen him in over a month. No calls. No letters Maybe there is no familiarity left. But the fear, why…?
"Gale…?" I say, and it comes out like a question but I think he still understands my meaning. Just as he used to. The surprise that I feel at seeing him can only be matched by my expression. But still here he is standing before me, tall and dark and somewhat handsome, if not a little wearied from…well everything.
Gale is dressed oddly, wearing a starched white shirt that tucks in just above his waist into white pants that seem too white, too clean. I'd know that unnatural, immaculate white anywhere; it is Capitol clothing. It's no wonder, really, because I know that Gale moved to District 2, the most closely related District to the Capitol. But it still makes me just a little angry seeing Gale, whose intense hatred for the Capitol first began the thin crack that is now the impassible chasm in our friendship, wearing them.
"I went to the…well the meadow first. I thought you might be there, certainly not at your house. Do you realize that I've hardly ever been to your house?" Gale says in quick and rambling sentences, though he walks slowly around the room. It almost seems as if he is talking to himself, because he refuses to meet my gaze as my eyes follow his slow, awkward stride.
"And I mean, even when I did go, it was always as your "cousin" but never really just as myself." Yes. I remember. Though, they do seem to have been lifetimes ago; the roles that we all played for Snow and the Capitol. Peeta and I the "star-crossed lovers" who would have given their lives before killing one another or living without each other and Gale, my tall, handsome, yet harmless cousin, whose hair, eyes and skin are so like mine that not only did the Capitol buy it, but even the townspeople here did. I don't think of these roles often because they don't matter anymore. Snow is dead, and the games are over. Peeta and I aren't even friends, let alone lovers, and Gale is no more a cousin to me now than he ever was. But he's also not even my friend now, which does still sting a little. If only a little.
"I guess I figured it would feel different to go inside of your house now." Gale says, his voice continuing its low frantic pace. If I didn't know any better, I would imagine that Gale is indeed talking to himself. Of course, the words are addressed to me, but his gestures and his distant eyes, never looking at me, suggest that he is talking to someone else. Someone who is not even here.
"But it didn't feel different. When I knocked the door came open, and I admit I took a few steps in and glanced around before I realized that you weren't there, ignoring me; you just weren't there at all." Something about Gale's frantic, dejected tone is making me feel uneasy but I continue to listen as he speaks, unable to stop myself from caring what he will say next. "So, then I thought, 'Maybe…she's with…him…' " He says, as he stares at the thin plastic wall, reaches his hand out and punches at it halfheartedly. "Just maybe…But to be honest, I knew that I couldn't face you there, even if you were. So, I didn't even go. Couldn't chance it. So, I just went to the woods, but I didn't find you there either.
"Anyway, after the empty woods, something, I don't even know what, something told me that you would be here. Picking through ashes, mourning his family…mourning him." By this time Gale has finally stopped circling and has inched towards me until he is standing almost directly in front of me, but still a little ways off. "And here you are." He says spreading his hands out to signify the bakery surrounding us.
His ramble seemingly over, Gale's eyes soften and his hand reaches over almost instinctively and he touches my cheek. Immediately I start, my face reflexively jerking out of his reach. At first, it occurs to me that maybe it is because this is the first time that anyone has touched me since I came back to District 12. Well, no there was the woman from the Square and maybe even Greasy Sae. But this is surely the first time that anyone who I used to really know has touched me. It strikes me that this should feel reassuring, but it only feels strange. As if Gale is crossing some boundary, but I can't explain why. We never really had any boundaries before. He's even kissed me, and I've kissed him. But this feels different. Outside of the hectic life-or-death life we've led until now, away from the pretense of our Capitol roles, after the war, after the bombing…after…Prim. After all those things, it now feels as If he's doing something that he has no right to do. Not anymore.
I step back slowly, partially not wanting to offend him but also wanting to look up into his eyes. He looks so much the same, the deep black hair, the mannish face and olive skin. But still, he is so, so different. Maybe it is just because I haven't seen him in a while but still there is something behind his eyes that is so odd and unfamiliar that I suddenly want to know what it is.
"What are you doing?" I ask, the phrase escaping my lips as my eyes search his cautiously. It crosses my mind that I should have added "here" but then I realize that this question is actually better suited to our current situation. I have no idea what he is doing at all.
A look flashes over his face and then, Gale smiles, an odd smile that I've never seen. Almost as if he…pities me? I can't quite place it. As I am still trying to, Gale answers my question.
"I'm here for the rebuild." He says and he's motioning to something on his shirt.
"Gale Hawthorne. C.O.G?" I read aloud and look to him for an answer.
"President Paylor made me Captain of the Guards for District 2." He says with a small swell of pride and in spite of myself I smile.
"Good. Good for you." I say.
"I guess." He answers looking away again as he continues "There's not really much left to guard. For now, we've been tasked to orchestrate the rebuild for Districts 12 and 13 and my team and I were sent here to set things in motion. To find out how bad the damage really is. Consult with the town builders on how we should go about reconstructing what was once here and upgrading to what wasn't."
I feel a painful tightness in my stomach at his words and only find the ability to breathe again, as I notice that the tone of his statement signifies a temporary station. I recall the relief I felt knowing that Gale wouldn't be in District 12 anymore. I hope to feel it again soon.
"So…you're not staying?" I say, and I try not to sound as hopeful as I feel. Gale smiles again, the odd, pitying smile.
"No. I'm not staying, Katniss." And when Gale says my name, it sounds like a curse. But he is not angry, just resolved. As if, he expected this from me. As If I am just confirming what he already believes.
For a moment we just stand in the uncomfortable silence, and I begin to all at once feel so awkward and so hateful. This was my best friend once. Once. Now he is just Captain Gale Hawthorne. District 2's Captain of the Guards. Town Rebuilder…Bomb Builder… Possibly the builder of the very bomb that killed Prim. My innocent little sister, Prim, whose life vanished in smoke and darkness while Gale stands before me fully alive, almost glowing in his pristine, white Capitol clothing.
I shake my head gently as I realize that my eyes are filling with tears. Gale doesn't try to comfort me as he used to. He doesn't rush forward and hold me and kiss the top of my head while telling me all about how okay it will be. He just turns away and looks out the ragged plastic window of the cold, grey, "bakery". His face turns away and soon his whole body is turned away and I am still crying shamefully with my face buried in my hands.
I feel so stupid. So small and silly to be crying out of nowhere but I can't help it. I don't know that I ever wanted Gale the way he wanted me to, but I did love him. I do know that. The only person that I know I loved more than Gale is Prim. And that is the person he may've taken away from me. He did the one thing that I know that I can never forgive and, in this moment, standing in the bakery and invading my privacy with his artificial white suit and his pitying smile, I hate him for it. So much that I can barely stand it.
Soon, the tears stop, and I notice that the only breathing I hear now is my own. I look up, and Gale is gone. I glance about in surprise and begin to think of the possibility that I imagined him, when I notice a thick, white envelope laying on the ashes before me with writing on it. It doesn't say my name, but I immediately know that it is meant for me when I stoop down and read the words scrawled in Gale's lazy handwriting.
"Please"
That is all.
I lean down, pick it up, and make my way out of the rubble that was once the bakery, leaving the memories of the baker, the blue eyes, and his family behind me.
