Uncross Our Stars | Chapter 29
It gets to me on a delay, like I'm feeling in slow motion. The boy has sprinted down the street by the time it hits me. I watch the back of his head as he bounces up to a woman down the road, repeating his news, and turn to Peeta whose face is glowing with enough optimism for both of us. Bruised and injured but still so clear eyed, so hopeful. My dandelion after a long deadly winter, pushing up through the earth, yellow and nourishing. Free. He scoops me up before I can cry or say something stupid, and spins me around in his arms while I laugh and cling to his neck. I squeeze my eyes shut and feel the sun on my face, red behind my eyelids, spiraling around me until Peeta puts me back down. He shouldn't be exerting himself. He's still very hurt. But he tells me he's okay and then lets me take him inside and doctor his wounds some more.
If the star crossed lovers from district 12 never went into the games, if they were never pitted against each other, doomed to fight and kill each other, if their stars weren’t crossed at all, what would have happened anyway?
Keeping Katniss's family fed without tesserae is not easy and Peeta's parents are pushing him to marry a merchant girl as soon as possible. The best way to escape starvation and a prison of a marriage is to marry each other, but that would require Katniss to let go of a promise she made to herself a long time ago, to never marry anyone.
