Time passes.
Almost too quickly. Every night, when I go to sleep, I have a fear I might wake up back in my original reality. In some hospital. Recovering from the overdose. Haymitch scowling at my bedside, waiting to chide me. To discover all of this has been in my head; some sort of chemical reaction that took place in my brain, while I was in a coma.
I am grateful everyday that I wake, and I am curled up beside my sister. Each day that passes, strengthens the hope in me. I have gratitude for even the smallest of things. Things I have always considered inconvenient or tiresome.
Even when winter comes, and hunting grows harder, and my family skinnier, I do not let it discourage me.
It is difficult to train myself for the arena when there is so little food. Training feels like a waste of energy. I had never been picky to begin with, what parts of the animals we ate, but I find myself scourging even the most undesirable pieces of animals, to increase my calorie intake. I practice my ability to make fires, using the most basic of supplies. It is harder than I remember. As I do all this, I begin to wonder if there is a way that I can covertly get Peeta to prepare.
After that first practice session, Peeta and I maintain our tentative friendship. He chats with me during school, as causal and easy as if we are not from two different worlds. Two weeks after that first time, I go over to the bakery to practice cake decorating one more time, but as the winter grows harder for us, it does so for the bakery as well.
Throughout the second practice session, Peeta is worried about something. I wonder if it is because my clothes are fitting more loosely, or if it is just his family's own struggles. When his mother returns that time, he is faster at ushering me out. I think maybe his largest concern is his mother discovering us. I know how she feels about the Seam. I am something akin to a sewer rat to her. He likely has good reason to worry. Old Katniss might have taken this as an indication that he is ashamed of me, and my Seam origins, but I know better. Peeta only wants to protect me, from a mother he knows does not hesitate to bully, corral, or instigate. Prejudice in District 12 runs strong.
I might have once shared in this worry. This time, I do not let it bother me. Gale can sulk all he wants. My own mother defied those same stigmas, and I know she would think nothing of it. Prim appears to like Peeta.
Once or twice I have let Peeta walk with Prim and I on our way home from school. He always leaves us when we pass the bakery, but the two have paused to look at the bakery window together. Admiring his work.
One of those times, Peeta casually asked her which cake was her favorite.
Prim pointed at a yellow cake with polka dots and a sun.
Peeta winked at me behind her back.
"Ah, yes, yellow," he said. "Is that your favorite color?"
"Mostly," she said. "I like a lot of the other ones, too. But my cat, Buttercup, is yellow."
"I didn't know you had a cat," said Peeta.
As Prim and I walked away, I said, "Maybe I'll show you the cat some time."
This ominous 'some time' has begun to be a key feature of our conversations. It is like an expectation. That we will have all of this time. I wish I could tell him that it is not true. Our time is frighteningly limited.
Eventually, I want more than just our school-time conversations and limited walks down the hallway or through Town.
The most recent snowfall of the season has left snow drifts a foot deep in the District. I choose today, not just because Gale has plans to see his friend Thom, and I know he will be preoccupied, but also because I feel the looming of the Reaping, and I wish to spend as much time as I can with Peeta before the Capitol has a chance to come peering into our relationship. At the end of class, Peeta walks up to my desk, ready to walk me out.
"Could I see you… later?" I ask him.
Peeta raises an eyebrow. I expect him to ask why, or when, or hesitate. He does not.
"Sure," he says. "I can probably get out for a little while after dinner."
"Want to meet me in the Meadow?"
"Any time," he says.
During dinner, I try not to let my anxiousness show. This will be the first time Peeta and I are together, not in school, not in the bakery, where anyone could happen upon us. I plan to take him outside, beyond the gate. There is a chance he will not trust me enough, yet, to do this, but if he does, we would be truly alone. I could tell him. I engage in this fantasy: of telling him I know the future, and I can save us, and our loved ones, and we can do it together.
Then I come back to myself.
Peeta likes me. I know that. But that does not mean he would believe something as crazy as all that. If I bring him out into the woods, and start going on about knowing the future, and that he dies, and the Capitol falls, he will think I have lost it; or maybe, that I have been this deranged the entire time. No one would believe what I say.
My Peeta would. But not this Peeta. My Peeta, who has been through so much suffering with me, who would know that at the end of the day, him and I protect each other, would believe me. This Peeta is only a fraction of that person I knew. While when I am with this Peeta, I can feel the pull, I can identify those qualities in my Peeta that I appreciated, and he looks and feels, and smells, like my Peeta, in the end, he is not the same.
Prim asks me where I am going, as I pull on my boots and winter jacket.
"Going to meet a friend," I tell Prim, and I know she knows that it is Peeta.
She smiles to herself, but our mother frowns.
"So late?" she asks.
"Only for a little while. I'll be back before it gets too dark," I tell her.
"Be safe," she tells me, as I am pulling on my gloves and wrapping a scarf around my face.
I am surprised by how much that statement heartens me. My mother almost never bothers parenting me, not since what happened after my father died. Old Katniss would have been annoyed by this. I find it comforting. A reminder of the love that she still has for me.
Peeta is already waiting in the Meadow for me when I arrive.
He smiles. His blue winter jacket compliments his pale complexion and eyes so well.
The sun setting behind him takes me back to the Victory Tour. That winter had been hard, with President Snow's threat hanging over me and dictating my actions, but I had my Peeta the whole time. Those late nights on the train, as he held me to keep away the nightmares, are precious to me now.
"Where to?" he asks me.
"This way," I say, leading him towards the portion of fence that's uprooted.
As far as I can see, Peeta does not hesitate.
I already have so much of his trust. At least, I like to think so. Most people don't do illegal things together without a mutual trust. At the same time, I know his feelings for me influence him. They had been enough to consider a mutual suicide that first time around. They are strong. Stronger than I think.
Also, maybe, he did not want to appear afraid, or intimidated, by leaving the District, and certainly not in front of me.
We walk through the woods, snow crunching beneath our boots. It is just us and my woods. It has never been like this for Peeta and I. I turn to him, exhilarated. Our breath is visible in the air around us.
"It is beautiful," he says, admiring the formation of icicles along a tree branch.
He turns his eyes to me.
"You're beautiful," he says.
I shake my head. Even now, it is hard to take the compliments.
"Come on, this way," I tell him.
We trek a little ways into the woods. To a snow covered sward. There is a frozen creek below it.
I crouch at the edge of the creek, testing the strength of the ice.
Once I am satisfied, I indicate for us to walk across it. Peeta loses his footing. I grasp his hand to steady him.
He does not drop my hand after we are across.
Neither do I.
I can feel the heat of his palm through both of our gloves.
I lead him far away from the District, like we are escaping. I pick up pace. I imagine running for real; escaping the Reaping, never going into the Hunger Games, protecting Peeta from even knowing what awaits us.
Until we reach the lake, and then I put the fantasy to rest, along with the other one, in which I confess to him what I know.
The sun is still setting. The sight of the icy lake sparkling in the last rays of sunlight is breathtaking.
"Wow," he says. "I never knew this was here."
The lake is vast. It is surprising that it is so close by but unknown to the District. The fish Gale and I catch here are extremely valuable in the Hob. The District does not often see that kind of food.
Peeta leans down and picks up a rock. He lets go of my hand and tosses it across the lake's surface. The stone slides across the lake.
He does it again, and then, testing the ice the way he saw me do it, he walks out onto the ice to retrieve one of the stones. He kicks it back towards me and the shore. I step onto the ice and kick it back to him again.
A new game starts. Sending the stone back and forth between us.
He misses the stone on one of the passes and slips. He lands on his back. I laugh without meaning to.
I walk over to where he struggles to get back to his feet.
I extend my hand, to help him up, but he gives me a devious looks and pulls me down by that hand.
For a moment I am wrapped up in his arms again. It does not matter that the ice is cold and wet against my skin. It does not matter that the future hangs over us like an executioner's axe. It does not matter that he dies in the end.
I kiss him.
I am surprised by how easily, how eagerly he returns the kiss.
I pull away. There are specks of ice in his hair.
The sun is almost completely set. Darkness is encroaching on the lake, leaving us in shadow.
"I'm glad you took me out here," he says, and he sits up a little. "Thanks."
I sit up too, wrapping my arms around my knees.
"Any time," I tell him.
We sit in silence, watching the last of the sun disappear. I turn to him, admiring his casual pose across the ice. I wish I was him. That I knew nothing. That I could watch this first sunset together, without the tragedy weighing on me. Or at the very least, I wish he was under the same spell I am: that he knew about the future, and our history, and then I would not be alone. Even though Peeta leans over and brushes some of my hair behind my ear, I am alone.
"I never thought you'd notice me," he says, whisper quiet.
"I did," I tell him. I look away from him. "Ever since that day, behind the bakery."
"The burnt bread," he says.
"Then the next day, in the school yard," I say.
"I remember," he whispers.
He does not remember. That is the problem.
I want to say this, but then he asks something else.
"What changed?"
"I did," I tell him.
He does not know what that means. Not truly. But I do, and it is enough, enough for him to accept this.
He never questioned my affections in that first Hunger Games. This time, it is real. As real as it can be.
I cannot tell him everything. I cannot confess my knowledge of the future to him, but this fragile piece of happiness I have cultivated is enough to enjoy this first sunset together. And that will have to be enough. It has to be.
When we stand back up, Peeta slips again. He crashes into the ice, harder than that first time. I tense.
Cracks spread across the ice, underneath us. He freezes, not daring to move. He looks up at me, questioning. Awaiting instructions.
I step away from him.
"Roll the other way," I tell him. "Towards shore."
He does so. I motion him to roll further. He is now well away.
The cracks had spread, some, as he moved, but the ice does not break.
"Best to crawl the rest of the way," I tell him.
"What about you?" he asks.
"I'll go, once you're done."
He does not like that but still does as I tell him. On shore, he turns back to me. Expectant.
I take my first step. The ice groans. As I raise my left foot to take another, the ice breaks, under my right, pulling my foot into the water. I fall forward.
When I crash into the already cracked ice, it folds away, and I am submerged. The cold takes my breath away.
I fight it, as much as I can, but the cold is so deep, so all consuming, it is hard to remember I even have limbs.
I break the surface, gasping for air, ice scratching at my face.
Peeta has moved closer, reaching.
I could reach back, grab his hand, but I fear it will only pull him in, drag him down.
I do not want to make him watch me die; but better it is me, than us.
It is hard to breathe. Like the cold has wrapped around my chest and is squeezing all of the oxygen out of me.
I try to fight it. It feels frantic, but maybe it is not. I am slow, I think, even if my mind feels as if I am moving quickly.
My boots fill with water, weighing me down, and my jacket is pulled up around my face.
My legs burn, both from the cold, but also exhaustion. The boots are so heavy.
When I am pulled under, I comfort myself, with the fact that I got to die, after, at least, getting that one kiss.
I do not specifically recall drowning. I only remember the cold. One moment, I am fighting, clawing, frantic. Then nothing. Blackness. Floating. The memory of that horrible bitter coldness. My chest, feeling as if it will burst.
And then, I open my eyes.
I gasp, as if I have never used my lungs before.
I am in the woods of District 12.
I drop to my knees, barely moving my hands fast enough to catch myself. I have to drop the bow I am holding.
I am braced against the ground, hauling in air, when I hear a twig snap behind me.
I turn, wildly.
Gale stands there.
"Oops," he says. "Didn't mean to scare you."
I start to glare, but then I take him in fully.
It is like déjà vu, but worse. I know this has happened before. He is in the same hand-me-downs.
Gale cocks his head to the side.
"You alright?" he asks.
I turn away from him. I clutch my chest. Remembering the cold, the water. With each breath I take, I can still remember the pain, but it is not real pain, not anymore. I touch my face. There are no scratches from the ice.
As if it never happened.
"What's today?" I ask Gale, still not looking at him. "What's the next Hunger Games?"
"Tuesday," he says, sounding concerned. "The 74th?"
The same day as when I woke up, or surfaced into this reality, from the sleeping pills.
Based on the color of the leaves, it is fall. Winter has not even happened yet. How could I have drowned on the frozen lake?
Yet, I am so sure I died. There is no way Peeta could have gotten me from the water. I cannot have dreamt it.
Is it all a dream?
Will it happen again? If I die, will I be forced to start over, again and again?
Until what? Until when?
Gale comes closer. He crouches by me, placing a hand on my shoulder.
"Katniss?" he asks.
I close my eyes. I am starting to wonder if this is worth it. If there is any meaning. But then Gale wraps me in his arms. So real, so alive. His concern so evident. My best friend. Who I watched get blown up in the Capitol.
"I'm alright," I say, my throat dry. I clear it. "Everything's alright."
It has to be.
It will be.