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Peeta gets sick three months after the games.
Really sick. The sort of sick that might have killed him before, but now he is a victor, and victors are immune to those sort of ailments. At least, that is what the Capitol wants to think, so all I get are condolences and well wishes and medicine. I don’t know what to do with most of it. That’s what my mother and Prim are for. They tend to him well enough, but at nights sometimes I wake to him screaming my name.
Two days into it, Prim tells me I am being a coward. She is right. She always is. So that day, I go foraging with her. I know what most of the herbs are, but she tells me how to use them. That’s the easy part. The hard part comes when I open the door and see Peeta there, sweat dripping down his skin, eyes wide like he doesn’t recognize me. Maybe he doesn’t.
“Hi,” I say, and immediately curse myself. Hi? Really? He’s been dying in here for days and all I have to say to him is hi?
But Peeta is too nice to me. He smiles and tries to sit up, though he fumbles over his own weight. “Katniss,” he says, my name long and drawn out, almost like a song.
I hesitantly walk over to him. Prim had helped me grind the herbs into a tea for him, and I set it steaming on the side table. “Don’t try to move.”
He frowns. “But…”
“But what?” I blow on the tea to try and cool it. I should have waited for the steam to dissipate before walking in. Now I am stuck here, stuck with the boy who thinks he wants me, stuck with a nightmare from three months ago that won’t stop replaying.
“But we have to move,” Peeta says. His breathing has increased. Sharp, quick inhales, and his eyes are glazed over, darting towards the corner of the room. “Katniss, you have to go.”
I frown. “What?”
“When they come,” Peeta says, and I understand now. Peeta is not here. He is back in the place where my nightmares are, in that arena with blood and trees and death. He is once again running for his life. “Katniss, you have to go.”
“I wouldn’t leave you,” I say evenly. Sometimes I’m not sure he knows that. Sometimes I’m not sure I do.
“But you have to go. You have to live. I’d die for you, if I have to, but you have to live,” he says, skin flushed, blue eyes ocean-cold against the redness of his cheeks. The rest of his sentence is unspoken, but I know it just as well. Peeta would die for me. He had tried. I, on the other hand, would do whatever it takes. Kill whoever it takes.
Even him.
“Please don’t,” I say. That at least is not a lie. It’s easier if he’s alive. Easier for the both of us. And I do not want to think about what he would look like, skin cold and lifeless, eyes staring up at the sun. I am familiar with death, but it still chokes me at times. My father and Rue and all the others.
“Okay,” Peeta says simply. He is always too agreeable. Especially towards me. It drives me crazy, sometimes, how easily he yields to me. How easily he would have died back there. I hate him at times. I really do.
As if he can read my mind, Peeta turns to me again. His eyes are a little clearer. “Katniss?”
“Yes?”
The tea is almost cool. I am almost free. This room is suffocating and choking me and I don’t know how much longer I can survive it.
“Do you…” Peeta frowns. “I know you don’t…not in the same way. Not like that.”
My heart is in my lungs and I cannot breathe around it. We do not talk about it. There is nothing to talk about it. But Peeta is not himself right now. If I am lucky, he won’t remember this conversation come morning.
“Do you hate me?” Peeta asks quietly. Almost a whisper. I have to lean in to listen. “For what I’ve done?”
I frown. I used to. I really did.
“I don’t know,” I say. He will not remember this. I’ve decided. I press the mug to his lips and he takes a sip, humming as it soothes his throat. “It would be easier.”
I put the mug back down.
“But you’re never easy,” Peeta says, smiling again. If I don’t hate him, I hate that smile. The way it makes my stomach turn. There’s nothing here worth smiling about: not the tea or his illness or me.
Shrugging, I stand. Peeta quickly wraps his hand around my wrist. “Do you have to leave?”
I don’t. I could lie. But I’ve lied so much to him, and I am tired of it.
“No,” I say, and I crawl into the bed next to him. He is burning next to me, skin pressed against my own, but for the first time since the arena I think I might be able to breathe fully; might be able to sleep through the night. “Go to sleep, Peeta.”
“Okay.”
In the morning, I am the first to wake. I tiptoe out of the room and grab a glass of water and when I turn Haymitch is staring at me. He has an odd look on his face, like he’s eaten something that doesn’t agree with him.
“What?” My voice is raspy and I wince.
“Shit,” Haymitch mutters. He glances towards Peeta’s door then back towards me. “You really are in love with him, aren’t you?”
“I’m not,” I say. He must be drunk. Drunker than usual, that is, because he always smells of alcohol now. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Then don’t act stupid,” Haymitch says, but his fists are trembling. His voice softens. “Look. Katniss…”
“I’m not,” I say again, as harshly as I can manage, and then I turn and walk out the door. I grab my bow and run to the woods, duck under the fence and hide amongst the trees and let myself breathe there, far away from Peeta and his fire, far away from the scent of alcohol, far away from everything but my own damn thoughts.