#in-panem

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said nonchalantly. She snapped the bird’s wing off and took a small bite. As usual, the cookie was amazing. He must be experimenting with cinnamon now, Katniss thought, because its flavor filled her mouth and she took another bite, trying to hide just how good it was.

Prim didn’t look convinced. “I don’t understand why you broke up. He seems sweet and you’re always watching him from the porch—”

“We didn’t break up, Prim.” It was hard explaining the intricacies of the Games like this to her sister, the things you have to do in order to survive in that arena. Prim was so young and saw the good in everyone she encountered. Of course she took to Peeta and his endless amount of kindness. Peeta and Prim seemed to be spending more time together these days than the sisters seemed to. Katniss wasn’t sure how she felt about her sister’s budding friendship with the boy with the bread. It was all so confusing. “It was for the Games, remember? He was play acting just as much as I was.”

Except that’s not true, that annoying voice in her head argued again. Parts of it was real. Katniss pushed those feelings deep, deep down and focused on the cookie.

For weeks she’d been trying to detangle all of these feelings that suddenly appeared overnight, choking her at how strong and sudden they came. But it seemed the more she thought about them—the way his warm lips felt against hers in the cave, the hopelessness she felt when he was dying in her care. The way his body pressed against hers in the sleeping bag while they slept made her feel safe and protected. Something she hadn’t felt since her father’s passing and in the arena, of all places! Katniss didn’t know what to make of any of it.

And she certainly didn’t understand the urges she felt to run to him whenever she saw him walking down the gravel lane, his curly blonde hair bobbing against his stilted gait. To wrap her arms around him and pull him close to her, hear his steady heartbeat against her ear, a reminder that he was alive and here with her.

Other times, at night when she sees him through the open window, she’s choked with the desperate need to run across the courtyard to his home and bang on his door until he answers, needing to know how he’s been holding up. To see if he’s just as haunted by the bloodied tributes as she is. Do they hate him as much as they hate her?

She barely knows him, but she missed the boy with the bread. Missed his kindness and quick jabs she grew accustomed to during the Games. He lived next door, but he could be in another district with the amount of space they’ve given each other since returning to Twelve.

Real? Not real?

Katniss didn’t know. She just knew she was confused and hated it.  

She finished off the cookie and took another, biting the head of the mockingjay off. Prim gave her a knowing look that she actively ignored, keeping her eyes forward.

“It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself,” her sister said at last, standing back up with the plate of cookies. Katniss didn’t say anything. Prim sighed and went back inside, the front door clicking softly behind her.