The Girl With The Silver Eyes

Chapter 4

Peeta

I'm woken by Katniss' screams coming from my room. I get up and go into the room to see her thrashing in the bed screaming. I go to her side and gently shake her awake. He shoots up and pushes me away from her and pulls her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth. She's crying and I go back to her bedside.

"Katniss?" I ask. "Are you okay?" She shakes her head and I sit on the bed next to her and hold her as she shakes. Eventually her breathing calms and she pushes me away, although not as roughly as before.

"You can go now," she says. "The weak little poor girl is all better now."

"I don't believe that's true," I say. "You're still shaking."

"It was just a nightmare," she says. "I'm better now. You can leave."

"What was it about?" I ask.

"None of your business," she says.

"Please Katniss," I plead.

"Just leave me alone," she says. "Thank you for waking me up, but it's none of your business what I dream about. Please leave me alone now."

"Alright," I say, although I really don't want to leave her the way she is. "But remember, I'm right next door." I give her hand a squeeze and then get off the bed and make my way to the door.

"It was about my dad okay," she says making me turn back to her. "It was about my dad dying."

"Do you want to talk about it?" I ask her.

"Not really, but I feel bad sending you back to your room looking like a kicked puppy," she says. "I woke you up. I guess you deserve to know why I was screaming."

"If it scared you that much, you don't have to tell me," I tell her.

"I need to tell someone," she says. "Someone other than Prim."

"You can tell me," I say. "That is, if you want to."

"Do you know what happened?" she asks. "It was all over the papers, but I don't know that an eleven year old who wasn't the child of one of the victims would know about it."

"There was an explosion, right?" I ask as I sit down next to her again. She nods.

"I remember hearing the sirens, coming from the mines," she says. "I don't know how or why, but I knew. I knew that it was my father. I snuck out of school at lunch, taking Prim with me. She was only seven. I ran to the mines and choked on the smoke. I still remember the screams of the widows as they found out their husbands' fates. There were no survivors. I saw my mother, kneeling on the ground. She wasn't crying. She just clutched the tattered miner's shirt that bore my father's name and stared blankly ahead. I screamed at her, begging her to tell what happened to my daddy. But she never answered. Just sat there, clutching the scorched rag that was the shirt my father wore to work that morning." She wipes tears off her face, but I see more forming in her eyes.

"It's okay," I whisper. "You don't have to say anymore."

"I remember the funeral," she continues. "Barely a soul came. They gave me a medal, because I was the eldest child. I remember just staring at it, flipping it in my fingers, knowing that no matter how they tried to make up for it, they could never make up for taking away my Daddy."

"I remember," I say. "I was there. I know you weren't really aware of everything that was happening, but I'm the one who helped you down from the tree when you ran after they started burying the casket. You were hiding in a willow tree and singing."

"That was you wasn't it," she says. "You gave me the dandelion and helped me find my mom."

"Yeah," I say. "It was me."

"Why were you there?" she asks. "Its not like you knew him."

"I did though," I say. "He used to trade at the bakery. My father said he had been doing it since before you were born. I was there with my father. He said that he was good friends with your mother when they were children. He wanted to comfort her. And I volunteered to go with him."

"You were nice to me," she says. "We were strangers yet you were nice to me. First helping me out of the tree and then giving me the bread. Why?"

"I don't know if I should tell you," I say.

"Why?" she asks. "Why all the secrecy?"

"Because I don't want to ruin the start of a friendship," I say.

"How could telling me the truth possibly ruin that?" she asks.

"Because it will," I say standing. "You have no idea the affect you have on me. How I've admired you for more than eleven years and never had the courage to walk up to you."

"Why?" she asks.

"Because I'm in love with you, okay," I say standing up. "I have been since I was five, okay." Katniss gets up and walks over to me. Her beautiful sliver eyes study me and are questioning.

"Why me?" she asks. "Of all the beautiful girls our age around here, you choose me."

"Because you are the most beautiful, intelligent, and courageous girl I've ever seen. When you sing, the birds stop to listen. At least, that's how I remember it. I haven't heard you sing since your father's funeral, excluding tonight," I say.

"You heard that?" she asks, what I can swear is a faint blush flooding her cheek.

"Yeah,' I say. "I heard it."

"So you've loved me, since we were both five years old?" she asks.

"Yes," I say. "Since the first day of kindergarten."

"And to think I only started to really notice you when you gave me that bread," she says. "That's really how you feel?"

"Yes, that's how I feel," I say and she looks down at the ground. "Well, say something."

"I'm not good at saying something," she says, but then she surprises me by pressing her lips to mine.