Chapter Text
I slide my arm around Madge. It feels comfortable, right, like fitting the last piece of a puzzle into its spot.
The credits are rolling on the screen but I don’t yet reach for the remote on the table. One glance over at Madge shows that she is indeed asleep, as I suspect she has been from the first minute of the movie.She’s breathing deeply, her head nuzzled into my shoulder. Her tight grip around my torso requires an extreme amount of effort to escape. I plant a soft kiss on the corner of her lips before lifting her in my arms to carry her to bed. It’s funny how she always seems to fall asleep everywhere but the bedroom.
Once I have dispensed Madge onto the bed, I head back to the kitchen to continue writing in my recipe book. Madge was convinced I’d never remember all of the recipes I’d created, forcing me to write them all down in some corny book she bought me from the store. I put the finishing touches on my new cheesecake recipe, carefully adding a picture I’d taken to the top of the page.
Yawning, I close the book and head over to the bookshelf in the living room to replace its usual spot. But, being the clumsy person that I am, I manage to knock over three other books in the process.
I can feel my brow crinkling as I take a closer look at one of the books that fell. It has a worn green cover; the pages a bright yellow. I open it to find the center hollowed out- like in some film- with an envelope folded inside. I take it back to the kitchen table, dragging the contents out into the open.
They’re letters.
From her.
*-*-*-*
Dear Peeta,
Right now I’m sitting in the back of my pickup truck in some parking lot in the Capitol, surrounded by crumpled sheets of paper- all failed attempts at trying to find the right words to say to you. I need to tell you how I felt, how I feel right now without you. If I’m ever going to truly let myself go, I have to tell you everything.
That night when we went on a double "date" with Finnick and Annie, I found the uneven tread of your footsteps oddly attractive. Strange, huh? Finding the way someone walks so alluring? I had been hoping you’d make a move. And it wasn’t just the peculiar way you ambled around, either. It was your smile, and your laugh, and the gentle way you placed your hand on the small of my back as you escorted me through the movie theater doors. It was the glimmer of your blue eyes, and the focused look on your face when anyone uttered a single word to you .
Annie thought you’d be perfect for me, despite my never having met you, and she forced me to squeeze into a nice dress and do my hair in that braid she always loved. I wasn’t sure what to expect, because Annie wasn’t exactly a reliable matchmaker.
All throughout the movie I looked over at you, something in the back of my head telling me that if I looked enough maybe one time I’d catch you looking back. And I did. I tried to hide the huge grin on my face when you left to use the bathroom so that you could come back and sit next to me. You started talking to me, totally ignoring the movie, which normally would have annoyed me, had it been anyone else.
When we all walked out of the theater, you sat next to me in the car, opting to stick with me rather than sit in the front with Finnick and goof around as usual. You sat a little closer than necessary. I didn't have any intention of changing that, but I blushed furiously and pulled away when Finnick glanced back and shot you a wink. The drive home was filled with Finnick and Annie's energetic chatter, which covered for the awkward silence between you and me. I didn’t mind; sitting next to you was comfortable, easy, like being with an old friend.
I wasn’t worried by the way I felt when you walked me up to my front porch. Or the hesitant pause before you finally turned around to go back to the car.
Like you were going to kiss me.
I should have worried. I should have worried from the first moment I saw you.
Katniss
*-*-*-*
The silence is deafening when I return to reality.
Slowly, carefully, I maneuver my way back to the bookshelf in the living room. I fold the envelope back inside the cut pages of the book. Sliding the book back into place, I start to realize what I have just read.
Sitting next to you was comfortable, easy, like being with an old friend.
If she had felt such a way with me, why did she leave me? What had been going through her mind as she led me on, captured my heart and then shattered it?
I should have worried. I should have worried from the first moment I saw you.
I don’t even know what to make of this. What does it mean? What is so wrong with me that she should have just stayed away? I run a hand through my hair and huff in frustration. If only Katniss were here to explain.
Lately I’ve been thinking about her often: The punchline of a joke that I wait for her to laugh at. A half-empty bottle of her perfume, lying forgotten on the back of my dresser. The braids Madge sometimes wears, when I imagine Katniss’s raven hair rather than Madge’s bleached blonde.
I shake the memories from my head and bury my face in my hands. Deciding that I will deal with this in the morning, I trudge into my bedroom, where a snoring Madge is sprawled across the blankets. I don’t even bother to undress, instead just sliding under the sheets and settling in for what is sure to be a restless night.