#glhwthrn

has come with strawberries

How could you be jealous over losing something that wasn’t yours to begin with? That was the problem, though. It always felt as if he was hers, and she was his. Everything else was unthinkable. But, they were best friends. Two years separated them, but they had been friends since she was 12, and he was 14. Their fathers worked together for years, and it was just a matter of time  before their kids got to meet. The connection was present since the beginning, with Gale’s smile making her want to know him, and with her being the reason for said smile. 

As they grew, from kids to teenagers, and from teenagers to young adults, there rarely was a day that they didn’t see each other-- in person, or at least over skype. The years passed, nothing changed. Not even when he went to college. They still saw each other almost daily, with him remaining in the state. But, when her time came, she moved a thousand miles away. There was a boy-- gentle like sunlight, enveloped in soft words spoken at exactly the right time. He became her first real boyfriend, and it affected the way her and Gale functioned. COnnection rared out, making them distant. Talking every day slimmed to once a month and finally to barely few times a year. 

At 24 and 26, everything was different. They hadn’t seen each other in almost a year, and the information about him getting married came trough Katniss’s little sister. The news hit her like a brick. Jealousy. Envy. A n g e r. All of it, mixed and combined. She got a wedding invitation in the mail, a day before getting a call. It was brides mother, asking her not to come. So, she did the only thing that made sense. She went.

The wedding looked like a transcript from some horrifying magazine-- 57 ways to have a pastel wedding and look like a cupcake was probably the name. Her green dress stood out from the sea of light shades, but she managed to blend into a small crowd of men sitting in the back, listening to the ceremony. She had a plan. To stand op and say something, when the priest asked for objections, but when the moment came-- she couldn’t do it. She wasn’t the kind of girl that’d barge in on a white veil occasion. Mush less ruin it. But she couldn’t sit and watch him slip right trough her fingers. Getting up, she moved, knocking the chair backwards in the process. Red tinted her cheeks as she moved, rushing to get out. There was complete silence, then whispers, but she couldn’t look back. Would she even be able to leave if she saw his eyes? No. Probably not.

{ glhwthrn }

i.

Two days after the explosion in the mines is when Katnissreally paid attention to Gale Hawthorne, but it was probably because now instead of walking the opposite way towards his own house in the seam he went towards the mines, and sometimes she’d catch a glimpse of him in the morning, covered in soot that made his olive skin even darker.  He’d walk with determination, far too young to be doing what he was but she knew of him – his family, and he was feeding far more mouths than the Everdeen’s were… and her father wasn’t the only one to die in the mines that night.  

Yet they never spoke, even as their paths crossed or the time he sliced open his hand in the mines and her mother was actually lucid enough to patch his hand at their house. She was far too young to really know much about what it was like to love, but her father made it to be simple enough.  But it wasn’t until later that something arose from her chest, the first time for everything.  

Early morning came too soon and after weeks of watching Prim grow a little thinner and her mother blank out more than none, Katniss found the refuge in the woods to hunt to try to save them.  Even if it were just some squirrel or rabbit, quail, anything would suffice.  But she never imagined that the pretty boy of the seam would be prodding, hell – in her territory.  But something about the way mercury eyes clashed in the faintest color, a mutual understanding – an act of respect.  His lips twisted to some form of a grin when her eye caught the glimpse of his catch in the snare, and for a second her heart pounded in the back of her head.  

To this day she’d wave it off as being mad that he had caught more than her by laying a trap, but after a small conversation and him handing over some plump squirrel they’d exchange more than just meat.  They exchanged a truce, of not letting the other get caught by the capitol.  They became hunting partners, where eventually she’d wait for him in the shadows of the dusk.  But that first day in the woods was when Katniss first fell in love with Gale Hawthorne, not for all of the glory the girls gave him at school. Because even in a time of desperate measures, he’d helped her.  Understood her.  The fact he was something to look at wasn’t that bad, either.  

ii.  

Slowly days came and went, causing a stir in the Everdeen household as her mother watched her run off almost every day with Gale.  Some word rose over dinner that night after Gale had left to go join his own family of their squirrel stew, and Katniss ultimately avoided much of what her mother had to say. “All I’m saying Katniss, is be careful. You’re both young but I don’t feel like it’s a good idea to have a boyfriend.”  To the word precious soup almost was spit out, a devilish look casting at her mother.  

“It’s not like that,” she grumbled, figuring her mom should have known better than to think Katniss was like that at all.  Suddenly she wasn’t hungry anymore, but It didn’t keep the question from rising in the back of her head.  Over the past few years she had gotten closer to Gale, spending more time in the woods and even on their days off lounging around the house.  It’s not like she didn’t think of him attractive, or suitable, it just wasn’t the time.  But the girls at school talked, and whenever they’d visit Madge she’d ask with a fair amount of blush to her cheeks what the two of them were.  It never occurred to Katniss that it was on Gale’s mind, too, because later that night…

“Katniss, I’m not going to stop hunting with you because people are talking.”  He was covered in ashen soot from the mine and he looked years older, carrying the fatigue under his eyes like bruises.  

“Everyone thinks we’re a couple!  My mom tried to talk to me about birth control!”  Katniss was hissing through her clenched teeth, head throbbing. Despite the night she could see a boyish grin on Gale’s face as he leaned forward, and for a moment every bit of agitation she had vanished as her hand hit his shoulder.  

“Do you think we’re a couple?”  But there was something in his voice that felt like a stab through the gut, because honestly Katniss wasn’t sure what to think but something told her that he wouldn’t mind if they were.  

“I don’t know.”  She admitted, dropping her guard and her gaze to her hands that held onto her satchel of arrows.  

He smiled anyway, drawing dangerously close that Katniss could almost taste the mines.  It was only a minute until eventually her breath was taken away by his own lips crashing down on hers, and suddenly it was as if the ash from Gale had sunk down in her pores and erupted.  Every fiber of her being was lit ablaze and as his strong hands grasped her shoulders, she was much to smoldering to feel more.  He tasted of sweat and the earth that they grew to appreciate, of something sweet and bitter and when he pulled back her head was foggy.  

“Think about it.”  And she watched him walk away with her heart in his hand, so that’s what it felt like to be in love.  

iii.  

They didn’t talk that morning for the reaping.  It was his final year, and so far he was safe without being sent into the games. Katniss had two more years, but it was Prim’s first year.  He decided to try not to poke the bear, and just sit back and wait for Katniss to come rushing towards him after the reaping and seeing if he wanted to do dinner at her house or his.  But when that precious name was called in that courtyard…

“I volunteer!”  Her voice echoed over the crowd of people and every eye landed on her.  “I volunteer as tribute!”  Katniss stood between the two rows that separated the girls from the boys, head held high as Prim’s red-rimmed eyes stared back at her in fear.  Admiration.  But fear. How would they survive with Katniss gone?  

Effie looks stunned and suddenly welcomes Katniss onto the stage, but it’s Gale who grabs Prim and begins to usher her from Katniss.  He holds her close, endearingly because he has siblings of his own, and takes her back to her mother.  It takes many acts of kindness to volunteer for the one you love, but it’s even more to stand in the middle of fire to console someone else in fear that they peacekeepers would hurt him too.  For a moment his eyes meets her, and up there on stage it isn’t as frightening.  She already knows what he’ll do. They’ve talked about it all the time.  

“You can do this, okay?” He is strong but even now he is scared. He snuck his way in somehow, and just the feeling of his hand on the back of her neck can soothe some of her. “They want a show, that’s all they want.”  The guard comes bustling in, grabbing Gale before she can muster more coherent words.

“Take care of them Gale! Don’t let them starve!”  Of course, she already knows this.  But she savors the smell of the shampoo his mom only lets him use on the day of the reaping, savors the warmth of his skin against her cheek.  It’s him caring for her family that seems to place little cracks in her heart.  

The look in his eyes before the door closes promises her just that.  But they scream something different, too.  Things change dramatically when the one you love could die at any second.

iv.  

Somehow Katniss managed to get out of The Hunger Games alive.  Not just her, but Peeta Mellark too.  It was conflicting, rather, what was seen on the television and what was true to her heart.  In some ways it was a ploy to win the games, to win over the Capitol of their star crossed lovers act, but it had larger effects back home in district twelve. Gale sat quiet, further away than usual, and though Katniss tried her weakest attempts to assure him it was for the tv, a show, he shook his head.  Doubtful, as if there was something she was blind to and he wasn’t.

But it’s the Quell that drove her in.  The unexpected visit from Snow one morning before the Victory Tour, the images of Gale and Katniss kissing in the woods and because of that her own life was at risk again.  Gale lay against her kitchen table, covered in blistering wounds and gashes but despite the night he was fine in the long wrong.  Managing to choke out some form of a smile, she couldn’t help but smile back and press her lips to his for a kiss.  It was left at that, until eventually… eventually…

Everything was black and her mind spinning from the medicine in district thirteen.  After finally settling down with Haymitch nowhere to be found she heard what had happened.  The force field, Johanna and Peeta taken hostage, Snow destroying twelve – but there was still her family.  Gale got them out alive.  And there was Gale.  When he’d visit her, he looked so much older than an 18 year old boy.  His eyes held a sadness to them for the things he couldn’t undo, the lives he wasn’t able to save.  

Gale transformed right in front of her eyes that day.  He went from that boy in the woods to a man who was willing to help aid the rebellion at all costs.  In many ways he wanted this more than anyone, so it was stupid to think of him any other way. She fell in love him for his courage, his honor – the unnerving way he spoke with such power and conviction.  He should have been the Mockingjay, because he had it all together.  And even though it hurt to be chosen over Peeta, he still volunteered.  

He risked his own life going into the capitol to save the boy with the bread, the dandelion Katniss desperately needed like air.  But what Gale didn’t know going in was that she needed him, too.  

v.  

Love comes and goes. Sometimes it passes and sometimes it stays.  But most of all, it’s a learning experience.  Even if it doesn’t work out, even if it leaves a bitter taste.  Still in the woods that she calls home in twelve, she can practically feel him right beside her.  There wasn’t a place there that Gale left untouched, and sometimes she’ll wander far enough out that Peeta won’t follow so she can sit against the fallen trunk and think back to when times were different.  But even then, even though Gale left for two to held aid in the military Katniss can’t help but smile.  Sometimes to refresh her memory of the miner, she’ll remove the gold trinket and stare at the man he used to be.  Strong but soft.  Smart but clueless.  A true leader, a friend, a lover – someone who never for a second doubted her.  She runs her fingers over that center piece, lets a smile linger on her lips and falls in love Gale Hawthorne one more time before returning back home.

Because without him, who knows where the revolution would have landed.  Without him, she may have not made it through the games to see her family alive upon her arrival.  Love only comes once in a while, but it never leaves completely, no.  Whenever she needs to remember, she’ll wander the woods a little longer.