Prompt: “It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
Summary: During the months between their first Games and the Victory Tour, Katniss can’t help keeping an eye on the boy with the bread.
“You’re staring again.” Katniss jumped at the sound of her sister’s voice from behind, turning to glare at Prim before quickly composing her features to a neutral expression. It wasn’t Prim’s fault she was always on edge now, waiting for the next attack to come. For the next weapon flung her way, aiming to dig itself into her unprotected backside. Prim didn’t know how everywhere Katniss went, dead tributes followed, their bloody bodies torn to shred by mutts, eyes glowing. Was it worth it? they always asked, blood and venom dripping from their disjointed mouths. Was killing us worth coming home to this life? She wanted to say Yes, of course my family is worth it. I had to kill you to get home to them. But it’s been two months since the Games and Katniss wasn’t so sure about that anymore.
Was it worth the sleepless nights? The painted target surely on her back now that the Capitol was livid with her and her stunt with the berries? The feel of Rue’s blood on her hands that no amount of scrubbing ever made go away?
She pushed those thoughts away, turning back around to their new front yard. It was still strange seeing a house directly across from their front porch instead of the forest. Her heart pulled again at the absence, missing her forest desperately. She still went, nearly every day now that school wasn’t required, but not seeing the trees from her home made her feel more trapped inside the district than she’d ever felt before. Suffocated, even. She hated this house and wished her and her family could just go back to their home.
To have everything go back to how it was before the Games.
“Does he know you watch him?” Prim asked, sitting down next to her. She offered a plate of cookies Peeta must have dropped off while Katniss was at the Hob. Accepting a cookie shaped as a hummingbird, Katniss wondered if she wasn’t the only one doing some watching across the courtyard. Peeta always seemed to manage to drop off his homemade masterpieces while she was out.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said nonchalantly. She snapped the bird’s wing off and took a small bite. As usual, the cookie was amazing. He must be experimenting with cinnamon now, Katniss thought, because its flavor filled her mouth and she took another bite, trying to hide just how good it was.
Prim didn’t look convinced. “I don’t understand why you broke up. He seems sweet and you’re always watching him from the porch—”
“We didn’t break up, Prim.” It was hard explaining the intricacies of the Games like this to her sister, the things you have to do in order to survive in that arena. Prim was so young and saw the good in everyone she encountered. Of course she took to Peeta and his endless amount of kindness. Peeta and Prim seemed to be spending more time together these days than the sisters seemed to. Katniss wasn’t sure how she felt about her sister’s budding friendship with the boy with the bread. It was all so confusing. “It was for the Games, remember? He was play acting just as much as I was.”
Except that’s not true, that annoying voice in her head argued again. Parts of it was real. Katniss pushed those feelings deep, deep down and focused on the cookie.
For weeks she’d been trying to detangle all of these feelings that suddenly appeared overnight, choking her at how strong and sudden they came. But it seemed the more she thought about them—the way his warm lips felt against hers in the cave, the hopelessness she felt when he was dying in her care. The way his body pressed against hers in the sleeping bag while they slept made her feel safe and protected. Something she hadn’t felt since her father’s passing and in the arena, of all places! Katniss didn’t know what to make of any of it.
And she certainly didn’t understand the urges she felt to run to him whenever she saw him walking down the gravel lane, his curly blonde hair bobbing against his stilted gait. To wrap her arms around him and pull him close to her, hear his steady heartbeat against her ear, a reminder that he was alive and here with her.
Other times, at night when she sees him through the open window, she’s choked with the desperate need to run across the courtyard to his home and bang on his door until he answers, needing to know how he’s been holding up. To see if he’s just as haunted by the bloodied tributes as she is. Do they hate him as much as they hate her?
She barely knows him, but she missed the boy with the bread. Missed his kindness and quick jabs she grew accustomed to during the Games. He lived next door, but he could be in another district with the amount of space they’ve given each other since returning to Twelve.
Real? Not real?
Katniss didn’t know. She just knew she was confused and hated it.
She finished off the cookie and took another, biting the head of the mockingjay off. Prim gave her a knowing look that she actively ignored, keeping her eyes forward.
“It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself,” her sister said at last, standing back up with the plate of cookies. Katniss didn’t say anything. Prim sighed and went back inside, the front door clicking softly behind her.
Maybe she was trying to convince herself it was all an act, but that’s all she could handle right now. Love was messy and heartbreaking and Katniss wasn’t sure she wanted any part of that.
Whoever said that I won the games is a complete bullshitter. No one wins the games. No one. There's survivors, sure, but nothing else. In the end, it's not us that wins.
