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The first time it happened was unexpected.
It wasn’t totally out of the blue of course. We’d slowly but surely wound ourselves back together like the vines in the forest that have started to poke out of the ashes and climb up the trees toward the sky.
Everything was happening so fast once we realized we didn’t have to be afraid to acknowledge all that had ever transpired between us. The good, the bad, and the painful. How easily our feelings had poured out in the safety of knowing we were the only ones who really understood.
In a world where we both still manage to exist. We can only exist together.
So sure I’d had passing thoughts about the possibility togetherness would progress to where it usually does. It was what people are programmed to do after all. And we were people. People who may have been in love for a very long time now, though they were only starting to admit that to themselves. But not yet to each other. At least not out loud.
We didn’t plan it, or even talk about it beforehand. It just kind of happened, the way it was always going to. The same way the leaves on the trees outside our bedroom window had turned their fiery orange. Because that’s what nature dictates.
It was just one of those scattered days where the chaos of our volatile emotional states perfectly aligned and we were both having a “good day”. When the ghosts that haunted us both weren’t lurking in the shadows, and reasons to smile felt easy to come by.
And even before it happened, I already knew we had changed. I couldn’t put words to it but every time throughout the day that I caught his eyes on mine and just felt something was different.
Stillness.
I realized there was quiet in my mind. Stillness. Like the lake at sunrise, smooth as glass, totally undisturbed.
I knew it wouldn’t last forever, it might not even last ten minutes. But to know it was even possible. To feel any peace at all no matter how temporary. Knowing it was all because of him. Because he was finally mine. It felt intoxicating.
When we went to bed that night, we began trading kisses and ‘sleep well’s in the darkness. A new element of our nightly routine that I reveled in.
But the kisses didn’t stop.
Because I felt it.
I felt that feeling I’d felt back on the beach, warm and insistent in my core. In the newfound quiet of my world that evening, I listened. I listened to my body. My poor ravaged body that had only known pain. Suffering and starvation, stress, grief, the brink of death. My body had new things to learn, new things to feel.
And it wanted to feel them with Peeta.
Peeta who tells me I’m wonderful even when I feel anything but.
Peeta who breaks his body most days moving rubble and raising walls to rebuild his home, our home. And who has brought a plate of cookies to every single household on the day they get assigned their new bungalows because he wants them to feel at home too.
Peeta who has taken to laying in my lap when he’s sad. Who cries while I sing to him and watch the way his tears gather on his eyelashes.
Peeta who spent most weekends of his summer hiking miles to let me try and teach him to swim. Even though he’s truly terrible at it. Because he likes to hear me laugh, and he knows he’s the only person I want to share my secret sanctuary with.
Peeta who has sat on the other side of the wardrobe, holding my hand through the door for hours. Even when I’m too far into wherever it is I go to fully register his presence. Because he knows even the worst pains are lessened when he’s next to me.
Peeta who in this moment was breathlessly trying to pull away from my desperate kisses to ask if I really wanted this.
And I did. Oh I do.
It surprised me how reckless and free I felt in the darkness. My clothing shed away like it was old skin. Now I was someone else. Reveling in pleasure that the daylight version of me would say I don’t deserve.
I truly didn’t know it was possible to feel that good. But it made sense all of a sudden. The kings in stories who launched their warships in pursuit of this. Of course they did. The delicious, dizzying feeling of his warm skin pressed so tightly to mine, our sweat slicking our bodies as we slid together. I never wanted it to end, but I could feel there was an end my body was urging me to. I needed to know what was at the end.
Even when he was inside me, and we both stilled for a moment, the sting of pain shocking me to my senses, he wasn’t close enough. I needed more of him. To melt and meld myself to him so we can never be apart. One entity that can never be separated.
So many times when I have been in the depths of my grief, my anger, my guilt—I have wished, begged whoever might be listening up there in the sky to just take it all away. Can I just be numb forever? Because it’s simply excruciating to feel that much. But now I knew that this is why we feel. And I was suddenly grateful that I lived to feel this.
I’m alive. Peeta is alive. We fought through hell to keep each other alive. And we are.
We are.
So after, when he whispered, "You love me. Real or not real?"
I told him, “Real."
And he smiled brilliantly and I could see his eyes shining above me in the moonlight, “I love you too.” He kissed me so softly, “So much.”
We cleaned ourselves up, and giggled quietly as we collected our strewn clothing from the floor. I caught my reflection in the dark mirror peeking behind the bathroom door and wondered why I looked the same. I felt like I was different now. We were different now. And now we were in love.
Real.
But in the morning light reality hit like a train. We did the thing I wasn’t supposed to let happen. And it was stupid. You are so stupid. A giant stone of anxiety settled heavy in my stomach that I knew wouldn’t leave until I got my period again.
I was so angry at myself and stomped down the stairs full of fire. And when I reached the kitchen and Peeta turned around and looked at me like that. Suddenly all that anger turned straight into tears in the back of my throat.
I love him. It’s not fair that he loves me. Unreasonable, insane me.
He came straight toward me with morning greetings and kisses on his lips. Just his hands on my waist sent a rush of heat to my core and I knew this was going to be so hard to do.
I dodged a kiss to try and speak but he deftly moved his lips to below my ear instead. "Peeta, that thing that happened last night…"
He raised his head and a cocky eyebrow, “The sex or the love confession?”
“The sex.” I practically whispered. God, I’m such a baby. “We can’t do it again.”
“Oh?”
I couldn’t read his expression at all. But he had pulled away from me just a little. He was trying to be casual and I knew I was scaring him.
“I mean, I don’t necessarily regret it or anything. It was… amazing,” I tried with all the sincerity I’m capable of, “The most special experience I’ve ever had. It was perfect.”
“And you don’t want that again? I’m confused." He tried so hard to keep it light. But he forgot that I know every part of him now. I could tell he was waiting for me to shatter him.
“I really don’t wanna get pregnant.”
There. I said it.
He let out a huge sigh of relief and smiled. He quickly leaned forward and kissed my forehead in a burst of released anxiety that kept flowing as he spoke, “Oh yeah of course. Oh my god. Sorry I should have thought of that beforehand, but you know I wasn’t really planning to- I mean right? It kind of just happened.”
He was so flustered and it was so adorable, and I needed stop him because I hadn’t been clear enough.
He continued in a lower volume, “But like I- I pulled out, so it’s kinda unlikely you’ll get pregnant.”
Hearing the word out of his mouth made a panic shoot up inside of me and I practically shouted “But I don’t want to get pregnant ever!”
Peeta had looked at me with shock, and then I watched him shake it off like he does when he’s able to catch one of his spells before it knocks him down.
“Got it.” He said. “It won’t happen again.”
The guilt that came over me was so strong I had started to backtrack but in his perfect reassuring Peeta voice he promised he understood and it really was okay.
I knew that it wasn’t actually. But I selfishly didn’t want the conversation to actually continue where it needed to.
Because deep down I know it only has one ending. Our ending.
So I let it be.
The following days of pretending we were fine gradually morphed into actually being fine. And my period did show right on time, and I felt exonerated. Crisis averted.
But it wasn’t long at all before I realized that a lusty beast had been awoken in me that would not go quietly. Thankfully Peeta was more than happy to teach me there were ways to love each other with our hands and our mouths that wouldn’t lead to babies.
And it had been a wonderful discovery that had been working flawlessly to save my delicate new relationship stage, and quiet my deepest fears.
Until now.
Now on this late February night where the window in the bedroom is dripping with condensation from the stifling amount of heat we’ve managed to create.
I don’t know what got into me. I’d been hungry for him all day. Peeta had left the house when we heard the train whistle and I thought he’d be back within the hour. But he didn’t show until almost sunset because he’d insisted on helping lug everyone else’s parcels all across the district. Of course he did. So naturally he had fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. But I laid awake next to him absolutely aching. I tried to close my eyes, think of other things. But the sounds he makes when I make him come undone were playing in my head like a song. I wanted to hear them.
I tossed and turned, rubbing my legs together like a cricket searching for respite. I thought about slipping away to the bathroom to just touch myself. But Peeta likes to watch when I do that. It would feel so unfair to leave him out.
When I truly couldn’t stand the longing a moment longer I woke him with a hand on his broad chest and his earlobe in my mouth. “I can’t sleep. Help me?” I purred.
He woke slowly as I dragged his hand down my body to where I needed him. When his fingers found the absolutely soaking evidence of the desire I’d been building up, he made a new sound to add to my collection.
“Holy shit Katniss…” He breathed as he roused fully to rid me of my pants in a flash.
“Have you just been lying here thinking about me?”
My heart was beating so hard in anticipation of finally getting fed I could only nod.
He’d quickly gotten to work on making me come with his mouth. He’s getting really good at that.
And I should have felt relieved of my tension and promptly off to sleep. But I was still so hungry.
Insatiable.
I don’t know how long it’s been since then. Maybe it’s been ten minutes or it’s been an hour. I only know that now we’re both naked and all the winter blankets have been displaced to the floor. The sheets under my back are damp and I’m dizzy because I won’t take my mouth away from Peeta’s long enough to take a proper breath that hasn't been his first.
His perfect fingers are buried deep within me, working their magic. His length is gripped tightly in my fist, pumping and stroking. He’s so hard. I don’t think it’s ever been this hard before.
I need him. I need all of him. It’s a primal scream echoing from deep within me. It sounds like a feral cat in heat. That’s what I am right now. I’m Katniss the lynx and she only craves one thing. She’s famished.
“I need you” I whine, tugging the fistful of his hair in my other hand.
“I’m right here” he says sweetly before regretfully removing his fingers and resettling them on my breast to gently pinch at my nipple. “Tell me what you need.”
He needs to be closer. I need to be fuller.
I slide my hand down from his hair and press it flat on his lower back, bringing my knee in to try and nudge our hips in line. I capture his bottom lip in my teeth and wrap my thighs tightly around his waist to bring him to just the right spot. I tilt up and start to slide against him, covering his rigid length in my liquid desire. It’s so good but it’s not enough.
“I need you” I repeat.
He groans, and it’s so delicious. “Katniss you said-” I can tell it’s supposed to be a warning, but it sounds more like a plea. He’s as gone as I am.
And I did say.
Well, another Katniss said. But not this one, not this insatiable desperate lynx Katniss. She is simply relentless in her pursuit.
“Please,” I beg him. “Please.”
He relents. With a simple tilt of his pelvis he’s inside and we both cry out. It’s more than I remembered. This feeling, the fullness, having him as close as he can get. He starts to move within me and it’s instantly apparent the pressure I’ve built up is untenable. The bliss is not destined to last this time.
So quickly. Too quickly. A shudder wracks my body and my vision goes white. Where I would usually feel like I was flying into a lake of stars, it feels more like I tripped before I jumped off the cliff. And just as quickly he is gone from me and my stomach is sticky and warm. My ears are ringing and Peeta crashing to the mattress next to me sounds like thunder.
The post orgasmic fog that that usually hangs around us while we pant and pepper each other’s skin in kisses, the fog that often makes me feel brave enough to say ‘I love you’ out loud, it doesn’t stick around. In fact it feels like it’s been sucked out of the room in an instant, like opening a window when there’s smoke in the kitchen. And suddenly I am confronted with a brand new feeling that has yet to be part of our new physical life.
Shame.
Devastating, paralyzing shame.
I stare at the ceiling awash in this new discomfort. I hear Peeta shifting next to me but I can’t turn my head to look at him.
His voice is gravelly, “I’ll get you a-“
I leap out of bed and scamper toward the bathroom. “No I got it.” I call back.
I close the door quickly behind me and flick on the light. It’s blinding and I feel so exposed. Exposed for my wanton selfishness.
I grab a towel and start furiously swiping at the mess around my belly. I’m making it worse, just rubbing it further into my skin with the dry towel. I should have just let Peeta do it. He always brings a warm wet towel and he cleans me and kisses me more. Why aren’t we doing that right now? Why did I ruin it?
Peeta knocks on the door and instinctively I flinch to cover myself. I feel more naked than I’ve ever been.
“I’m going downstairs.” he says through the door.
“Okay!” I call back. My overly cheerful voice doesn’t sound like mine. It’s false happiness echoes around the tile. Mocking me.
I turn on the shower because the skin on my stomach feels tight like when glue dries on your fingers. I need to wash. Wash away all the evidence of lynx Katniss so I can get properly angry at myself for letting her make bad decisions.
I step in and put my face into the spray, trying to relax under the hot water. But my mind immediately starts racing away. I need to figure out what just happened. Why everything instantly feels wrong.
Sure, the agreement was no more intercourse. But surely Peeta would be happy if I changed my mind about that? But did I really actually change my mind? Or was it just a moment of weakness?
You made him. That harsh voice in my head begins. You made him promise not to do something and then you made him do it anyway. He doesn’t deserve to be manipulated this way. You’re so manipulative. You’re manipulative and you’re selfish and you’re a murderer and now you’re a whore. And you’ll definitely get yourself pregnant if you keep behaving like this. Why are you behaving like this? You want it don’t you? You want to ruin everything.
But I don’t want it. Right? It scares me more than anything. Which is saying something, considering the caliber of my nightmares.
But if it’s so scary why am I flirting with danger instead of looking for actual solutions?
Because one of the solutions is being alone forever.
That’s what you deserve.
I can’t stand to hear my own mind argue anymore, because it’s too easy to believe whichever voice is meaner. I hum a tune of a song I barely remember and focus all my energy on searching for the lyrics while I quickly finish washing.
I dry my skin and quickly braid my wet hair, avoiding my reflection and quietly pad naked back into the dark bedroom. The blankets are piled back on the bed, but there’s no Peeta shape lying in them. I scoop up my underwear and his shirt from the floor and slip them on. I won’t be able to sleep in this state, especially if he isn’t here.
It’s got to be close to morning by now, and I expect to find him in the kitchen getting an early start on his baking. But the kitchen is also dark and still. I don’t immediately go look for him elsewhere. I find myself wanting to dawdle and put more distance between me and the conversation we have to have now.
I walk slowly around the kitchen looking for something to do. But there’s not one thing out of place, one dish that needs washing. I peek inside Peeta’s proofing box that he made, all of the dough for tomorrow puffed up and soft. I tap my fingers on the various jars and pots of herbs crowding the windowsill. The chamomile is looking wilted and sad. I’ll have to find a new plant when spring comes.
Tea. I’m going to make him some tea because I should bring him something when I come in. And because it will buy me more time. I fill the kettle and catch the yellow glow of Buttercup’s eyes in the dark. Judging me from his perch on the back of the couch.
“Mind your own business.” I say. I turn my back to wait for the water to boil.
I’m so afraid that we’re going to fight. Really fight. The kind where there’s yelling. It's only really happened once. And to this point disagreements have always ended with kissing. But I don’t like to fight. It scares me how I get when there’s a fight.
The gratification that hits when the angry feelings burst out of my chest in cruel words. Because I wanted to hurt him, and I succeeded. And that even if I feel sorry for it immediately, it’s scary remembering Peeta isn’t safe from the meanness I have in me. He won’t tolerate it forever.
Haymitch said it’s ‘healthy’ to fight, but what does he know about living with another person? I didn’t say that to him, because I’m trying to be nicer to him. I try to remember if my parents ever fought. I can recall my mother getting upset with my father, how he always stayed lighthearted with her. But they must have had fights. Maybe they happened when we were asleep? Times certainly weren’t always easy even when my father was alive. I wonder if maybe my mind has simply let go of any memories of him that aren’t rose colored. Needed to make space for the endless horrors that haunt me now.
I could ask my mother about it. If I had a mother I could ask things. Would I be a mother you could ask things?
The whistle of the kettle startles me more than it should. My heart keeps racing as I prepare the tea. I can’t stand being this on edge much longer.
I just have to talk to Peeta.
I clutch the mug and knock on the heavy study doors gently and open them before he can answer. He’ll talk to me even if he doesn’t want to.
The study he uses to paint is chaotic to say the least. All its original heavy Capitol furniture remains, though stacked and rearranged with no regard to functionality. The desk Snow once sat at has been pushed flush against the bookshelves and is covered in drop cloth and jars of various cloudy liquids. Canvases are stacked and leaning against every surface. You have to watch your step lest you catch a paint tube (messy) or a palette knife (dangerous). It’s the only room like it in the house, and it’s unlike Peeta. But he seems to like it this way, this part of his brain must feel safer in the disorder.
He’s in the middle of his chaos, facing toward the door and perched on a stool in just his sleep pants. Even sitting he feels like a towering presence in the room. There’s so much more of him than there used to be. Channeling his pain into manual labor has put the muscles back on him and then some. But his energy is so small. A wounded animal hiding in its den.
He sets down his brush and watches me approach.
"I thought you’d be asleep.” He doesn’t sound angry, but he doesn’t sound happy to see me either.
“Couldn’t.”
I stop short and reach out to hand him the tea. I don’t want to come around to where he’s working. I never look at his work unless he deliberately shows me. It’s not something he asked me to do. I just feel strange looking at it without his permission. It feels too private.
“Can we talk?” I ask. My voice sounds meeker than I wanted it to.
He takes a long drink of the tea and places it amongst his graveyard of jars and cups that once held paint water or tea just like that one. He stays on his stool but moves the easel away at an angle so there isn’t a literal wall between us anymore.
There’s a thumbprint sized swipe of blue paint just under his collarbone. Phthalo Blue. He told me that once. I remembered because I don’t know what ‘phthalo’ means.
I clear my throat, “About what happened up there,” I look up to the ceiling above us and let my eyes linger there, it’s easier than looking at him, “I’m sorry that I forced you-“
“Woah. I was not forced.” He holds up his hands, “I acted of my own volition. You were begging me to fuck you, Katniss. Force was far from needed.”
I’m still not used to him talking like this. At least not when the lights are on. I feel the blush creeping up my neck so I just keep talking quickly. “Okay but I also made a big deal about how we weren’t going to… do that.”
I wanted to say something dirty too but lynx Katniss isn’t here to help me right now. But I guess I’m here to apologize on her behalf.
“I’m realizing that was maybe a foolish proposal on my part. That maybe that particular cat can’t be put back in the bag?”
He doesn’t say anything or jump into rescue me from my embarrassment so I keep talking, “I can call Dr. Aurelius about getting some birth control. I know it’s hard to get approval, but I’m sure he can argue to whoever makes those decisions that an insane assassin shouldn’t be procreating.”
I end with a laugh and I’d thought Peeta would laugh too, but he looks wistful instead.
“Yeah. We can figure out something.”
The silence is so long. I came with a peace offering. I said embarrassing things.
But I didn’t fix it.
“Do you really want to have a baby right now?” I ask with indignation.
“No!” He smiles a real smile, like I said something actually funny. “No I absolutely do not. We are way too young and way too…” his smile weakens, and he sighs heavily.
He doesn’t have to finish. We both know all that we are. What we aren’t anymore.
“There’s no one in Panem who should be having a baby less than us. And that’s why I’m down here sulking and being mad at myself, because I clearly can’t control myself when it comes to you. I don’t know if you’re aware of this but I kind of have a little problem with losing control.”
“Oh, right.” I don’t like when he gets sarcastic with me. I feel stupid, but I should. “That makes sense…” my head actually hangs in shame.
“Hey.” He says after a beat, making me look up, “I’m sorry. That wasn’t nice.” He reaches an arm out to gather me closer to him. I take the few steps to stand between his legs and he rests his hand on my hip.
I can’t look at his eyes so I look down at his chest. I swipe my thumb across the paint smudge, expecting it to smear around but its already dry.
He tilts my chin up to look at his face. With him sitting our height difference is much closer than usual. His eyes are right in front of mine. My hand is still flat on his chest and I can feel his heart beating a mile a minute.
“I’m just really disappointed in myself. Because I meant it when I said it wouldn’t happen again. I really thought that it wouldn’t be that hard to respect your wishes.”
“Well, technically you were respecting my wishes tonight.”
We laugh in spite of ourselves. And I want to lean into the laughter and kiss him and forget it all but this isn’t done. It just started.
“And now you don’t know what my wishes even are. That’s the real problem right?” I ask.
His eyes soften and he rubs his hand across my lower back, with his left hand I see him grab his cane from the side of the easel. I finally notice the loose pant leg with no foot sticking out. He wanted away from me so badly he didn’t even put his leg back on to come downstairs. The realization feels like a stab in my gut.
“Let’s go talk over here.” He says and we limp together slowly to the window bench.
We tangle our limbs together on the narrow seat and face each other. It makes me think of last month when the blizzard froze the pipes, and it took so long to fill the tub with boiled snow that we'd just tried to fit into the bathtub together. I try to hold onto the nice memory because I’m scared of what will happen now.
He takes a deep breath before he begins, “When you told me you didn’t want children ever, I should have asked more questions then. But I didn't know what it might mean if you truly meant ever.” He rubs his palm up one of my calves. It feels nice that he’s touching me again. He’s looking at his own hand and not my face when he asks quietly “So, do you mean it?”
I take a moment to gaze out the window next to us. A gentle snow is falling in the darkness. Likely the last snow of the season. It’s almost spring. Which means it’s almost been a year since he came back to me. I fear that may be all the time that I get. It all might end as soon as I speak.
But I must.
“I never wanted children in a world where there are Hunger Games.”
For just an instant I see that look in his eyes that he gets when someone says something that makes him have to question his reality. But he says firmly, “There are no Hunger Games anymore.”
“There haven’t been Hunger Games for one year.” I retort a little too defensively.
“Fair enough.” he mutters and lolls his head back against the wall.
I wish I was like him and could sugar coat my words. At least say them gentler. Act like a more reasonable and sane person. I acted in front of a whole nation. But I can’t act in front of Peeta. I never could.
“But Hunger Games or not, my children, Katniss Everdeen’s children, would never be safe in this world. Plenty of people still want me dead. You know that.”
I see his eyes flick up to the new scar running through my eyebrow and back down to the ground with a barely perceptible grimace.
A new arrival from thirteen (who was evidently quite loyal to Coin) had swiped at me with a fork when I was serving in the food line in the new town square. I think he was going for my eye. Peeta hadn’t been there to see it but he was so angry, and I wasn’t. I thought then and I still think now that I deserved it. That was the yelling fight we had.
We don’t know what happened to my assailant after he was dragged away. The justice building is far from being rebuilt. And while the last year has shown me that many things can be housed in a tent, a prison doesn’t seem like one of them. I wonder if they still turn people into avoxes. But I don’t really volunteer at the distribution center anymore.
Peeta doesn’t have any argument for that. But I watch him try to search for one in his mind anyway. He finally settles on, “Do you think there could be a world where it doesn’t feel like that? One that would feel safe?”
My eyes focus on the glass pane next to us, where the heat of our bodies has started to fog the icy window in the shape of us. Trying with all my might to think about a world that isn’t this ruined one. The only one I’ve ever known.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to picture. It’s been hard for a while now, to envision any future further away than tomorrow.”
“I know.” he says. And I know he means it.
I don’t tell him that there is something that I can picture. The something I’ve always been able to picture. Peeta smiling in the sunshine with a toddler on his shoulders. They’re strolling in a field of flowers, her tiny fingers in his hair, and they’re both laughing. An isolated shiny moment of fatherhood. A beautiful future, a beautiful child. And that the longer I stare at the dreamy figures in my mind I try to see them more clearly. Does she look like him? Or does she look like me? No, she looks like my sister. My sister who isn’t buried with her daddy. There wasn’t anything left to bury.
It always feels like being shot again. When my broken mind assaults my pretty daydreams with reminders that beautiful little girls can die. That their daddies die too.
“Do you want to have children?” I don’t think I’ve ever asked him outright.
“I guess I always have.”
“Really. Why?”
He lets out a rueful chuckle, “I just wanted the chance to be a better parent than the ones I got.”
I think of tiny Peeta, small as the child he holds in my daydream. His little chubby arm pinched in the wrathful grasp of his red-faced angry mother. My heart breaks in half and I can’t help but to start to cry. It’s so unfair of me to be the one crying. I am causing all of this. It’s unfair that I had to be the one he loves.
“You’d be such a good dad. You should get to be one if that’s what you want.”
“I don’t know Katniss!” My tears have escalated the tension and he’s starting to lose patience with me, “That’s what I wanted when I was a kid. But I don’t want it right this second. I don’t know what I’ll want in the future. Except that I want that future to be with you. And if raising babies together isn’t what you want, then it won’t happen.”
“If I were to say never, if that was my final decision,” I don’t want to say it, but I have to ask even if the answer kills me. “would you find someone else to have a family with?"
He seems to recoil at the thought. My stomach feels hollow after saying it aloud.
“Seriously, stop. There’s no reason for you to try and argue with me about this. I’m telling you it’s not important enough to me to lose you over.” He leans forward and cups my cheek in his hand, wiping my tears with his thumbs. He gets in close to look right into my wet eyes, “You’re all I need in this world. Anything else is just a bonus.”
I know Peeta doesn’t lie to me, but it doesn’t feel like it could really be true. I can’t stop myself from continuing to dig in, “What if you say that now and then someday you resent me?"
”What if?!” He snaps sharply, sitting back suddenly with a defeated sigh.
I feel like I’ve been slapped and I angrily pull my legs away from him to tuck my knees under my chin.
In the silence my anger slowly dissipates and turns back into the steady gnawing anxiety that has permeated this entire night. The question hangs in the dead air and I can tell we’re both really considering it.
What if?
I don’t know how long we stay quiet like that. I start to hear a clock ticking. Where the clock is in this room? My eyes scan the cluttered bookshelves but I don’t see one. Maybe it’s the universe, reminding me I’m on borrowed time. That I won’t get to keep him long. Because I can’t be what he needs.
Peeta breaks the silence first with a hand on my knee, “It’s really late. Let’s try to sleep a little.” He grabs his cane to stand and tugs me to join him. “I’ll call Dr. Aurelius tomorrow okay? I should probably start the conversation since he likes me better.”
The sound of his overly reassuring voice and the way my heart is beating tell me that we’ve really scared ourselves. We let our minds toy with the idea of life apart and we’re terrified. We’ll both be content in this moment to never speak of this again.
But something from deep down in my soul is calling me to speak just once more. I don’t really recognize it but it wants to be heard.
I hear myself say to him, “Can we talk about this again? But in like, five years?”
The something was hope. I still have some left I guess.
He nods with an easy smile, “Sure thing.”
Now I feel comforted by the ticking clock. That I’ve bought myself more time.
Maybe.
And I look at the man before me and feel that tug on my heart that reminds me how tightly he’s tied around it. And I try to conjure up more of the hope. I hope for change. That Panem will change. That I will change. Because I can’t lose him.
I can’t.
