Pure Torture: a Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 41

Katniss

"But I'm busy mending broken pieces of the life I had before." -muse

One pill. Twice every day. Every time I take one, a Nurse comes in with a paper cup and a bottle of pills prescribed to me. She takes one out of the bottle and places it in my hand. It's this time of day I dread most. Sometimes the side effects come, but other times they stay away. I'm getting used to the occasional headache and my losing focus is kept at a minimum thanks to a bit of hard work.

It's the depression that accompanies my medicine that's hard to handle or fight. The depression sends me to places darker than I ever knew existed. My nightmares become reality there. It takes me to a world where there is no me and Peeta. My sister is gone. My mother is somewhere else. Gale has abandoned me completely. There is no music and no nature or hunting. There is only me and the surroundings that make no sense to me without the people I love.

The only time I can catch a break from the dark places is when I'm asleep. I find myself napping more than ever, even when I'm not tired. I wake only for my meals and my medicine, or whenever someone is there with me. I'm lying in bed, attempting to sleep again, when I hear a light knock on the doorframe. My eyes fly open to see the last person I would have expected to see there. My mother.

My mom, either too heartbroken or too exhausted, never came to see me until now. I try to act as if it didn't matter, try to tell myself I don't care, but it hurt. I'll admit it. She's dressed in her nurse uniform and had her hair pulled back. Her face is pale and she looks terrified. Is she terrified of me?

"Mom?" I ask.
"Katniss?" She replies. She takes a step into the room, looking around cautiously.
"What are you doing in here?" I ask.
My mom takes a couple more steps in. She comes towards me a little, then hesitates. I push my hair back behind my ears.
"It's alright, mom. I'm not going to do anything." I say. Everything that statement implies feels wrong. The fact that I have to comfort my mom isn't unfamiliar to me. But what's alien to me is having to assure her I'm not going to hurt her.

She walks towards my bed and sits in the little chair next to it. She pulls it up closer to me and I decide to sit up the whole way.
"Why are you here?" I repeat.
"I wanted to come and see you, finally. I understand you've been through a lot. Look at you. My brave little girl. I'm so proud of you." She says. Tears are welling in her eyes.
"Mom..." I start. But she doesn't let me continue.

"I knew you were going to be just like your father. A fighter. A survivor. I know he'd be so proud of you." She says.
I want to thank her or say something nice to her, but the only thing that's able to come out of my mouth is,
"Why didn't you come and see me, mom? I was in here forever. You never came to see me."

When I ask, her eyes fill even more with tears. Her face is as white as a sheet.
"I'm sorry..." She says through tears.
"It just feels like old times again. Mom, I needed you. I needed as much support as I could get. But you weren't there when I needed you. It's like when Dad died, we needed you. You weren't there and I had to do it all alone." I say.

Her lip quivers.
"I'm so sorry... It was so hard for me, too, Katniss. Having to watch you go off to the Games, and then going again... I thought you were going to die. And then when you were captured. When they got you back here, I was so prepared for it to all be alright. And then, when it turned out that you were Hijacked... It was just really hard for me to watch." She says.

I'm about to say something cutting about how she didn't have to watch because she wasn't even there, but something tells me she really feels bad. It's hard for her to tell me in the right way because she doesn't know how it really is to feel like I do.
"It's okay." I say. I try to understand how she feels.
Her head flies up to look at me.
"What?" She says.
"I said its okay. I understand." I repeat.
Ignoring the headache, I get up off of the bed.