Everlark. "I.. I can't go on now. This is just too hard,"
I’m sorry this took forever! Hope you enjoy.
Katniss and I used to play in the large field on the outskirts of the city. Not many people tended to go out there - too dirty and natural for their liking. But I loved it because Katniss loved it. There was something about the open air that helped her, allowed her to breathe easier and clearer than she could in the city center. So I indulged her in these visits.
Often times, we played Tributes and Victors - and she was always the Victor. I didn’t mind. Each day we went I came up with a way to die that was more ostentatious than the last.
"I…I can’t go on now. This is just too hard."
And she’d laugh and laugh and sometimes point at me, exclaiming that I wasn’t as strong as her because she was from One and I was from lowly Twelve - because I always seemed to be from District 12 whereas she could be from anywhere.
It was a good game and a way to pass the time. We grew out of it eventually, favoring to bet on the real tributes rather than pretend to be them. My tributes, the ones that I placed bets on, always seemed to win. Katniss hated that. She hated that I could read them when she herself could not. I tried to tell her that the games are more about head and strategy than they are brute force (although that certainly plays a role too) but she never listened.
I bet on Johanna Mason when everyone called me dumb for it. Look who won.
I bet on Annie Cresta too for that matter.
I even bet on Madge Undersee. It was the one year that Katniss won too because she bet on Gale Hawthorne and they won together.
The only year I lost was the year after the war. The first and only Hunger Games where I was eligible for the Reaping. I didn’t get picked but it was the scariest day of my life. And that’s saying something when the last months were spent cowering in war torn streets.
Katniss was chosen first and of course I bet on her. She was always the strongest and the perfect one among us. It seemed like a no brainer.
Besides, she was the president’s granddaughter. Of course she would win.
I still remember that last day watching her. She looked so fragile and broken, huddled in some cave shaking.
And she was talking to me.
"Peeta, I can’t do it…it’s just too hard."
And that was the first time that I watched Katniss lose the game.