TWISTED // Clato | ✓

Chapter 23: Facing the Impossible

A/N: GASPS we're at 1K reads!! WHAT??? I didn't expect that many! :D And I'm now #516 on Science fiction... still getting there. Thanks so much to everyone who's been voting on here; I really really really really really appreciate it. I definitely wouldn't have gotten to this point without all you readers <3

CLOVE'S POV:

It's over. We're over. Whatever lay between Cato and I was destroyed the moment we were pulled out of that arena. But for what reason? I still don't understand and it hurts to think about. And here they are telling us we're in the year 2015. What does that even mean? Back in Panem, we didn't call our years that. Honestly, I have no idea where we are now relatively to where we came from.

The weird relocation and new surroundings might have been easier to deal with if Cato understood what I was really feeling. But how can he? He won't remember. He barely even knows Glimmer for who she is, and definitely doesn't remember her actions back in Panem. All he sees is a hot chic. I wish he'd search deeper.

I lie flat on my bed, letting the tears trickle down my face and into the magenta fabric. From the open computer drifts calming music. It's pretty much the only thing I've been willing to touch in this room besides the bed. I avoid contact with all the other pink accessories and furniture. This will never be my home.

Especially now that I've remembered.

I rest my cheek against the fabric of the pillow while the music drifts over me. I think it's a One Direction song. Hey, maybe Glimmer likes them, but that doesn't mean they're all that bad...

I won't let these little things slip out of my mouth
But if it's true
It's you,
It's you they add up to
I'm in love with you
And all these little things

And then of course, I start crying again because I think of Cato and how I love every little thing, perfection and imperfection alike, about him. Will he ever love me like he did?

A new voice comes on, and it's so comforting that my breathing slows and my muscles relax. 

You'll never love yourself half as much as I love you
And you'll never treat yourself right, darling, but I want you to.
If I let you know I'm here for you
Maybe you'll love yourself like I love you, oh.

It's so beautiful and yet so sad. But the singer captures it perfectly. I instantly fall in love with his voice. (A/N: This is my defense of Niall Horan's amazing voice <3) Does Cato know, I wonder, how much I really do love him? He's probably not completely aware of the depth of my love for him. After all, even I wasn't until I finally remembered. I keep reliving that glorious moment in my life when everything suddenly made sense. It was right after I had seen that ring.

He gave me that ring.

A cold chill sweeps over me. Why didn't it touch him like it did me, since he was the giver and I was the receiver? Did it really hold such a place in his heart? My eyelashes drop to hide the crystalline tears which drench them. 

I've never been much of a crier. With a mom like Enobaria, you aren't allowed to be. She sees those tears, she puts you to work. In a lot of different ways. 

It was not until I began to feel love in my life--an entirely new feeling--that I began to also feel those achings in my throat and stingings in my eyes. You ask for love, you ask for heartbreak. It's the price. They go hand in hand.

But I know it is worth it. It hurts sometimes, but you can't ask for joy without pain. It's the pain that colors the joy. The darkness that gives worth to the light. I just have to feel the darkness to see the light.