21. Dressing Down

I stand in the hotel room mirror and survey my nude body. I am definitely at beauty base zero. I have used the odd highly technological Capitol showers to the best of my abilities to scrub, de-hair, and buff my body as pink as I can stand it. As usual I can't help but notice that my skin, well, the new skin that I was given after the war looks, oddly shiny. There is something about it that still never feels like it belongs to me. Mostly, it has blended in well with my true layers, seamlessly matching my own tone, but there are still a few places that I hate to look at now, like the small white patch near my elbow. Or the thick pink line across my stomach. I try not to focus on them. I know that eventually, my skin will be back to normal, only lines the width of thread remaining to highlight that I was ever scarred. While thousands lost their lives in the war. Peeta even lost his leg to our first Games, so I know that I am lucky. No…lucky is not the best word. Grateful. I am just grateful to be alive.

Thinking of Peeta and staring at my naked body in the mirror, I suddenly grab the bathrobe beside the mirror and wrap it around me tightly. I want to talk to someone like I used to when I was getting dressed for some grandiose event. All at once, I wish that Cinna was here. Aside from Gale and Peeta, Cinna was my truest friend. I could always talk to him, be absolutely honest with him. So maybe he was my best friend after all. I still feel a painful longing when I think of Cinna's death. Death, period. And now I can't help but to think of Haymitch.

I looked at Haymitch in shock after he'd volunteered to head that mission. He looked at me like he was telling me that he knows what he's doing. Like he was letting me know that it will be okay, that I can still move on if he's killed, but all I could think of is how I don't want to move on after he is killed. How I just don't want him to be killed. How I don't want anyone else to be killed. No more numbers for my counting game. I see the illogic of my desires, but it doesn't stop me from feeling them and I am still holding out some hope, that Paylor's information is wrong. That the group that might kill Haymitch doesn't exist but inside, I know it does.

I sigh deeply, remembering that I have to pretend for the party to be happy. In a way, I am still excited but I can't help but be bothered by just the knowledge that there is any fringe group left. Maybe I should have volunteered just so that I could kill anyone stupid enough to want to take down a peaceful and fair government. But I stop myself from thinking such violent thoughts, focus on getting ready.

Getting ready to go to a dance, when one of my loved ones might be going to meet his death tomorrow morning, reminds me of Finnick and Annie's wedding. How even though everything was horrible, I had fun. This is different. Everything is not horrible and if I can calm myself and not think about Haymitch, just make it downstairs and see all the happy people from every district, I know I won't be pretending. I actually can enjoy the ball.

I am already late, though only "fashionably" as Effie would say, about 30 mins or so, and I am just putting on my underthings, absently beginning my morbid counting game, (1. Madge), when I hear a rapid pounding at my door.

Ok, Katniss: No one coming to harm you would knock first. I think rationally as I put on my robe and walk over to the door about to just open it up, trying to heed Haymitch's advice, but my instincts won't let me. So I slowly back away from it, nearing a glass table that can quickly be reduced to shards sharp enough to spill blood.

"Who is it?!" I call from my place near the table. Silence.

I quickly pick up the cigarette dish preparing to break the table into shards, when I hear a familiarly wry voice screeching sarcastically "It's the Victor's Welcoming Committee, you freak! Who do you think it is? Do you know anyone else who would come to see you?!" I recognize the voice and smile. Even if I hadn't recognized the sound of it, I would have known her by her biting words: Johanna.

I yank open the door and hug her warmly as she just stands stiff as a board allowing my hug but not giving back one of her own. I don't mind. I am mostly always in moods that I don't want to be hugged but for now, my excitement at seeing the familiar face of Johanna Mason—my friend from the Quell, the war and ¼ of the remaining 4 female victors—stands as the exception. I stand back and survey her taking in her features. Her face is made up, her skin sparkling as people in the Capitol's faces often do. Her hair is longer now. Not by much, but the last time I remember noticing it, it was short and blond and spiky. And now it is dyed brown with red highlights and it is swept up into a tight and short ponytail. She is wearing a plain white tee shirt, with white tennis shoes and a pair of jean short pants, which I seem to recall being called capers or something.

"They're called, Capris, brainless." Johanna says reading my thoughts and I notice that I am staring at them as she walks in.

"I knew it. Well, I thought something like that, anyway." I say.

"Sure you did." Johanna says. As I close the door I turn to see her surveying the large room.

The high ceilings are at least 5 times as tall as I am, and the chandeliers are hanging crystals. It bothers me that they might be real diamonds but I offered up no complaint as Effie left me here telling me to get dressed.

"I just knew you'd get the best room, you Mocking-Bitch!" Johanna says plopping onto the couch and crying in shock at the feel of the velvet. "No fair! These people are seriously obsessed with you!" She screeches, smoothing her hand over the feel. I ignore her statements but step towards her curious why it seems she's not going to the ball. Her face is all made up but surely she's not going in the outfit she has on. Effie would kill her if she walked downstairs like that. She'd kill me, for letting her walk downstairs like that. I am just about to ask her about it, when I notice the small jean duffel bag beside her. And I close my mouth. I have no doubt that she would have taunted me endlessly about not knowing that she brought a dress.

So I just adopt her indifferent attitude and walking back over to my mirror I call out. "Get dressed, Johanna."

I glance back and see her making a rude gesture saying loudly, "You go ahead. I think I'll just die right here on this velvet couch."