The Hunger games - I'm still breathing (Everlark)

Chapter 15

We sit across from each other, staring into space. The silence is uncomfortable and neither one of us wants to be the first to fill it. My sprained wrist lies limply in my lap, my other hand holds a cloth to Peeta's head. The blood has only just started to ease up. Greasy Sae said that his cut wasn't deep, despite the amount of blood. There shouldn't be any major problems apart from a throbbing headache. I can give him some of my mother's old medicines that were left here to help him with that though.

Thom, Gale's friend, and some others from town helped to carry Peeta back to my house. I stumbled along behind, rejecting Gale's offer to lean on him for support. Sae arrived moments after we'd got in, cleaned me up and tended to my wrist. After inspecting Peeta's head, she told me just to keep a damp cloth on it. Then she left, leaving this complicated triangle of people behind.

I take Gale in; he's still as handsome as he was before. He looks stronger, sturdier, his shirtsleeves stretched tightly over his biceps. His face is tired though, the bags under his eyes give away the sleepless nights he must have had. His eyes hold something familiar, something I see in my reflection every day. Guilt.

His bomb, his plan that was never intended to be used on the Capitol's children, the District 13 medics, Prim. He's taken full responsibility for those deaths. I wonder if they appear in his nightmares.

I try to figure out how I feel about him. My best friend, who blew up half of my world. Who took my sister away from me. But I can't place all the blame on him, how could he have known what Coin was going to do? None of us knew. I love him, but I don't think it's in the way that he would like it to be. Any romance I felt towards him before is gone. Where I would have wanted to kiss him before, I only want to hug him now.

I can't even bring myself to look him in the eye though, not without seeing Prim on fire in them. No matter how much I want to forgive him right now, I can't just forget what he did.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, looking at the ground.

He clears his throat before replying.

"I just came to see if you were okay?" he says.

"I'm fine," I say bluntly, not wanting to talk to him about what it's been like.

"Really? Because that whole scene in the town didn't look fine to me," he says, casting a glare towards Peeta.

"He had a flashback! It was fine, I had it under control, Gale," I say, feeling my temper rising with him.

"Letting him strangle you to death was under control was it?" Gale says sarcastically.

"It would be better for everyone if I was dead anyway," I mutter under my breath.

Gale's bat-like ears still hear though.

"Don't say stuff like that, Katniss."

To distract myself from looking at Gale, I take the cloth away from Peeta's head and attempt to wrap a bandage around it, which proves difficult with only one hand.

"Here, let me," Gale says, taking the bandage from my hand and re-wrapping it in more of a neater fashion.

"Does he have them flashbacks a lot?" he asks.

"No, not very often." I say, brushing some of Peeta's sticky curls off his forehead.

"Does he hurt you?" he asks again, watching my movements and staring at me as if an alien had taken over my body.

"No, this is the first time in ages that he's got physical," I reply.

He takes a deep breath before getting his next sentence out.

"I don't think you should be living with him, Katniss. It's not safe for you."

I stay silent, blocking out his last few words.

"Did you hear me? It's not safe..."

"Who do you think you are, Gale? You abandon me for District 2 and suddenly return and think you can start telling me what to do? You have no idea what Peeta has been through and you have no idea how much he helps me get through each day. We help each other and without him I wouldn't still be here. It may not be safe but I'm not giving up on him," I rant.

Gale's mouth locks into a straight line, his jaw muscles tightening.

"I think you should go," I whisper.

"Do you love him?" he asks.

This question takes me by surprise. It's one I've asked myself many times. Do I love Peeta? He's everything a girl could wish for. He's caring. He's there for me when I need him, always looking out for me. He paints. His paintings are breath taking, drawing you in to that beautiful part of his mind. His words. They could enrapture anyone with their smoothness. The same words he can stop my screaming fits with after a nightmare. I don't have to think about it for very long before I get my answer.

"It's none of your business how I feel, Gale. It doesn't change anything," I say, walking towards the front door and opening it for him.

He walks slowly towards me, his face down cast.

"There used to be a time where your business was my business too," he says, his voice breaking.

His comment tears my heart in half and causes a lump to form in my throat. I finally look up to meet his eyes, grey and dark like mine. Tears threaten to spill over the edge of them.

Before I think about what I'm doing, I lean in and hug him. I try to close the distance that the war has wedged between us but I only feel further apart from him. He feels it too, as he pulls back and walks straight through the door not looking back once.

Maybe he's gone for good now. I long for a previous time, a previous place. Where I was the real Katniss, alive and thriving. Where Gale was Gale, voicing his opinions and teaching me snare traps. When we had each other's backs and we were held together by the same drive to keep our families safe. When he carried me home after I fell out of a tree and when I blotted his bleeding nose when he walked into a tree.

Times like that could never be re-created, it could never happen again. We were two very similar people and that has led to our downfall.

My thoughts are broken by the sound of moaning coming from the living room. I walk in and see Peeta stirring on the couch. I sit by his side and clutch on to his hand and voice the three words that have been roaming in my head for him.

"I love you."