Chapter Text
Denial
"In this stage, individuals believe the precipitating event is somehow mistaken, and cling to a false, preferable reality. Some may also isolate themselves, avoiding others who may have accepted what is happening. This stage is usually a temporary defense, so long as the person has adequate time to move amongst the stages as they contemplate death."
- On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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"Thank you for the bread." I say.
The boy seems stunned I walked up to him on the playground. He has a somewhat wistful look in his eyes though I'm not sure why. His slightly freckled face is tinted pink.
"N-no problem." He replies gazing down, clearly trying to hide where his mother struck him behind his blonde hair. His swollen cheek and black eye seem to have been getting worse over the course of the day.
"I hope you liked it. It's my dad's best recipe and you probably would appreciate the taste more than the pigs would have." He jokes lightly.
He stares at the ground as I awkwardly turn my view towards the sky, unsure how to leave this conversation naturally. A moment later he bends down, and plucks a dandelion from the grass.
"For you." He says, offering the flower out to me, the dusting of pink on his cheeks darkening slightly.
I stare for a moment at the flower. The petals are neatly unfolded in a spiral pattern and bright yellow shines up at us.
And while some may call them weeds, I get the impression we both understand the value of this plant as a flower. A perfect sun, once rooted to the earth, is now presented to me as an offering of sorts. A thing perhaps destined for death, to float away in the wind as though it never existed at all, and yet in this moment it lives as loud and proud as the day it sprung from the rubble and concrete it calls home.
I hesitate for a moment but find myself once again giving in to his kindness and taking the flower from him, our hands grazing slightly as I do so. I stare at the flower thinking about the plant book back home, full of edible plants I had been ignoring while my family starved. This boy perhaps offering me salvation once again.
Despite having thanked him, I feel as though I still owe him for the bread that saved us. But in this awkward moment I'm not quite able to meet his eyes. Prim runs up to me and grabs my hand, saying she's desperate to go home.
I think Peeta shouts a goodbye to us as we leave but I'm too lost in thought to reply.
While gathering dandelions that night, I think about how I could pay this boy back. What could I possibly offer this merchant boy? Someone who wants for nothing. Someone who is always fed. Someone who's parents are still around to care for him.
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As the weeks pass and I become more confident venturing out into the woods, I keep an eye out for anything that might be a worthy offering for him. A particularly pretty animal pelt or a rare medicinal plant perhaps. But everything I think of seems to come up short.
Peeta begins saying hello to me in the hallways at school, sitting nearer to me during activities, and waiting to say goodbye to me every day after school before walking home. Despite not being very sociable myself, I find being polite to him is my only way to pay back my debt so far, so I reply when he talks to me though I never initiate anything.
My mother slowly comes back to herself. She gets up, helps Prim get ready for school, cooks and cleans, and is delighted when I begin bringing medicinal plants home from the woods. She begins making salves and ointments and remedies again. I don't let her help me with anything even when I really need it and we fight over her medicine prices.
She says she'll only charge what she knows the person can afford. I snap back that we can only afford to live because I hunt and take out tessarae. She looks hurt at the mention of the extra slips of paper going in the Reaping ball that will read 'Katniss Everdeen' as though I am already marked for death. In those moments she freezes up, gets a far away look in her eyes and leaves to take a walk. I don't fight her when she returns and she never brings up the issue again until the next time we can't afford something we need.
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Just before Reaping day, as Peeta comes to say goodbye to me again at the end of the school day, he hesitates a moment. I wonder for a second if he's come to ask a favour for which I feel I would have every obligation to say yes. But to my surprise all he asks is,
"Can I walk you home?"
And I agree.
For the first few days we walk in silence, though Prim is excited to have someone new to complain about her homework to. He offers advice on parts he found tricky at her age though the 7 year old isn't really listening. She gleefully tugs on his hand, play acting the wife to a sophisticated town boy. The life she perhaps would be destined for if my mother had not married my father.
After a few days she tires of talking to him however, and walks a few paces ahead of us. Peeta begins making awkward conversation with me, though admittedly we have very little in common outside of schoolwork.
He talks about flour types and which makes the best breads. Apparently each District has its own type of bread roll, and the Capitol has elegant extra refined bread that has a sweet taste if savoured, but has very low nutritional value due to the way it has been made. I don't find it particularly interesting but I nod along politely.
He mentions that sometimes he's allowed to decorate the cakes kept in the shop window, doing intricate designs.
"So did I just catch your mother at a bad time or does she not throw away the stale bread on Sunday nights?" I finally ask, trying to be as subtle as I can with my tone.
It seems underhanded to straight up ask when there might be free food in their bins but all this bread talk is making me yearn for the real thing, even if it's stale. And little does he know the fastest way to a friendship with me is through my stomach.
"Oh we never chuck out anything stale. That's... dinner." He mumbles, as though ashamed.
I stop walking midway down the lane, stunned. Prim continues but as long as she doesn't veer off the path she'll not be hard to catch up on her small legs.
"You guys eat the stale bread? Like only stale bread?" I ask.
"Yeah. The real bread is for the customers. We get a fresh loaf on Reaping day and New Year, and a cookie seeing as dad always has them in his pocket, but yeah everything we eat is stale." He replies in a mostly neutral tone, though he lightens slightly at the mention of cookies.
He begins walking again and I follow. We get a few more paces before he speaks again.
"I wish my parents bought more meat. I can deal with stale bread, we know how to make it taste okay by now but I want to do wrestling next year in school and my brothers say if I wanna do that I have to eat more meat. I miss your dad selling my dad squirrels at the backdoor."
I'm once again stunned. This is the first mention of my father in months and it is an absolute shock to me that it comes from a merchant kid.
I have only just recently picked up the bow again after so long and the woods are still frightening to me. While I've spotted many animals including squirrels during my hunts, my aim is not quite at his level yet. I caught a poor squirrel by its bushy tail last week and felt so sorry having not immediately put it out of its misery on the first shot.
"I am sorry about your dad." He says as my house comes into sight.
From the window I can see Prim sat at the table playing with her wood carved bird toys, swooping them through the air and making obnoxious squawking sounds for the wooden songbirds. My mother stands nearby chopping a root and crushing its insides to form a healing paste. Behind them sits a framed photo and an old shaving mirror, perfectly polished and shining.
I don't reply to his sympathies. While I can owe this boy my life and the lives of my remaining family, I will not give him the one thing I have kept as my own. My grief. For like my father, it is buried deep down somewhere, choking and burning, unable to reach me.
Walking home with Peeta slowly gets easier. We don't always chat but talking slowly becomes less stunted over time.
A few weeks pass and I start nailing my bow shots with more consistency. I finally build up the nerve to knock on the backdoor of the bakery. Mr Mellark answers, hair covered in flour and his apron haphazardly hanging on to his rounded figure. He seems bewildered to find an 11 year old girl trembling on his back step, holding out 3 dead squirrels by their tails. Perhaps in the hunting jacket, holding freshly caught meat, I am the spitting image of my father.
He quickly gets over the shock however and casually asks, "The usual rate?" to which I nod.
I have no idea what my father charged or what would be considered a good price so for all I know he ripped me off. But counting it later after heading home, my mother confirms I was paid the same as my father was so things start looking up.
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Peeta and myself survive our first Reaping, and while a small part of me does envy his one paper slip to my four, I find that it doesn't seem to calm his nerves as he trembles like a leaf from the boys pen. I don't manage to make eye contact with him until the crowd is quickly dispersing. He stands with his family, his father pulling out a beautifully wrapped assortment of cookies and allowing each of the boys to pick one.
As our eyes meet he grins at me, quickly turns to his father to say something, and runs over to me. Before he or I can say anything, he breaks the cookie in half and offers one half of it to me.
"No no, I'm okay Peeta, it's your cookie." I say to him, all the while still eyeing up the delicious mouthwatering treat in his outstretched hand.
"Consider it a tip for the squirrels last night." He says, pressing the cookie piece into my palm and running back to his family before I can say another word. By now he seems to be picking up on my hesitancy to accept gifts or offerings, so I expect he's feeling pretty smug right about now.
Unable to return it, I break the half into thirds and share it with my mother and Prim on the walk home. The sweetness overcomes my senses and the taste lingers on my tongue, leaving me unable to think about anything else other than Peeta for the rest of the day.
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We continue to walk home together the following school year, though he now splits his days between walking me home and walking straight to town with his friends from wrestling. I don't mind too much, it allows me to get to the woods sooner.
Sometimes Prim starts a game of tag that lasts all the way home, us running and hiding behind lamp posts and dodging each other attacks, or just flat out running for the safety of the door. Peeta's not slow by any means, but I think he allows Prim to believe he is as he lets her win most days. Sometimes it's mostly a contest between himself and me in which we are both relentless in our pursuits.
We still don't talk much in school but that's not surprising. Madge and I sit alone in the cafeteria at lunch, easily able to hear the loud racket of noise coming from Peeta's table. He doesn't join in on much of the roughhousing but does join in on the jokes.
I don't sit with him and he doesn't sit with me. There's an understanding that we'd be uncomfortable at one another's tables. Peeta is soft and quiet one on one but in a group or crowd he is the typical twelve year old boy.
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The next year however we're finally sat next to each other in class. I listen diligently to the teacher as they explain the history of coal mining in our District and how we serve the Capitol. I hate the idea of working in the mines, descending into the darkness below and never coming out. Never seeing my family again. So I feel it's important to understand as much as I can before that becomes my job.
Peeta doesn't seem to care about listening and I'm not surprised one bit. He will likely never go down into the mines past 18. He will have enough money to survive.
He spends his time in this class by doodling a meadow on to the front cover of my workbook. It is rather impressive, with the flowers intricately woven into the grass, the District fence in the background and a rising sun. The view of the meadow from my house.
Each day he adds to it slowly, a flower patch, then a tree, then the clouds. His face is so concentrated on each detail, and I enjoy watching him work. Seeing his tongue stick out slightly and his eyelashes flutter as he contemplates where to place each blade of grass.
On occasion the teacher will stop in the middle of talking to tell me to focus on the lesson and pay attention. She never tells Peeta off for not paying attention but she likely thinks there's no point trying to teach him the content anyway.
"I don't know why she thinks I'm not paying attention," I vent to Peeta on the walk home. "I bet if she tested the two of us right now I'd get a way better score than you."
Peeta chuckles at this. "I am paying attention, I just find I need something to do with my hands a lot of the time. You stop paying attention the second something more interesting comes along. My doodling is going to make you a bad coal miner."
I frown at this which only adds to his amusement.
"I don't wanna be a coal miner, I just know that it's the only way I'll start making a living when I turn 18."
"You don't wanna sell squirrels forever?" He asks. "I thought you enjoyed hunting."
"I do, but it will take one change of who the Head Peacekeeper is and I'll be hanged. And we'll stop getting Tessarae when I age out of the Reaping. Gotta afford grain and oil somehow." I reply.
He thinks hard for a moment before responding, kicking a stone along the path as he walks.
"If you really don't wanna be a coal miner, you could try marrying a merchant." He says.
"No merchant would be seen dead marrying a girl from the Seam. No, no matter how much I hate going into those mines or how much I really don't wanna go on the stupid field trip next week, I have to. Can we talk about something else?" I reply, for once actually speeding up my walking pace to get home sooner.
I usually treasure my time walking home with Peeta. Sometimes I think about asking him to stay longer. To ask him into the house for tea or to go somewhere like the meadow to hang out. But I never know how to ask him.
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When the day finally comes for us to go to the mines I am a nervous wreck. No matter the reassurances by the guide that we're safe and this mine has been reinforced by the best our District has to offer, I tremble and shake waiting in line. It's all I can do not to throw up.
As the line files into the lift, the rowdy kids pushing and shoving makes the platform shake, the metal groaning under the weight of so many of us. I'm almost certain the brakes will fail and we'll plummet to our deaths.
In all the pushing and shoving, Madge has ended up a couple of metres away from me and being packed in like sardines already, there's no way I can get to her. Before I can panic further, a hand slips into mine and squeezes reassuringly.
As we descend, the cage is mostly dark apart from the emergency lighting. Peeta and I stare into each other's eyes, unwilling to look away. He has a concerned look on his face and seems to be trying to reassure me with the kindness in his eyes. A rather odd thought comes to me at this moment; I would not mind dying like this. If I had to die here and now. His eyes being the last thing I see before darkness would not be so bad.
We don't let go of each other for the entire tour and only when we resurface into the daylight does anyone notice. A few of the boys start teasing Peeta about "having to hold his girlfriend's hand so he doesn't cry". He doesn't respond, though his cheeks redden deeply at the implication that we're dating.
We let go and walk away from them, myself back to Madge and Peeta back to his other friends, as though it was simply a business deal.
While Peeta and I are certainly friends, our relationship has always felt quite private. We don't talk in school, we don't acknowledge each other, and we certainly don't touch. This is the first display of anything between us that has been acknowledged by others.
There is no such thing as a secret in Twelve. Everyone knows everyone, and they all know your business. But I never expect to be at the centre of gossip. I keep to myself. I don't have many friends, but that's for an intentional lack of trying. I don't enjoy being talked about or having our relationship observed. What Peeta and I are to each other is only for us to know.
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Over the next year, Peeta and I hold hands more. We meet in the queue for registration at the Reaping and hold hands before wishing each other luck to survive and going to our respective pens.
When neither of us is picked, we each grab both of the other's hands and squeeze tightly in reassurance. He pulls out a cookie and hands me half before we separate to find our families.
Last year I hustled my mom and Prim home before Peeta could find us in the crowd, adamant to let him keep the whole cookie to himself. This year he seems to have come prepared by asking for it before the drawing. I would resent him a lot more for the trickery if the taste wasn't so delicious.
On occasion we hold hands on the walk home. I never notice how it happens, I'll just suddenly realise in between talking about something and I think it would be rude to shake him off before we reach my house.
Sometimes Peeta and Prim will convince me to take the longer way home through town so we can look in the shop windows. Prim is particularly interested in the cakes Peeta decorates that sit in the window of the bakery. They get better every time we pass them. I do notice that if we are holding hands while passing through town, he will drop mine as we pass the bakery. I never mention it.
Despite being right outside where he lives, Peeta still insists on walking us home, saying he doesn't want to go home just yet and wants to be out a little longer. I don't protest because I would hate for him to leave early.
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One early Sunday afternoon, I knock on the backdoor of the bakery with the usual order of squirrels in hand, when the baker's wife answers the door. She shoos me away, claiming that her family doesn't eat squirrels, only the finest rabbit the butcher's shop offers.
I'm rather confused as to why she doesn't know she's been eating squirrel for the last 2 years. Peeta's mentioned them being family dinner so many times I'm sure of it.
I go to leave when I hear him call to me. I look up at the window on the next floor and Peeta is smiling down at me.
"Hey, you going through our bins again?" He jokes.
"I came to trade with your father, but your mother answered the door." I reply.
"He'll be back later, he goes on walks on Sunday afternoons because we're only open in the morning." He informs me.
Wonderful. I don't have time to come back in the hopes he'll answer the door next time. I suppose I'll have to trade these squirrels to someone at the Hob, though no one there pays as much as the baker will.
My frustration clearly registers on my face as Peeta says, "I can take the squirrels the now and bring the payment tomorrow at school if you want."
"Really? That would be a big help, can you come down to the door? Probably won't be as tasty if I chuck them at you from down here." I joke.
His face registers panic at having to come down the stairs, clearly also anxious to avoid his mother. He's about to say as such when I cut in again.
"Actually you know what? Give me a sec," I say. I head towards the tree in their back garden.
One of the branches grows past his bedroom window. I shimmy up the tree quickly and with my light frame, I manage to balance on the branch without breaking it.
I'm outside his window in an instant and the grin on his face is so contagious I return it reflexively.
"You're like a squirrel yourself with how you scaled that tree, how'd you do that?" He asks.
"You spend enough time running from wild dogs and scaling trees to get away from them, you learn to climb fast." I say, holding out the squirrels to him.
He takes them gratefully.
"You have to tell me what the woods are like some time. They seem so scary with all the wild animals." He says.
I suppose they were once scary but after a while the frightening feeling goes away and it does help that Gale is there sometimes too. We usually spend Sundays together hunting all day and trading in the evening but his mother has needed his help more around the house with his younger siblings tearing the place apart at the seams.
He now only joins for the occasion Sunday so I collect the food from his traps for him for a cut and keep anything I shoot for myself. We have built more trust over the last 2 or so years of being hunting partners but I hesitate to call him a friend just yet.
"I'll tell you on the walk home tomorrow, but I gotta go before your mother catches me." I reply, jumping down and scampering off.
"Wait Katniss," he yells after me, "catch!"
I turn and see him throw a small object out of the window towards me. I catch a small peppermint wrapped in green foil. Peppermints from the sweetshop in town I could never afford.
I look up and see him grin down at me, knowing that from down here I can't return it. Smug prick.
"In lieu of payment. I'll get you the Scrip tomorrow morning." He says grinning, before shutting the window without saying goodbye.
We do not say goodbye. It is something I have come to expect from our friendship. It is always 'see you tomorrow' or 'until next time' or a simple nod. Never goodbye.
There's a knowing air around us. An unspoken phenomenon. Neither of us ever wants to part from the other. We enjoy every moment together. To say goodbye would be too final. Too concrete.
As we walk home the next day, I tell Peeta about the woods and the creatures and where the best places are to find prey. For the first time ever, I find I don't want to stop. And I don't want to go home.
I stand outside my house for another 30 minutes talking to him after we arrive home before he cuts me off.
"Katniss, I'm sorry. I really am enjoying hearing about this. It's not often you talk this much, but if I don't get home soon my parents will be mad." He says sheepishly.
I feel stupid having kept him for so long. I place my arms over my chest as if by doing so he'll forget how much of myself I have shown him. How much of the real me I have put on display.
I don't know what it is but something about Peeta makes me want to tell him everything. What I love and what I hate. What I feel. What my life is like outside of school. What I wish for.
But I have kept him. And I want to keep him. And I can't.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go on so long." I mumble, wanting to run for the door and never talk to him again. Never bother him again.
"It's okay. I have extra wrestling practice after school most days this week because of the competition this Friday. How about we go to the meadow this Sunday and you can finish telling me then?" He suggests.
"You sure you really wanna hang out with me on Sunday? Surely you have better things to do on the weekend." I say, though I really hope he is sincere in his request.
"I will see you Sunday, Katniss." He smiles, turning back towards town with a wave.
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I find myself rather nervous when I wake up on Sunday morning. He didn't mention a time but I'm in the routine of waking just before dawn to hunt. I head to the woods and carry out my usual Sunday routine and I am joined by Gale.
He and I are quiet people so we are efficient at walking the snare line and I manage to shoot several wild turkeys and, of course, squirrels.
Gale seems to be enjoying his freedom and is anxious to hunt for longer when I suggest going back. Upon telling him I have plans, he suddenly turns with a curious look and brings his full attention to me.
"What plans?"
"I'm hanging out with a friend later. I want to finish trading before meeting him."
"Him? Oh yeah, your fancy townie boyfriend." He teases, grinning ear to ear.
"He's not my boyfriend." I snipe back at him.
He looks at me curiously for a moment, trying to figure out if I'm lying. "Okay, I think I just assumed because he walks you home a lot."
"He doesn't like going home right after school so he walks me home first." I reply defensively.
"You barely took your eyes off him yesterday during the wrestling competition." He says.
"He's been training really hard all week, I wanted him to do well." I shoot back.
"I've seen you holding hands."
"He's a slow walker, just trying to make sure he keeps up." I lie, feeling my face begin to warm under this interrogation.
My mother has made similar comments in the past but I've firmly shut them down and chalked it up to her still being a bit crazy.
Now under the curious gaze of someone else who knows me, or at least knows me more than most people, perhaps I was too dismissive of her.
With all the evidence laid out before me, if it was anyone else I would also assume that we're dating. Or at least are interested in doing so.
Perhaps I have kept an eye on the boy with the bread more, let him in more, began to trust him more than I ever believed was possible. But we aren't dating.
And the idea that we could is frightening.
This conversation puts me in a sour mood that does not lift. I stomp away from Gale, likely scaring off any other prey he would find, and head towards the Hob.
I trade quickly, and then march off in the direction of the bakery. I spot the baker in the window as I come to the backdoor and just as I raise my hand to knock, the door opens and Peeta stood there smiling at me.
"Hey," he says, his eyes alight with excitement. "I didn't know what time you'd be free so I was about to walk to your house but you came at the right time."
I barely register what he says as I notice he's dressed very smartly. A far nicer shirt on than he would usually have and he's managed to avoid getting flour in his hair for once.
He looks pretty.
And only then do I consider how I'm dressed. A haphazard braid done in the early morning light, my father's hunting jacket that is clearly too big for me, and my boots caked in mud from the woods.
I look a mess.
"I just finished hunting so I'm free now, if you still wanna go to the meadow, I mean we don't have to." I mutter in response.
"Yeah, let me just grab my bag and we can go." He says, scampering off to get it, excited.
I trade squirrels with his father while I wait and he gives me a knowing look as Peeta and I leave together. He tells Peeta to be back before sundown for squirrel stew and jokes that he better not hear about us going to the slag heap, to which we both blush deeply.
We arrive at the meadow and sit down in a flower patch.
I find it hard to look at him all of a sudden. In the early afternoon sun, his blonde hair shines like gold. He burns so brightly I worry I'll go blind staring at his beauty. So I proceed to sit and pull out the grass as I talk.
I continue to tell him about the woods and he begins to draw the creatures as I describe them in his sketchbook. I make small corrections and by the end he says he understands why I love the woods surrounding Twelve so much.
"These will be good inspiration for my next cake designs." He says flipping through the pages.
"I don't think anyone will be breaking down the door to get a cake with a wild dog on it any time soon." I joke.
"No but if they did, I could now." He says delighted. "Have you eaten yet?"
He puts his sketchbook back in his bag and begins rummaging around for something else.
He pulls out a large sandwich filled with delicious looking ham. At the sight, my stomach growls and my mouth fills with saliva. He rips the sandwich in half and offers me some.
"No no I'm fine." I say, though I only had a small bowl of stew before leaving home this morning at dawn, and that was about seven hours ago.
Peeta puts the sandwich in my hand and turns his gaze to the view of town. "I know you don't like accepting handouts so why don't you bring lunch next week and it'll be fair?" He suggests.
And so I do. And he brings it the week after. And I do again the week after that.
At a certain point, though neither of us can remember when, we begin sitting closer. And closer. I bring a blanket to sit on when the weather has been wet, and he begins making flower crowns for us from the wildflowers. I wear them home and dry the flowers carefully so I can keep them longer.
One Sunday in mid autumn we sit practically in each other's laps trying to keep warm as the temperature plummets more each week. We decide that we should retire this tradition until the spring when the weather gets nicer.
But when the next Sunday morning rolls around, I find myself not wanting to get up. What's the point if I'm not going to see Peeta?
I continue my normal morning of hunting and trading and heading towards the bakery, for once without any squirrels. I think in my bad mood I wasn't particularly quiet during my hunt this morning and scared them all away. It doesn't matter much anyway. I'm not here to trade.
I check to make sure the baker or his wife won't see me from the back window and shimmy up the tree to Peeta's bedroom window again and tap on the glass.
He seems rather startled at seeing me balancing on the branch, quickly adjusts his hair in the mirror and opens the window.
"Hey? Fancy seeing you here." He muses, clearly entertained by the means in which I made this house call.
"I missed our Sunday lunch so I just wanted to come say hi." I say, surprised to feel myself smiling so widely.
I have been scowling all day and it was beginning to hurt my face. My mom says if I scowl too much my face will get stuck that way and being a healer, I never know if she's joking or that's a medical fact. I don't want to take any chances on it.
"I miss it too, but where could we go that's not cold or damp for the next few months?" He asks.
We begin to discuss this on the walks home from school. We look at various alleys where there's less wind, an abandoned house in the Seam, behind the Peacekeeper stables.
Peeta makes an offhand comment about the slag heap and I threaten to tell on him to his dad. He swears that he was joking.
Eventually we end up at Greasy Sae's stall in the Hob, trading off who pays each week.
We're enjoying a bowl of wild dog stew each on New Year's Eve when Gale walks over and starts talking to us. Well, mainly talking to me.
"There's a party happening near my house tonight if you wanna come, Catnip." He says. "You too, Peeta."
"This is the one day of the year we eat the good bread and have cookies in my house. I'm not missing that for a dumb party." Peeta says casually. "Unless you have a girl for me to go with." He adds on after a moment.
His comment stuns not only me and Gale into silence, but everyone sat around the booth eating and chatting. An uncomfortable feeling clings to the air.
Peeta and I stare at each other for a long moment.
Nothing is really communicated in our look, only that what was just said was... Wrong. This is not something we talk about.
"i-I can't go either." I mumble back to Gale. I get up from my seat and pay for our meals before leaving. Sae gives me a sympathetic look. Peeta trails along behind me after thanking her for the meal. He gets an angry glare in return from her.
The walk back is quiet. We separate at the crossroads that lead to town and the Seam. We do not say goodbye. I just keep walking until I'm home.
It's just before midnight when I feel I can't sit around in this dazed confusion any longer. I walk to the bakery, not letting my brain talk me out of this decision. If I don't say something now, I know i never will. It will destroy this friendship and I can't go back to not having him in my life.
The grooves of the tree in his back garden are becoming familiar to me and i climb it in record time and tap on his window.
Peeta said earlier they don't really celebrate New Year in their house beyond a nice meal and a couple of treats. The baker still has to get up at 3am tomorrow so they retire to bed early. So I'm surprised when Peeta answers fully clothed and still very awake.
"Hey." He whispers.
"Hey." I reply.
I hate that I'm nervous to continue this conversation. I hate that he made that comment. And I hate that it affected me so much.
"Why did you say that earlier?" I ask.
He pauses for a moment, thinking. "I don't know, I just wanted to seem cool I guess."
"You don't need to be cool in front of Gale." I retort.
"I know. It's just... He gets so many girls and yet he's vying for your attention just because I'm there." He says.
"Because you're there?" I repeat.
"You guys have been friends for two and a half years, almost as long as we have. And he never looked twice in your direction until I started coming to the Hob and spending time with you somewhere he can see us." He explains.
"Gale doesn't want me, he just wanted to invite me to a party." I reply.
He gives me a perplexed look, as if trying to figure out if I'm lying or not. "You can't be that naive Katniss."
This irritates me. I'm not naive, boys have just never been in my life plan. I certainly never expected one to be jealous of another over me.
He sighs. "I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd care to be honest, if I went to a party with a girl?"
I'm startled by the question and begin to respond before my brain fully forms a thought. "What if you're not the only one who wanted to... Or thought that... What it would be like if..."
I fumble. I'm not as smooth with words as Peeta. And while I was talking, the thought of being the girl Peeta would go with, being someone special to him hits me and I realise just how much I want that to be true.
It's him. I want the boy with the bread to be mine.
"If what, Katniss?" he says softly.
I'm immensely happy I did this somewhere so private. Whatever I'm feeling, it's no one's business but mine.
"This is exactly the kind of thing we don't talk about." I say evasively, trying to shut down our thoughts.
I slightly cursed myself as the moment loses it's exciting tension. The air, once charged with emotion and joyous revelation, now sits too still. A charged moment Peeta somehow manages to catch.
"Then I'll just have to fill in the blanks myself," he says, and moves into me.
My first kiss.
It's soft and the feeling is strange and new to me. He smells like bread flour and peppermints. It doesn't last long but I feel a stirring inside my chest. Warm and curious. It makes me want another.
But I don't get it. We're startled and pull away at the sound of the town clock chiming midnight and roaring shouts being heard in the distance.
We stare at one another, both unable to be the one to break the silence. I try my best to keep eye contact with him but feel my eyes flicker down to his lips a few times.
"Happy New Year." He whispers finally.
"Happy New Year." I reply.
I then jump down from the branch, and run home.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We don't speak of the kiss again. After a couple of days of walking home in relatively awkward silence we return to normal.
At the Hob the next Sunday we chat like normal and Sae seems to have let Peeta off the hook because I have.
On my birthday when we return to the meadow in the late spring weather, he gifts me a drawing of me that he has been trying to hide from me for weeks but I've noticed him staring, trying to get it accurate.
It's not accurate at all, as the girl in picture is far too beautiful to be me, but from the sharp features to the braided hair to the flower crown on her head, I suppose this is how he must see me.
I stare at it and blush deeply. He talks about getting the angles right and the pencil strokes just so. His face brightens as he talks of his craft, much like when I speak of hunting.
I lean across the blanket and kiss him on the cheek in thanks. He is momentarily stunned and stares at my lips as I pull away, likely thinking of New Year.
This happens every once in a while. We get closer without realising, or as I'm walking down the corridor at school one of his friends will shove him into me, and we look at each other. Our eyes will not leave one another's lips.
A tugging sensation pulls at my chest and I want to be nearer to him. And yet we always pull away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I don't want to get married," I tell him the Sunday after Reaping Day of our 4th year in the drawing. We're 15 years old.
I shuffle away from him slightly on the blanket in the meadow and look away from him. He shines too brightly. Too beautiful in the July sun. He will blind me.
"I didn't ask you to?" He says curiously. "I asked if you wanted to be my girlfriend, Katniss."
I turn back to look at him. He smiles warmly at me, his eyes full of hope. Hope that I say yes.
"I know, but eventually dating leads to marriage which leads to kids and they're not in my plan." I retort.
He lays down on the blanket with his hands under his head like a pillow and closes his eyes. "So what is your plan then?"
I lie down beside him and stare at the clouds for a minute, as if the Heavens will tell me how to navigate this conversation.
"Make sure Prim and I survive the Reaping. Join the mines at eighteen I guess. Survive." I reply.
"Not a whole lot of joy in that plan." He mutters back.
"I suppose. I suppose Prim might want to get married and have kids some day. I'd have family after my mother dies."
"Survival can't really be all you want out of life can it?" He asks.
This comment irritates me. I sit up slightly and meet his eyes sternly.
"Says the fancy townie boy who will only have 5 Reaping tickets next year to my 20. I'm four times more likely to die than you are, of course survival is the only thing I have the luxury to want." I snap at him.
He seems unfazed by my anger but firmly disagrees with my reasoning. "It's not how good or bad your odds are, Katniss. The fact that any of us could be taken is why the system is wrong."
I lie back down again, though noticeable closer as my anger fades. I'm not really mad at him. He didn't make up the system. He's another cog in the machine just like the rest of us. A piece in their games.
In the silent moment that follows I begin to consider his offer. To have one of the small joys in my life be him. To have someone. Be someone's. To not just survive but to live.
"If I was your girlfriend, what would that mean?" I ask curiously. I'm so happy we're both staring at the sky right now. To look at him, at his face would surely render me speechless.
"I guess we would hold hands more... And maybe I'd get a second shot at kissing you again. I'm not sure if I did it right the first time." he says sheepishly.
I blush. "Yeah I didn't know what I was doing either and then you never brought it up again so I figured we were just gonna forget about New Year."
"I didn't know how to bring it up and you never brought it up either. I thought you might hate me after." He says, turning to face me still lying down.
"Never." I reply, turning to face him.
He raises his hand for a moment as if wanting to reach out and touch me, but he pulls it away and continues to just look in silence for a moment.
"You deserve more than to just survive. And I really would like to be your boyfriend, Katniss." He all but whispers, as if it is a secret we will keep from the world.
Our relationship is a private one. Always has been. What Peeta and I are to each other is only for us to know. And I think we each want to know more.
I lean in and kiss him. It's short and sweet and terrifying. The summer sun beams down on us like a spotlight and as we press our foreheads together for a moment nothing else exists. There is no meadow. No District 12. No Panem.
Just me and the boy with the bread together. And I want for nothing else.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like archery and hunting, being a girlfriend is something I want to be good at. And I spend the next year or so trying my hardest to do so.
We hold hands more on the walk home. Sometimes he kisses my cheek before heading home which leaves us both a blushing mess. On Friday afternoons I invite him in for tea.
He's always had such a way with words and he turns his charms on my mother, desperate for her approval. It works and she begins to talk about him fondly. We see eye to eye on very little but on Peeta we are in agreement. One Sunday, Peeta makes an extra flower crown from asterid flowers and presents it to her after walking home with me.
I sneak back up the tree to his window on New Year's Eve again and kiss him when the clock chimes. We agree it's an improvement on last year's kiss.
We decide to keep our relationship private at school so not much changes there, although Madge comments on my enthusiasm during wrestling competitions. I definitely cheer louder than is strictly necessary when Peeta comes in second place behind his brother. He tries to shy away from the attention afterwards when I all but throw myself into his muscular arms.
Even I'm surprised about this open display of affection from me, but no one is really watching. They're all too busy celebrating the other Mellark boy.
"You don't need to be so excited, I didn't even win." He says embarrassed.
"You could have if you had pinned him near the end there. You let him win." I say smirking at him knowingly.
He denies seeing that opening and heads to the changing rooms, saying he's tired. He's had a long week of training so I insist on walking him home for once. His older brother tags along with us and I congratulate him for his big win.
"Yeah, one last win before I leave school next month," He asserts confidently. "I can't wait to work full time at the bakery." He says sarcastically, giving Peeta an eye roll.
Peeta nudges him playfully in the side with an elbow. "Yeah, dream come true. You're never escaping mom now."
"Well, what about you Everdeen, you much of a baker?" Peeta's brother turns to me.
"I can cook and keep up with a recipe but I doubt I could bake like you guys." I reply. My mouth waters remembering the Reaping Day cookie we shared last year. Mr Mellark had been experimenting with fancy chocolate bought straight from the Capitol and they were delicious.
"Well if you and Peeta get married I'm sure we'll get you up to speed." He says out of nowhere.
"We're not getting married!" Peeta and I shout at him at the same time.
He's not the first person we have to assert that to. My mother likens our relationship back to when she was courting my father. Gale talks about getting bread for cheap when I'm a baker's wife. And Sae teases saying she can already smell the toasting. We're both unimpressed every single time.
"We've only been dating for seven months. They act like it's been seven years." I comment as we leave the Hob. The chilly mid February weather immediately cuts through to my bones.
"You would be so lucky." Peeta quips, putting an arm around me and pulling me into his warm body.
He's really filled out over the last year between his diet of baked goods and weight training. I would be lying if I said that I didn't find it immensely attractive.
Though it does make me somewhat envious that compared to him I look so malnourished. We were mostly the same height for a while but he's starting to shoot up and tower over me. I think I'm overdue for a growth spurt but considering how little I have to eat, my body can't spare the energy. I will likely remain as short and thin as I am.
"Doesn't matter how lucky I am. At some point your mother and father are gonna push you to pick out someone from town to marry and you'll forget all about me." I reply sarcastically.
This is the only way I can cope. Because there's no way they'd ever let us marry each other. Seam and merchant marriages just don't happen often. Despite myself and Prim being the product of one, my parents were the exception, not the rule.
"I don't care if they find someone else. I just want you." He says determinedly.
"So, you really don't wanna marry me?" I ask curiously.
We absentmindedly start heading in the direction of town and slowly walk by the shop windows as we talk.
"I only want to marry you if you wanna marry me." He says, staring at a beautiful pearl ring in the jewellers shop window.
"Well if we did get married, what would that look like?"
He ponders for a moment before answering, "If you wanted to go work in the mines and come home tired every night, I'd run to the door and greet you with hot tea and a massage. If you wanted to go off hunting all day and come home with game, I'd skin the rabbits and listen to you tell tall tales of how you tracked down our dinner."
"Yeah?" I say, giggling at his fantasy.
"Yeah. And if you wanted to stay home, I'd put up with my mother at the bakery until I'm blue in the face and come home with every stale sweet treat I could for you."
"And the children?" I suggest, as I begin to picture our silly, perfect, impossible little life.
He seems startled for a second. "You don't want kids."
I jump up to sit on a wall that overlooks the town square. The sodden bricks seep into my trousers but I don't care about the dampness as long as I'm talking to Peeta.
"Just wanna play the scenario out. I wanna know what kind of life you think we'd have."
He joins me in enjoying the view from the wall. "We'd have two beautiful children. I hate being the youngest of three so I think two would be nice. We'd take them to the meadow on Sundays and play tag like we do now."
I can imagine it. He goes on and on about the specifics of our life together. How he would ask me to marry him during one of our picnics. He bakes the bread that saved my life for our toasting. He says he would take my last name if I don't want to change mine. We're assigned a nice little cottage in between the town and the Seam. Prim visits all the time.
He suggests we raise animals in our back garden like geese or ducks. We dance in our kitchen to the sound of my singing while we cook dinners. We teach our children about the forest and the animals and how to bake great bread and how to draw.
We would do everything we can to make sure our children never take out tessarae. Peeta bakes cookies for the kids on Reaping Day, and every year we split one between us like we do now. We grow old together. We watch the grey hair bleach our heads and sit in the garden soaking up the setting sun.
He paints a beautiful picture of a life full of music and joy and wonder. A life devoid of pain and suffering. A life I crave more and more the longer he goes on.
"You really wanna marry me, don't you?" I intend to say with sarcasm, but it comes out too sincere. Too fond.
"It's only been seven months. But I've lov-liked you so long I've had time to think about it. And it's not like we can't do some of that stuff without getting married." He offers, trying to keep the mood light.
I stare down at my hands, unsure how to reply.
"I don't need to stand up and say 'til death do us part' to want to have the best life we can together. For as long as you need and want me, I will be here." He vows.
He puts his arm around me and I rest my head on his shoulder. Beside him is where I belong.
I know in another world, I would be beside him as his wife.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My sixteenth birthday that year is an eventful one. Prim wakes me up for school excitedly and drags me to the kitchen table for breakfast. She asserts that for one day she will be in charge of feeding us all and begins to cut into the loaf of bread made of tessarae rations. My mother watches that she's careful with the knife.
Prim gifts me a premium block of cheese from her goat which we smear onto the bread and top with wild berries.
She tells me what she plans to make for dinner on the way to school and insists on helping me pull the wagon of grain and oil back from the Justice Building later when I go to get this month's tessarae rations.
She makes it to the town square before saying the wagon is too heavy for her to pull any further. I laugh lightly and take it from her. She asks if we can go and see the cakes in the shop window while we're there and I agree, if not for a slight chance of seeing my boyfriend who's noticeably absent.
I'm sure he'll have some sort of present planned for Sunday but it would be nice to see him on my birthday itself.
Peeta has made great strides with his cake decorating over the years so I'm not surprised when Prim lets out a loud gasp upon looking in the window. I wander over and peer in only to realise what has elicited that reaction.
In the centre of the window display, on a golden, fluffy sponge cake, in beautifully piped icing, is a katniss plant. With its arrow shaped leaves and shining white flowers it's unmistakable to those who know it. It's beautifully arranged on the cake with little orange hearts dotted around it.
"Katniss, Peeta made that for you. It's so pretty!" Prim says beaming up at me.
"How does he even know what a katniss plant looks like? I've never shown him any." I mutter more to myself than anything.
The front door chimes as I say this and Peeta steps out. "Your mother was showing me the family plant book a few weeks ago and I saw it then." He explains.
"It's beautiful," I say, staring back at it.
I kiss him quickly after we check that his mother's not looking before we head home. He brings the cake to my house on Sunday, telling us it's slightly stale from being left in the shop window but still perfectly fine to eat.
My mother has the great idea to steam it by placing it on a wire wrack over some boiling water. It steams on the stove for ten minutes or so while Peeta asks to look through the plant book again.
I've wanted to add my own knowledge to the book for a while, things I've learned while out in the woods and from Gale. I ask Peeta if he would help with the illustrations and he agrees happily.
The cake is warm and soft and beautifully sweet when my mother takes it off the stove. The icing has melted slightly so the katniss plant has lost some of its sharper edges and details but Peeta's the only one that cares that it's lost a bit of its beauty.
We work on the book for the next few Sundays as we near Reaping Day. It's always a nerve-wracking few days in the lead up and this year is extra scary as this will be Prim's first year.
Peeta consoles me when I tell him of nightmares where Prim is picked and I watch her die helplessly.
"Nothing's going to happen to Prim. She has one name slip. She'll be fine." He says on the walk home the day before.
"I just have a really bad feeling something's going to happen." I mumble back.
"Well why don't we just try and enjoy our freedom while we can? How about this, why don't we go to the meadow tomorrow in our nice outfits before the drawing? I'll bring lunch." He says.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So that's where I find myself on Reaping Day at noon. Lying on our blanket in the midday sun, with my head on Peeta's lap as we point out shapes in the clouds.
I only got a bit of hunting done this morning before I couldn't wait any longer to see Peeta, so with a promise to my mother to go back and find some healing herbs from the woods later after the drawing, I run to the meadow to meet him in my Reaping outfit.
After a long moment of comfortable silence, our eyes still trained on the sky, Peeta sighs contentedly.
"I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever," he says.
I'm beyond happy in this moment with him. For once I'm not worried about the future we'll have, so I just let the word slip out. "Same."
"Did I tell you you look extra beautiful today?" He says, gently tracing my intricately braided hair.
In my mother's dress, matching shoes, and my hair expertly woven by her hands, I suppose I do look nice.
"I look nothing like myself. This is probably what I would look like everyday if my mother had inherited the apothecary shop in town." I say.
"We probably would have been friends much sooner then, if you'd have been a town kid. And I wouldn't have to walk so far to walk you home." He replies jokingly.
"Oh please. Without walking me home you never would have gotten up the courage to talk to me, no matter whether or not I was from the Seam." I tease him, booping him on the nose for good measure.
We walk to town hand in hand, meeting up with Prim as we enter the square. We go and register and separate into our respective pens with a promise to meet after to split his father's cookie.
I won't even fight him on it any longer. The cookie debt is not something he will let me pay off with any treat in return so I'll make sure to give him an extra big kiss later for my own peace of mind as repayment.
The ceremony goes on as it usually does. The anthem, the speech from the mayor, our yearly reminder of why we're here and then Effie Trinket takes to the Reaping Balls to select a name.
The uneasy feeling bubbles up and chokes me once again.
I feel like a deer staring at an arrow flying towards me, unable to stop the pain I know that's coming. Unable to change the course of the shot. Unable to know what will happen to me in the next moment.
Only that I look at the glittering woman on the stage, with the the slip of paper in hand and know the name that is on it.
The only thing I can influence in this moment is how I react when around the square, from every TV set in Panem, a voice rings out.
"The female tribute from District Twelve; Katniss Everdeen!"
I don't know how I get to the stage. I have a vague memory of the crowd of Seam girls around me parting, my feet shuffling and a single thought ringing over and over in my head. Don't cry. Don't cry.
Effie Trinket moves over to the boys, and just as she goes to read out the second name, a voice in the crowd calls out.
I look to the centre of the square, where Peeta is stood. The bewildered looks of our peers and neighbours turn to him. Is he pleading for someone to take my place? Is he calling for a redraw? Is he trying to get shot?
No. Stood, his hair in his eyes, his shirt collar slightly ruffled from where I grabbed it while kissing him earlier, standing as tall and proud as he can, he defiantly repeats himself.
"I volunteer as tribute!"
Oh my love, what have you done?