Maybe It Can Be Real

Chapter 35

Ending of last chapter:

My feet shuffle after Peeta as he walks to the door. I watch him walk down the pathway to the gate of the Victor's Village. When he gets to the gate, he turns around and waves to me with a heart-melting smile on his face. I beam at him and wave back.

God, I think I love this man too much. Can you love someone too much? I don't know. Probably not. But I love him a lot, so much that it scares me sometimes. I wouldn't change it for the world, though.

****

"I'm back!", Peeta shouts as he shuts the front door closed behind him.

"In here!", I holler back. I hear his footsteps get louder as he walks toward the room I'm in. He was gone a little longer than expected, but that's okay. He might've stopped at the bakery to check in on how things are with June or something like that.

He smiles when he sees me. "Hi." He's still in his clothes from painting, which consists of dark pants and a plain shirt with some paint splatters here and there. Nothing fancy.

I smile back. "Hey. Were you able to find the seller?"

"Indeed I was," he replies triumphantly. "It was a bit expensive, but it's worth it, in the end."

My head bobs up and down, nodding along with his words. I know I kinda joked abut it earlier, telling Peeta not to spend too much, but it really is worth it in the end.

"Uh, how should we break it to him? I know he's not going to be happy about it," I say warily, already anxious about Haymitch's reaction.

"I'm not really sure, but I know we need to tell him before he tries to go buy more. That would be a disaster," Peeta responds stiffly. "I don't even want to imagine it."

"Should we go now?", I ask, "Before we forget or something?"

He sighs. "Probably. This is not going to be pretty," he says while laughing the slightest bit. I grab his hand in mine and stand up, bringing him with me to the door. We slip out the door, and I don't bother with putting on any shoes.

I suddenly stop in my tracks. "Wait. We should probably hold off on this until he's sober, don't you think?" 

"I dunno. He would figure it out by then 'cause he wouldn't have any liquor to keep him drunk, so he would find out the hard way that he didn't have any liquor. He might handle it better now."

"Or.... we just decrease his intake to like a bottle a week. If he decides to chug it in one day then he won't have any for the rest of the week. That way he probably wouldn't be drunk, but we wouldn't be taking away basically the center of his life," I wonder aloud.

"That's a really good idea, Katniss. We should do that," Peeta says ecstatically.

I draw a deep breath in then let it out a few seconds later. "Well, then let's go," I state somewhat-confidently as I march to Haymitch's house.

****

I stumble down the steps in front of Haymitch's house carrying a couple bottles of liquor in my arms. It went... slightly better than expected. He spouted curse words at us, but he didn't get violent like I thought he would. He was sleeping when we woke him, so I thought it would be a replay from when I woke him up the day of the Victory Tour, a knife flying through the air.