One Afternoon

Somebody was inside my house when I got back. I had no doubts as to who that might be. Only one person patiently waited for my return from the woods every single time.

"Peeta?" I called out as I closed the door behind me.

No answer. I wondered if he fell asleep. But one look around told me he wasn't in. A bit panicked, I rushed to the dining area where he usually sat and waited. No Peeta.

Instead, I found a still-hot cup of tea. Beside it, a half-eaten roll of bread. Something else . . .

I saw the book we started out together. The book about our Games, our stories. It was open on a blank page--or at least, on what was a blank page before Peeta started on it. I could make out the slight traces of a drawing. A dress I had worn before, the one that Cinna had turned into a mockingjay costume before the entire Panem.

My wedding dress.

Suddenly, I knew why Peeta abandoned this task. I frantically whipped my head around, searching for any sign of him. Finally accepting the fact that he wasn't anywhere around, I ran out of the house.

"Peeta! Open up!" I pounded on his own door.

Without waiting for an answer, I flung the door open and looked for him inside the unlit living room. I could just make out the outline of his huddled figure by the fire-less furnace. He whimpered and hugged himself closer.

Tears started streaming down my cheeks. He was in that world again, alone and scared. I wanted to reach out and hold him but I knew it was not what would help him. Like what I had always done before, I sat on the floor just inside his door and waited. I cried with him, felt my body shaking and folding on its own.

It was some time, hours maybe or even an entire day, before everything was quite inside Peeta's house. Maybe I had fallen asleep on the floor because the next thing I knew, Peeta was silently shaking me awake.

"Katniss?" he called out softly, his gentle hands on either side of my face.

"Hmmm?" I stirred and then suddenly was jerked away by the fact that Peeta's bout was over. "Peeta? Peeta? Are you okay?"

"Hey, hey," he pulled me up with the same gentleness that he had woke me with. "Sorry."

"What for? You shouldn't be saying sorry. I . . ." I wanted to say I understood. But I didn't. I couldn't ever. Rather than continue in what I was saying, I tentatively stepped closer and pulled him into my arms.

I felt his arms go around me, with much more certainty, and I hugged him tighter, never wanting to let go. Dreading, actually, the fact that I had to let him go in a while because he might succumb again. But just that moment, while he was still my Peeta, I held him tight as I could.

Maybe this was all we could have together. The past, the moments of the present, and a very unsure future. I hated how things were said to be freer but I felt more trapped. We never would lose this battle that we were facing even after the war had died out.

But as long as we had each other, as long as Peeta could hold me and I could him, I could never let my fears get the best of me. I had battles to face and I knew I could win this out someday--with Peeta.