Mockingjay

«You love me. Real or not real?»
I tell him, «Real.»

Finnick looks at me in disbelief. “I don’t, Katniss! Obviously, I don’t. I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there’s no relief in waking.” Something in my expression stops him. “Better not to give in to it. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

«Don’t worry, Katniss. It’ll pass.»

. “You’re a painter. You’re a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces.”

Then I dive into my tent before I do something stupid like cry.

At a few minutes before four, Peeta turns to me again. “Your favorite color…it’s green?”

“That’s right.” Then I think of something to add. “And yours is orange.”

“Orange?” He seems unconvinced.

“Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunset,” I say. “At least, that’s what you told me once.”

If you’d been taken by the Capitol, and hijacked, and then tried to kill Peeta, is this the way he would be treating you?” demands Haymitch.

I fall silent. It isn’t. It isn’t how he would be treating me at all. He would be trying to get me back at any cost. Not shutting me out, abandoning me, greeting me with hostility at every turn.

“I made it for you. Something to put in your drawer.” I place it in her hands. “Smell it.”

She lifts the bundle to her nose and takes a tentative sniff. “Smells like home.” Tears flood her eyes.

All those months of taking it for granted that Peeta thought I was wonderful are over. Finally, he can see me for who I really am. Violent. Distrustful. Manipulative. Deadly.

And I hate him for it.

“I must have loved you a lot.”

“You did.” My voice catches and I pretend to cough.

“I don’t know. We were under attack in Eight, for one thing. The hospital was under attack,” I say.

“Yes, and those hoverplanes came from District Two,” he says. “So, by taking them out, we prevented further attacks.”