She was prepared, or as prepared as she could try to be. The stylist for District Four had done her hair, make up and attire for the day. She had told the woman that she was meeting someone special in her life. Her old stylist was excited that Elizabeth was going on a date that she had offered to help Elizabeth and the woman actually did a great job when everything didn’t have to be themed about the sea.
What she wasn’t prepared for was the appearance of Peeta at her ‘date’. She had caught sight of him before he had seen her. It was over her delicate glass of latest drink in the Capitol that she had seen his signature gravity defying hair. She hadn’t expected to see him down in the lobby of the Tribute’s building. Usually tributes stuck to the training rooms and their floors. Obviously she was unlucky.
She tucks her face into her date’s neck to try and hide from Peeta but she was more than just unlucky. He finds her and it’s more than just an ugly scene. He says things. Things she wasn’t expecting. Things she didn’t want to believe in herself. So she does something she didn’t want to believe she was capable of.
Instantaneous, she feels better and then an infinity times worse for doing something so vile. She had to, she tells herself. She was trying to accomplish something here. He could have ruined it all. Still disbelief burns in her throat and her stomach is churning when he turns away from her. He’s moving before he can stop her and she barely hears his departing words. She watches him leave.
The man she was drinking with gives an awkward cough and she is disturbed from her trance. She remembers who she is, where she is and how inappropriate of a situation that was, especially for the popular Lover Boy of District 12. “I just hurt my case… Didn’t I?” she whispers to the attractive man at her side.
“Actually,” he says while standing up to leave, “I think you just made it.” He makes a big show of kissing her on the neck and slipping something into her clenched fist. He whispers a couple of warnings into her ear before finally pulling away. “I hope our next date is as exciting as this,” he announced a little too loudly before leaving. She manages to smirk, at least.
She had done it… But at what price, she wonders as her eyes go to where Peeta had escaped to. She would have to find out. She strides across the floor in search of him. She doesn’t expect to find him on the other side of the door.
And suddenly she is lost on all words. It all looked so awful on her part. She wants to tell him about it all. She wants to but she can’t.