@50ths asked, you can’t run away hard enough, can you?
↪ 𝐹𝐼𝐿𝐿𝑂𝑅𝑌 ⅋ 𝐅𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 .
IT'S AS SUDDEN AND HARSH AS A SLAP ACROSS THE FACE. the pain smolders in her chest, coals lit with shame. katniss feels herself physically recoil a step, turning her head to regard her mentor with something of a betrayed twist of expression and staring at him for a moment that seems to expand across every dot of time they've stood across from each other in this way: the fall of his greasy hair, the exhausted lines worn into his face, the dark clouds that seem to linger in his eyes whether or not he's inebriated. her lungs expand, shallow, aching. ( he isn't wrong. it's probably unfair of her to turn the arrow right around, but when has anything between them ever been fair? )
“ me? ” an intended barb slips blunt - end first from her tongue, and her hands shake as she slides her foot back into place, failing to reclaim the steadiness she had before. she watches haymitch's gaze fall briefly, like he hadn't meant to release the words when neither of them have the energy to trade blows. but the damage is done, and they both know it. neither of them know very well how to walk away. “ have you looked at yourself? ” her voice is a weary, wrecked thing, but her face tightens with the rising anger. her chest floods with it, trembling finger extended to jab into the man's sternum. “ what would you be doing if thirteen hadn't forced you into sobriety? drinking yourself into a stupor, hoping the world carries on without you ― you probably wouldn't have even noticed if peeta -- ” her voice cracks, the boy with the bread a topic that makes her want to convulse.
it's too much, too far, too untrue, and the guilt is thick on her tongue, tasting of iron. a breath gasps into bruised ribs, and at a loss of anything else to do, her palm knocks pitifully against haymitch's shoulder. she wishes it'd hurt more. wishes he'd let her hurt like this, instead. but he's right. and here, katniss everdeen has no fire. no wings. no song. just a girl, painted like a symbol of war. “ i don't know -- i don't know what to do, haymitch. ”
