Mentors

1

The sun persists in rising, so I make myself stand. I'm back in the woods beyond the fence, waiting for any possible game, with an armed arrow as I watch the sun rise. I hear leaves ruffle on the winter ground, and out of instinct, I turn on one heel and send an arrow in that direction. What voice tells me that I'm still in the arena? Fortunately, the arrow sticks into a nearby tree, because I see my long term best friend, Gale standing there, alarmed. I hop down from the rock, and retrieve my arrow in the tree. I give him a warm smile, happy with his company. Although I'm in no mood to talk to Gale right now, because I don't feel like explaining myself.
"Apology accepted." He says, watching me closely.
"I'm sorry, you usually don't make any sounds in the leaves, the steps you made were intentional." I start to skin a squirrel.
"That's not what I mean."
I turn to him and notice his facial expression. He wants an explanation. The topic I was trying to avoid. What does that matter? I haven't even as much spoken to Peeta, after he figured out my love for him was an act. It wasn't entirely, I kept us both alive. I wanted us both alive.
"I don't want to talk right now."
I put my bow and arrows into my usual hollow tree log.
"You're going to have to explain what went on in that arena some time! Why not now!" He raises his voice at me.
It takes all I have in me to not yell back at him. "Why must I explain to you what had happened? Are you and I in some type of relationship that I don't know about? It was an act, Gale." He starts again when I cut him off with my hand. "I'll see you later, the victory tour... I leave soon."
Gale takes both my shoulders, and aggressively kisses me, and I pull away startled. "Just once. I just had to do that once."

I start heading out of the woods, and walk through district 12, toward victors village. I have a mixture of anger, and disgust. I never looked at Gale that way before, but he's someone who is very close to me. We struggled with keeping our families alive, with the tragic deaths of both of our fathers. But I relate to Peeta in a much closer way. Our multiple near death experiences. How can I just pretend that Peeta doesn't exist off cameras and then throw myself at him when they're on? I can't do that. But I can't push away Gale's feelings. I've been walking slow, and I realize I'm not even half way to victors village. I catch Peeta walking out of the bakery, and I find my feet moving toward him. Tears begin to sting my eyes as I run. He notices me and he puts the bags in his hands down, giving me a concerned, sad look. I notice my legs leaping faster, and I make myself slow down by screeching my boots on the snow before wrapping my arms around him. I have no idea what to say, but it would sure be easier to explain anything, or even everything to Peeta. I haven't even properly spoken to him in a while, he smells of bakery.

Instead of telling him about Gale, in which I was going to, I let my tears fall onto the back of his neck. "What's wrong?" He whispers. I think for a minute. "I don't know." His arms find my waist, like they always used to, and he pulls me closer. "We should go." He pulls himself away to look at my face, and his warm hands dry my tears.
He picks up the multiple bags as we start walking, and I offer to carry half of them. His free hand rests on my shoulder as we make our way down the seam, not acknowledging the glances from various people.

We go our separate ways once he walks me to my doorstep because our prep teams will be here shortly. I go upstairs to the bathroom, where a steaming tub awaits. My mother has added a small bag of dried flowers that perfumes the air. I've been trying hard to mend my relationship with my mother. Asking her to do things instead of brushing aside any offer of help, as I did for years out of anger. We only had cold water at our home in the seam, and a bath meant boiling the rest over a fire. The luxury baths still need some getting used to. I slide down into the water, letting it block out the sounds around me. Even underwater I can hear the sounds of commotion. I just have time to towel off and slip into a robe before my prep team bursts into the bathroom. There's no such thing as privacy between the three of us and me.
I've let my leg hair and eyebrows grow back in, which won't be very exciting to them. Octavia grabs my hand and pins it flat between her two pea green ones. "Really, Katniss, you could have left me something to work with!" she wails.
It's true. I've bitten my nails to stubs in the past couple months. I mutter an apology. They get along with ripping the hair from my body as their words overlap in a blur of excitement.
"In your very first year of being a victor, you get to mentor in a quarter quell!"
"Isn't it thrilling?"
"Don't you feel so lucky?"
In a normal year, being a mentor to the tributes is the staff of nightmares. I can't walk by the school now without wondering what kid I'll have to coach. To make things worse, this year is the 75th hunger games, and that means it's also a quarter quell. They occur every twenty five years, marking the anniversary of the districts defeat with over the top celebrations and, for extra fun, some miserable twist for the tributes. I've never been alive for one. I remember hearing about the second quarter quell, the Capitol demanded that twice the number of tributes be provided for the arena. The teachers didn't go into detail about it at school, which is surprising, because that was the year that the memorable, Haymitch Albernathy had won.
He was given much credit after bringing home two victors from our district. I credit him, too. Although surprised he was sober enough to pull something like this off. In a way, I'm sort of glad that Peeta and I will be mentors this year because I'm sure, Haymitch will be wasted.
Before I even have time to think, I'm prepped and it's time to be shoved out the door. There are cameras outside our front porches, as they will broadcast our entrance to the train. Caesar Flickerman does his wonderful job of introducing us as the star crossed lovers of district 12.
As I hop down the steps in more excitement to finally embrace Peeta again, I see him walk out of his door, not shoved like I was. He gives the cameras a smile that would have the Capitol go crazily insane. Catching sight of me, both of our grins grow as we walk towards each other. We do a brief catchup with Caesar and then were off to the train.