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“Long distance sucks.”
I smile at the hilariously beautiful pouty face my girlfriend is making. “I know, but it could be worse. Imagine how it would be if I was the one who was five hours ahead of you. We’d never get to Skype because I’d always be passed out by the time you got back from the library.”
Katniss smirks. “Do you have to be so annoyingly optimistic all the time? Why can’t I just whine about how much I miss you?”
I chuckle. “I miss you too. But it’s only another six weeks until I visit, love.” That last bit slips out unconsciously, and I freeze. We haven’t quite entered “I love you” territory, and the last thing I want to do is scare her off by coming on too strong. Honestly, I’m still shocked she agreed to give the whole long distance thing a try after just a few weeks together.
Katniss doesn’t let on if the pet name bothers her - if anything, she ignores it completely. “All I have to say is, you’d better bring me cheese buns,” she tells me matter of factly.
“If I can’t sneak them past customs, I’ll bake them fresh for you myself.”
“In my crappy dorm kitchenette? Good luck.”
“I am nothing if not resourceful,” I say with a grin. “Shit. Speaking of which, I left some dough on the counter to rise. Can you hold on a sec while I take care of that?”
Katniss pouts again. “You realize it’s almost 1am here, right? I am sacrificing precious sleep time for you,” she scolds.
I’m about to tease her about her old lady sleeping habits when her phone rings. Katniss lets out a sigh of mock disapproval. “I bet that’s Prim. She has even less respect for my need for sleep than you do.” She stands and motions for me to go. “Go on. I’ll take this while I’m waiting for you.”
I give her a wink as I rise from my bed. “You’re the best.”
I’ve just made it to the door when I realize that my girlfriend isn’t talking to her sister.
“Gale, are you okay? Yeah, it’s Katniss. Who did you think you were calling?”
My stomach plummets at the sound of his name. Gale fucking Hawthorne.
To be fair, I don’t know that much about the guy - just that he’s British, handsome, brilliant…and the closest thing Katniss has had to a boyfriend before me. They met when he was an exchange student in high school and have managed to stay in touch ever since. She even went to visit him at Oxford when she was scouting for grad schools a couple years ago. I don’t know the details of what happened during that trip - not that it matters, since it was long before we started dating in the first place - but there’s a history between them that I’m not privy to.
That said, Katniss has never said or done anything to suggest that she still harbors anything more than friendly feelings toward him. And I trust her. But I can’t say that I trust him. And when he’s within two hours’ drive from her while I’m not even in the same time zone, I can’t help but feel a bit insecure about my situation.
My earlier errand forgotten, I creep back toward my laptop and strain to hear the conversation.
“Gale…Gale, stop. It sounds like you’re drunk,” she says tiredly. “I’m busy right now…no, I’m not working.” She pauses. “I’m talking to Peeta.”
A long silence follows. I awkwardly crane my neck to see if I can get a glimpse of my girlfriend on the screen and still remain out of the range of the camera, lest it reveal that I’m still in the room.
I feel like such an asshole for doing this, but God help me, I just can’t bring myself to step away.
Katniss pushes an errant lock of hair from her forehead as she rolls her eyes at whatever Gale has to say. Finally, she responds with a sigh. “Look, you’re really not in any condition to be having this kind of conversation with me right now.” She smiles sadly at his response. “I’m sorry things got awkward between us too. I’ve missed you.”
What? She’s missed him?
A frisson of jealousy surges through me. What is this guy up to, calling her in the middle of the night like this? I’m seriously considering how to interrupt the conversation when I see Katniss’ eyebrows scrunch together in frustration as she paces in front of her desk. “That’s not what I meant, Gale. When I said I missed you, I meant I missed our friendship. That’s it…Of course not! You really think I’m going to dump my boyfriend because you realize you made a mistake two years ago? That I’m going to give it a real go with you now that we’re finally in the same country?”
I feel a stab of guilt when Katniss looks up at her computer to check if I’ve come back yet, but I can’t move. She sighs again, the heat in her voice dissipating. "Look, this isn’t about you. Things are just different now. I’m different. We can’t just go back…Why?…Because I love him, Gale,“ she says quietly. “I’m in love with Peeta. And it doesn’t matter that he’s on the other side of the Atlantic. I trust him, and he trusts me…So what? I don’t care about that…You really want to know? Then yeah, I am. I’m gonna marry him someday.”
She keeps talking, but I don’t process any of it. I just stand there, frozen in place, replaying her words over and over again in my head. She’s managed to reveal more about her feelings for me in three minutes of conversation with her pseudo-ex than she’s said to me in six months of dating.
He wants her back. She told him no. She’s in love with me. She wants to marry me.
Holy shit.
The room goes quiet, and I realize that Katniss has gotten off the phone and is waiting for me to come back. I make a show of stomping around the room before reappearing in front of my laptop.
“So, what did I miss?” I say as casually as possible. “How’s Prim?”
Katniss flushes. “It wasn’t Prim,” she admits. “It was Gale.”
“Oh?” I struggle to keep the curiosity out of my voice. “How’s he doing?”
“Well, he totally drunk dialled me, so there’s that,” she replies. “I doubt he’ll even remember calling me in the morning.” Katniss purses her lips, as if trying to figure out how much she wants to tell me about their talk. Shaking her head, she just says, “Anyway, enough about him. You still haven’t told me about your day.”
“Oh, yeah…okay.” I try to keep the disappointment from lacing my voice. Despite the gnawing guilt of listening in on her chat with Gale, the fact that she’s holding back on me feels like a kick to the gut. What is it that doesn’t want me to know? That she talked to him about us? That she told Gale she missed him? That he wants her back? All my insecurities seem to attack at once, and for a moment I feel like I’m going to be sick.
Katniss peers at me, concerned. “Hey…you all right?”
I give her as bright a smile as I can manage. “Yeah, I’m fine. I guess it just hit me how much I miss you.”
She sends me a gentle smile in return. “I miss you too, love.”
It’s amazing how that one little word, tacked on to the end of a sentence, is enough to put me back at ease. Just like that, everything falls into place. She might not be ready to tell me all the things she told Gale, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel them.
I just have to be patient. And not be afraid to speak up, myself.
“Hey, Katniss?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”