Die for You | Catching Fire

chapter twenty-six

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chapter twenty-six
IN A BLINK

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Two-thousand, one-hundred and ninety hours. Ninety days. Three months. It all goes by in a blink. Moments turned into memories that Sage holds bittersweetly to her heart as she sits in front of her brother's tree.

They all blur by her like scenery through a train's window.

Entertaining her mother and trying to cook her famous recipes together in the kitchen, Sage's hands lacking the touch she has while they barely scrounge up something edible for the campfire. The way her father's face creases all over when he laughs at one of his own jokes, a rare occurance after his son's death, the first time she heard it again healing a battered part of her heart and bringing a tear to her eye. She was scared she'd never get to see her mother smile or hear her father's laugh again. At least not before...

Almanzo on top of his horse as he oversees the cattle with a seasoned squint, looking just as commanding and powerful as their father. Coretta strumming her guitar and humming Spanish lyrics that are sweet to her ears like honey. Shiloh and her racing their horses out through the pastures to catch a glimpse of the streaking comets in May. Then little Erabelle, always so volatile these days, starting to ride Hero all by herself, Sage trotting with Sunshine right alongside her. Everyone singing around Sage for what could be her last birthday ever.

When she wasn't with her family in Green Grove, she was with Shep and Penny in Fairfort. There's their quiet gardening each day beneath the hot sun. Penny and Sage ripping weeds out of the dirt as if they were President Snow's heart — it almost therapeutic. Deliveries to Mrs. Dorset. Shep teaching Arlo new tricks. That night they all drank several beers on her porch and cried.

Then there's the moments with Ptolemus. A visit to Ten as they had a picnic in one of her family's pastures. His hands guiding hers around the clay spinning along his wheel in Two. Dances in pretty dresses at Capitol parties and dances in the kitchen barefoot. Lazy mornings in the condo, neither of them ready to leave the bed and be whisked back to their Districts.

It all goes by in a blink.

Sage plays with the dirt and grass beneath her brother's tree mindlessly, the sun beginning to set and vibrant oranges painting the sky. She's painfully aware of the weight of her heart as it heaves and aches in her chest. It sinks and sinks with the setting sun. The silence is what gets her. Throbbing silence as she sits here, her brother buried deep within the dirt, tongue finally running out of things to say.

"I wish you were here," she murmurs. Her fingers rub the grains of dirt between each other as she watches them fall back down into the earth. "I wish you could say something stupid and try to make me forget again."

She remembers her last Reaping, name finally plucked from the bowl by Philo's hand. The moment she was shut into that awful room, her entire family came barreling in, everyone crying and holding her. Colt only tried to make everyone laugh even though he wanted to cry too.

"You couldn't have held off your antics for just four more months?" she asks, voice tight in her throat.

Sage lifts her head and looks to his tree, expecting an answer. Her lips quiver into a pout, and she forces a wry smile, tears stinging her eyes again. If Colt would've waited, maybe she could've saved him with this plan, him and the rest of her family to be rescued too.

Well, the plan has to work, first.

It will. It has to. She'll make sure it will. If it's the last thing she does, she's going to aid the rebellion, help Katniss and Peeta get out to Thirteen, and save everyone she loves along the way.