I don't know what I'm doing here

“Well, that’s obvious,” Haymitch laughs, looking around at the catastrophic mess I’ve made of my kitchen. Dirty bowls and measuring cups and spoons litter nearly every inch of counterspace. A bag of sugar lays on it’s side, half-spilled out onto the table. The cake pans I’d at least remembered to grease remain empty on the stovetop, mocking me with their stand-alone cleanliness.

 “Don’t stress too much, Sweetheart,” he says in a slightly kinder tone. “You could make that kid a mud pie and he’d still eat it up and ask for seconds.”

 That doesn’t help. Whether he expects it or not, Peeta deserves far more than dirt, especially on his birthday. It’s the least I can do for him, after all he’s done for me. But even this simple task is proving to be more of a challenge than I’m capable of, apparently. My knowledge of cuisine is mostly limited to soups and roasted meat, and neither of those make for a very appetizing dessert. I thought a cake would be easy enough, having watched Peeta make dozens since he’s come back to Twelve, but so far my attempts have only given me a newfound appreciation for his skillset.

 “Did you remember to add the eggs?” Haymitch asks. He’s holding a crumpled piece of paper up to his nose, scanning the ingredient list written in my mother’s neat handwriting.

 “Yes, I remembered to add the eggs,” I sneer, striding over and snatching the page out of his hand. I glare down at it, feeling betrayed by the heading: Simple Chocolate Cake. ‘Simple for who?’ I think, bitterly.

I’d found the recipe in an old cookbook left in the pantry. One of my mother’s that she’d forgotten to take with her when she left for Four, I suppose. It must have been an old family recipe from her youth. I'd certainly never had chocolate cake growing up. It’s not the fancy, decadent type that comes from a bakery like the ones Peeta makes, but I thought he might appreciate it all the same. If I can even get it finished before he gets home, that is.

I glance at the clock on the wall – two o’clock. Peeta’s been working long hours at the shop since it finally re-opened, trying to get everything in order. I made him promise to close up at a reasonable time today when he left this morning, but I’m now regretting my demands. I should have another three hours or so before he gets home, which might be just enough time if I can get this last attempt right.

 “Flour, sugar, cocoa, butter, eggs, milk, oil-” Ah. My finger pauses on it’s trail down the list on the page. “Who puts oil in a cake?” I ask, exasperated.

 “People who know how to bake?” Haymitch answers, most unhelpfully.

 “Oh please, like you know any more than I do about this kind of stuff,” I scoff at him. “You can barely put a kettle on to boil. What are you even doing here, anyway?”

 “Mentoring,” he shrugs.

 I have half a mind to kick him out right here and now, but I suppose I do have to give him some grace. It was Haymitch, after all, who reminded me of the upcoming birthday in the first place. Last Sunday night at dinner, he casually asked us what we were doing for ‘Peeta’s big day.’ I was immediately reminded of Effie and her ‘big, big, big days’ and all the grievances that had always come after. I began to panic, thinking I had forgotten about some awful thing like an appointment in the Capitol for Peeta’s prosthetic or an interview with Plutarch I hadn’t been told about. Peeta, on the other hand, stayed calm as always, and merely said he’d probably be at the bakery.

 “No big party?” Haymitch had needled. “You only turn nineteen once.”

 I didn’t need the pointed stare from him that came next to know why he had brought this up. I had wholly forgotten about Peeta’s birthday. Birthdays had always been synonymous with the Reaping to me – your twelfth birthday gift was a deathwish on a slip of paper and your nineteenth was your freedom from it. They’d never been cause for celebrations in our house, and after the war, I hadn’t really given them much thought at all. Maybe they had been a  bigger deal in Peeta’s family, though. I’d just never thought to ask.

 Peeta hadn’t mentioned his birthday again since that conversation, aside from telling Haymitch that he didn’t need a party, but I hadn’t stopped thinking about it. I dwelled on what this day might mean for him, to age out of a horror that didn’t exist anywhere else anymore but in our minds and future history books. To spend a day that usually involved a grateful family without one to feel grateful for him. That last thought made my stomach clench and my eyes sting, so I had decided that even if I couldn’t give him a party, I could make it special for him in my own way. Unless of course, this cake just poisons us all.

 I stare down into the mixing bowl, deciding it too much of a risk to try to add the oil now, and carry it over to the garbage can to scrape it out and start over. I place the empty bowl beside the sink and point my spatula at Haymitch’s chest.

 “If you’re going to stay, then the least you can do is help,” I tell him. “I ordered balloons and streamers. They’re in a box in the hall closet. Go make the living room look pretty.”

To his credit, or possibly because he views the spatula in my hand as a weapon, Haymitch doesn’t argue. He pushes himself up from the counter ledge he’s leaning on and shuffles off to the hallway, but not without a quick comment about how I should’ve called Effie if I wanted a party planner.

I roll my eyes and turn back to survey my work space. It’s chaos, but I clear a space big enough to work in and get started. I dutifully measure out the ingredients, taking extra care with the oil, and add them in one by one until the mixture in my bowl looks more or less like the cake batter I've seen Peeta’s hands make. It even smells delicious, which I take as a good sign.

 The clock reads half past two by the time I slip the cake pans in the oven, and I’m feeling far less anxious than I was an hour ago. I wipe my hands on my pants and decide to check on Haymitch’s progress before I start the arduous task of cleaning up my disaster of a kitchen.

One look in the living room almost makes me suspect that Haymitch might have called Effie himself. The place has been transformed, with streamers hung rather artfully from the ceiling and balloons bundled in groups of twos and threes taped to the walls and pieces of furniture. He’s even fluffed up the throw pillows and folded the quilt into a neat square on the couch.

 “Wow, I’m impressed,” I say. “Have you ever thought of a career change?”

 “After looking after you? No way. I’m retired,” he shoots back, but he looks pleased at my approval.

 “Seriously Haymitch, this looks great. Peeta will love it,” I tell him earnestly.

“You only turn nineteen once,” he says with a shrug. The way he repeats this sentiment from days ago makes me realize he might hold it with more gravity than he’s letting on. How many tributes has he had to mentor, knowing none of them would ever make it to this age? This day may be for Peeta, but it’s a milestone for Haymitch too, I think with a pang.

 “I’ve got the rest covered from here, if you need to tend to your geese or something,” I say. “Maybe clean up before dinner?” I add, noting the stain on his shirt.

 Haymitch gives me a once-over and clicks his tongue. “You might wanna think about doing the same, Sweetheart.”

I grimace at him, but when I rake a hand through my hair my fingers find sticky remnants of cake batter knotted throughout it. I sneak a cursory glance of my reflection in the window and see that I’ve made a mess of myself just as badly as I have of my kitchen. Again, I find myself appreciating how easy Peeta, who does this all day and comes home looking clean as ever, makes baking look.

 “Yeah, I’m going to clean up and take a shower,” I tell Haymitch. “Meet me back here in an hour or so?”

 “You got it,” Haymitch says. He adjusts a row of balloons on his way out, and I smile at his small gestures that truly show how much he cares for Peeta, too.

I make quick work of the kitchen, only peeking at the cakes in the oven once or twice to ensure they haven’t somehow run off while I’ve been gone. When I’m satisfied that everything is in it’s place, I rush upstairs and throw myself in the shower, scrubbing the cake batter out from under my fingernails and using copious amounts of the hair product Effie sent us from the Capitol to get the gooey stuff out of my hair. I step out and grab a towel off the hook to dry myself off, smiling when I breathe in and realise it’s the one that Peeta must have used early this morning. He still officially lives at his own house, but with how often he sleeps here, he showers in my bathroom more often than not. His sweet scent of sugar and dill is laced all throughout my place.

I run a brush through my hair and braid it absent-mindedly as I cross into my bedroom. I pass by the bed, with its covers that smell of Peeta too, and nearly trip over his pajama bottoms that lay on the ground at the foot of it. I pick them up and fold them neatly, placing them back in the spot he normally leaves them after he gets changed, snorting when I remember how he’d apologized this morning for the mess he was leaving.

 He’d slept in. We both had, tied to the warmth and softness of each other. I woke first, reveling in the feel of his arms around me, the way he stroked my shoulder with his thumb in his sleep. I didn’t have the heart to wake him, on today of all days, even though I could tell by the sun’s rays that he should have been up a good while earlier. I laid still, perfectly content to listen to his quiet breaths and feel the rumble of his chest against my back, until he woke with a start and jumped out of bed.

 “No one will mind if you’re a little later today,” I had called over the stream of the shower.

 “I mind!” he’d called back, but I heard the smile in his voice.

 I'd stayed in bed, soaking up the residual warmth of him as he rushed around me, toothbrush hanging from his mouth as he danced around from one foot to the other pulling his socks on. I’d tried not to laugh at him, but couldn’t help but giggle when I mentioned his tee-shirt was on backwards.

 “It’s a new trend, all the rage,” he’d laughed, but he ripped it off and switched it over all the same. I tried not to stare too obviously at the muscles of his stomach when he did. All his work at the bakery has done him well in that department.

 Once he was dressed, he crawled over to me on the bed and kissed me softly, tasting of mint and smelling like clean soap. No matter how late he might be, Peeta always has the time for kisses.

 “I’ll see you tonight,” he'd murmured.

 “Okay,” I’d said. “Don’t be late.”

 “Wouldn’t dare,” he’d said with a little salute. Another kiss, and then he had  crawled back off the bed and headed out.

 “Peeta!” I’d called to his back. “Happy birthday!”

 He grinned at me over his shoulder from the doorway, and then I heard his hurried steps down the stairs and the slam of the front door.

I had stayed in bed a little longer after he’d left, mulling over the work I had to do, but also reveling at how easy this routine had become. How normal it all feels now. Just mere months ago, I could hardly stand to be in the same room as him, with too much to say and too much to feel and with no capability to explore any of it. Now, the hours apart from each other while we grow into our own lives feel too long, and I find myself counting down the hours until we’re together again. It’s impossible to imagine a life without Peeta, and the fact that he clearly feels the same, with the way he rushes through the house to get to me in the evening and the kisses he steals every chance he gets, shoots a thrill through me I don’t think I’ll ever tire of. Normal is a luxury I never want to lose.

 When I finally made my way downstairs, I’d found Haymitch at my kitchen table, scratching Buttercup's ears affectionately. He’s grown fond of the old cat, despite his initial uproar at Buttercup’s hatred of geese. Maybe he sees himself in the grizzled fur bag.

 “Well, it's not getting any earlier,” had been his only greeting. I was so surprised to see him up and alert so early, I didn’t even comment on how odd it was.