“It was all for the Games,” Peeta says. “How you acted.”
“Not all of it,” I say, tightly holding onto my flowers.
“Then how much? No, forget that. I guess the real question is what’s going to be left when we get home?” he says.
“I don’t know. The closer we get to District Twelve, the more confused I get,” I say. He waits, for further explanation, but none’s forthcoming.
“Well, let me know when you work it out,” he says, and the pain in his voice is palpable.
I know my ears are healed because, even with the rumble of the engine, I can hear every step he takes back to the train. By the time I’ve climbed aboard, Peeta has disappeared into his room for the night. I don’t see him the next morning, either. In fact, the next time he turns up, we’re pulling into District 12. He gives me a nod, his face expressionless.
I want to tell him that he’s not being fair. That we were strangers. That I did what it took to stay alive, to keep us both alive in the arena. That I can’t explain how things are with Gale because I don’t know myself. That it’s no good loving me because I’m never going to get married anyway and he’d just end up hating me later instead of sooner. That if I do have feelings for him, it doesn’t matter because I’ll never be able to afford the kind of love that leads to a family, to children. And how can he? How can he after what we’ve just been through?
I also want to tell him how much I already miss him. But that wouldn’t be fair on my part.
So we just stand there silently, watching our grimy little station rise up around us. Through the window, I can see the platform’s thick with cameras. Everyone will be eagerly watching our homecoming.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Peeta extend his hand. I look at him, unsure. “One more time? For the audience?” he says. His voice isn’t angry. It’s hollow, which is worse. Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me.
I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I finally have to let go.

The Hunger Games - Chapter 28

The moment is stale, and even the hand that Peeta’s holding is now numb. My thoughts stir up a headache. The last time I was in District 12, I was saying goodbye to my mother, and Prim, and Gale. Before leaving the Games, I was forced to say goodbye to Rue, and I didn’t even get the chance to see Thresh again, let alone bid him a farewell. I’d expect myself to get at least somewhat of a thrill from being able to say hello again, but I don’t. I’m too busy trying to figure out how to avoid saying goodbye. To Peeta. To our long, rainy nights in the cave. To this new life I’ve become so attached to but only because I knew from the moment I stepped into the arena that I would never be able to say hello to my old life again. Dark memories cloud my mind only to be washed away with the light the train doors open to reveal.
It isn’t as dim as I remember, but perhaps that’s due to all of the lights flashing at me at once. I instantly remember Haymitch’s orders. I try to regroup and turn on the charm. Although, it doesn’t come as naturally as I’d hope it to.
“We’re home, Katniss.” Peeta leans over and kisses my forehead. We step out onto the platform together, still hand in hand. It’s all so overwhelming. The crowd- Screaming, cheering, applauding, blowing kisses, shedding tears of pure gratification. And then there’s the cameras- Bright, monotonous, and multiplying by the minute. And Peeta- Completely concealing every bit of emotion he has behind that soft, winsome smile.
Star-Crossed Lovers. All you have to do is play the part, Katniss.
I manage to compose myself and tighten my grip of Peeta. I smile and wave with my left hand, batting my eyelashes every once in a while for dramatic effect. This scene seems to go on for an hour, but I know subconsciously that it’s only been a few minutes when something impacts my front. I look down to find something short and blonde nestled against me. Then it registers. It’s Prim.
“Katniss,” she says. It’s all she can manage to say.
“I promised I’d be back, didn’t I?” I whisper, trying to lighten the moment a bit. My right hand has fallen from Peeta’s grasp by now and is reached out towards my mother, skinny and pale, coming forth from the massive collection of faces that surrounds the platform. She joins Prim and I’s hug, but doesn’t say anything. I don’t expect her to. This is the most emotion she’s shown in a long, long time.
Moments later, Peeta’s mother and father are accompanying him on the platform. They exchange hugs and greetings, and his mother scavenges a roll from the small basket hanging from her arm. She offers it to Peeta, and he hesitates to eat it. I know why. Mrs. Mellark acknowledges me and digs in her basket for another piece of bread. I gladly accept it and split it with Prim and my mother.
“You, and you.” Haymitch waddles over to us carrying a sense of urgency with him. I try to put the thought of the Capitol seeking revenge on me far, far away, in a deep crevasse of Panem that I’ll never able to find again. But, it doesn’t work. It keeps re-surfacing. Still, I try to tuck it away for at least a while.
“Did you hear that, Katniss?” Peeta nudges my arm.
“What?” I regain focus.
“Katniss, are you listening to me?” Haymitch waits for me to face him before continuing. “You and Peeta go home and collect your things. Your families are invited to my house for dinner. After that, feel free to settle into your new homes in the Victor’s Village. Oh, and one more thing.” He pauses, then points to Peeta. “Don’t forget, you’ve loved her since you were five.” He turns to me. “And you, you’re so crazy in love that you’d be willing to swallow poisonous berries over live without him. Got it?” Haymitch doesn’t bother to look for an answer. Instead, he retreats to the train.
I wait for it. I wait for Peeta to play his part. After doing this so many times, it’s almost become a reflex. But, he doesn’t. I want to say something, to Peeta. Although, I’m not sure what. I have realized that something’s different, though. All of a sudden, something has changed, and my inability to figure it out drives me senseless.
“Katniss, let’s go home.” Prim walks over to me and tugs at my hand.
“Okay,” I say. I allow Prim to pull me and briefly glance over my shoulder. He’s gone.
By the time we reach our pitiful abode, I have heard all about Prim’s plans for moving. She has noted three things to bring with her: Buttercup, her feline best friend, Lady, the goat I got her for her tenth birthday, and a box of Father’s old things, like the jacket he used to wear. He would wear it often. That is, before the accident.
Everything around me seems somewhat dull, and I’m not quite sure what to do, about anything. It isn’t until I’ve stepped onto the hard, creaky floor of my former home and I hear a sweet, friendly voice when I snap out of delusion.
“Katniss.” I look over to where the voice seems to be coming from, and there he is, with his dark hair, olive skin, gray eyes. And here I am, my feelings scattered all around like puzzle pieces. The catch was, none of them seemed to fit together.
“Gale,” I manage to mumble quietly.
“Can we talk?” He rises from the wooden chair he is currently sitting in and strolls outside. I follow. He walks a few yards, and I don’t stop until he does. He turns around. “Katniss…”
“What ever happened to ‘Catnip,’ you know, what you used to call me?”
“I, I just haven’t seen you in so long.”
“So? I leave, come back, and now I’m a stranger?” Gale looks at me with a wrinkle in-between his eyebrows. “I’m, I’m sorry…”
“No, it’s fine.” We both stand there for a moment, allowing silence to take place of whatever it was we were getting into. “Congratulations.” Gale finally breaks the quiet.
“Thank you.”
“Sure.” He brushes some dirt off of his sleeve. “So,” he says, trading his gentle tone for a sterner one. “You and Peeta make a good team.”
I knew this was coming.
“Gale,” I begin, but to be honest, I don’t think I ever had any intention of finishing that sentence.
“Do you love him?” He is now looking at me with the most seriousness I’ve ever seen his face hold at one time.
“What?”
“I love you, Katniss.”
“I know.”
“Peeta loves you.”
“He did.”
“Do you love him back?” I don’t respond. Instead, I let my eyes drift off into the streets. “Katniss, I watched the Games. I saw you. I saw you with him. I saw you kiss him, many times. It didn’t look like much of an act to me.”
It didn’t surprise me, Gale’s suspicion. Had that come from anyone else, aside from Haymitch and my prep team, I would’ve felt in danger. The Capitol has made it very clear. I did what I did either as an act of affection or an act of rebellion. The two are quite distinct, and I understand what will be at stake if I don’t convince everyone of the first.
I feel a slight jerk, and my lips are against Gale’s. This is the first time I’ve ever actually kissed him. But, it isn’t natural. It’s forced. It’s stiff and impulsive. He’s trying to change my mind. He’s trying to persuade me that I have feelings for him. And, I do.
That’s it. That’s what was different with Peeta. It wasn’t forced. It wasn’t for the audience. The way I held his hand tight enough to cut off his circulation, the way I longed for a kiss from him before we separated, the way I felt when I noticed his sudden absence. It wasn’t for the audience. It wasn’t a show. It was real.
“Gale,” I say. He’s right in front of me, so close. His eyes are widened, desperate for a reaction. “I, I do.”
“Then runaway with me.” Assuming I’m referring to my love for him, which I am, Gale doesn’t falter to share his new idea with me. “We can leave the district, just like we said we would before you left. We can g-“
“Neither of us were serious,” I try to interject, but he doesn’t mind me.
“-o somewhere far away. Our families can come. We can escape. We can get away from the Capitol, away from the cameras, away from everything keeping us apart.” I know then he’s referring to Peeta but knows better than to be too direct with it.
“I can’t!” The words fly out of my mouth faster than I can consider them twice. Gale freezes. “I love you, I do. But, I love Peeta, too.”
It hurts to lie to Gale, not that it is entirely a lie. I have feelings for Peeta, I know this. I have feelings for Gale, too. But, I don’t know if I love Peeta. I’m only confident in saying I love Gale because I’ve known him for so long, and I’ve never felt so comfortable around someone. I’ve never trusted someone so much. It just, seems logical.
“And, besides that,” I continue, “I have no choice but to be with Peeta. That is, if I want to protect Prim, and my mother, and District Twelve in all. If I want to protect you.”
“Protect me? You want to protect me, and you think the best way to do that is, is to be with Peeta? You think the only option is to lie? You’re lying, Katniss! You’re lying to him, you’re lying to District Twelve, you’re lying to Panem, and you’re lying to yourself! You’re lying to me!”
I gulp, refusing to waste any tears on this. “I, I can’t be with you. That’s all there is to it.”
“You know what, forget about me. Forget about protecting me, forget about hunting with me like we used to before you went off and, ‘fell in love’ with, with him. Just forget about me.” Gale scoffs to himself and is a painful distance away from me within the next minute.
What did you just do, Katniss?
~~~
The thought of being able to eat like this every night for the rest of my life is beautiful. I peek over at Prim whose mouth is having trouble containing everything she’s stuffing into it at once. My mother is eating, too. This is good. Haymitch, of course, has no problem clearing his plate. Mr. and Mrs. Mellark appear to be enjoying their meals, as well. Peeta hasn’t looked me in the eyes for more than a second since we arrived.
No one mentions the Games. This doesn’t come as a shock to me, though. It’s one of those things that you deal with and then shove into the past. At least, that’s what I had been planning on doing. Now, it’s almost as if the Games have just begun.
“Peeta.” I try to catch his attention before we go our separate ways. By separate ways, I mean, my house is on the same side of the road as Haymitch’s, and Peeta and his family will be living across the street.
“Katniss?” He stops at the end of the cobblestone sidewalk leading up to Haymitch’s doorstep but doesn’t turn around. I can’t see his blue eyes, his pastel face. I can see his hair. It’s blonde. It’s very blonde.
“I talked to Gale.” It isn’t the ideal conversation starter, but I feel as if I have to buy myself some time.
“Oh,” he mutters.
“He walked away from me.”
Peeta doesn’t respond, but I watch the fingers on his right hand curl into each other and extend again.
“He walked away from me because I told him I loved you.”
Again, his fingers curl into each other and extend again, only this time, on his left hand. “Why would you do that?”
“Why? Why would you ask me why? Wh-”
“Because, Katniss.” He swivels around and is now facing me, a harsh glow in those cobalt eyes of his. “There aren’t any cameras. There isn’t an audience. This is real. This isn’t a game.”
“What makes you think I don’t already know that? I do. I know that, and I know what I said.”
“No. No Katniss, you don’t.” He begins to walk towards me. “Gale, you love him, and you know you love him. You fell in love with him a long time ago. Me?” Peeta is standing right in front of me. “You were thrown into an arena with me. You took compassion on me because I’m from the same district as you. You helped me survive, and I like to think I did the same in return.”
He did.
“Katniss, I loved you from the beginning, from the beginning of all of this. But, the way you treated me, the way you acted, the things you said… You were performing. You were putting on a show for the people of Panem watching on their big screens, and for Haymitch, and f-”
“For you! For you, and for me.” I never meant to say this much, but I know now, I must finish it. “The first kiss or two? Strategy, but it was to keep us alive. From then on, I don’t know. It was almost as if, I was playing a game within a game. And, everything we shared, everything we became… It was real. And, I found myself losing a grip on what’s real, and what’s not. Whatever we had, it was real. It is real, but it all happened in the middle of something that isn’t real at all. It all happened in the middle of a game. And, I’m trying so hard right now to figure out whether or not I was playing, playing that thing in the middle of the game as a game itself.” I recognize I’m only rambling, so I stop talking and stare at the ground.
“Well, it’s over. The game... It’s over. So, figure it out, and let me know.” Peeta places one foot behind him. “Since I was five, Katniss. I don’t think my feelings for you are going to change anytime soon,” he adds. His cheeks stiffen, and he walks away.
Part of me hates him, for having so little to say to everything I just shared. Part of me hates myself, for sharing so much. Still, I can’t complain. What’s he going to do? He has no motivation to trust me. I’ve hurt him, and I’ve hurt Gale. I appreciate Peeta’s understanding, though. He’s giving me time. He walked away, but he’s giving me time. And, maybe that’s what I need. Time, I need time. I need time to recover from all of this. I need time to put the pieces of this puzzle together. I need time to make them fit.
I can’t help but wish Peeta had kissed me, just one last time. Then I realize, I never said goodbye. I never said goodbye to Gale, I never said goodbye to Peeta, and my heart, is torn.