Begin Again [Wattys 2013 Finalist]

Chapter 6

Peeta's POV

My eyes suddenly open and my body jerks up.  I struggle only for a few seconds until I realize I’m restrained.  I’m strapped to a metal table and all at once my body starts shaking again.  Because I remember the last time I was chained like this.  I remember someone coming towards me with a large needle.  And just as I determine the scene is a memory of one of Snow’s men hijacking my brain, the results of his work kick in all at once. I couldn’t even fight it.  Nor did I try, it would be no use, there’s no reason to fight.  I can’t win.  Not now, not ever.  I can’t.  I’m too broken.  They’ll kill me right here.  I won’t even get to see Katniss again.  Katniss.  I lose my grip on reality completely and clench my jaw as my vision blurs.  First on the edges, then slowly filling in until everything is blurred out.

~

I can see clearly now, but I’m still strapped to the metal table.  I look around and then I see her.  It’s Katniss and she looks absolutely beautiful.  But she’s walking towards me slowly, looking at me with cold eyes, and then I see it.  She’s carrying a knife.  She wants to kill me.  But I have to kill her first.  It takes all my strength, but I manage to break the chains that hold me down, and I lunge for her neck, desperately trying to kill her for everything she’s done.  As I wind up to punch, a door opens and hands pull her through it.  Before I know what’s happening, I feel a needle in my neck.  That mutt.

~

I wake up again, but this time, I’m in a bright room with windows on every wall so I can see the snow falling outside.  I’m not restricted so I sit up, still feeling woozy.  I try to recall in my head my flashback.  I always know when I’ve had one, but I can’t always remember what happened.  But now, I remember Katniss trying to kill me with a knife.  I quickly remind myself that it wasn’t Katniss, and no one was trying to kill me.  Katniss isn’t here.  She’s at home and has no desire to kill me.  She has no desire to do anything.  I want to help her but I can’t.  I can only hurt her.  And it hurts me knowing that.  And Haymitch said I should keep my distance.  And now I’m in the Capitol, a million miles away form her.  This is not what I want. Feeling sick, I hug my knees to my chest and rest my head on them, trying to relax.  I hear the door creak open and I lift my head to see Dr. Aurelius.  I give him a half smile.

“Oh, Peeta, what am I going to do with you now?”  He says smiling, half joking, half serious. 

“Nice to see you Doctor,” I politely reply.

“Still charming as ever, I see,” he tells me. 

I smile again, which takes effort, but cut right to the chase. 

“When can I go home?  I hate it here."

“Peeta, what’s left for your there?  There’s nothing.”

I don’t reply, but I turn away and I think he gets the hint. 

“I just don’t want to be here.  This isn’t home.”

“Okay, I’ll make you a deal.  You stay here for a week with me and do therapy.  One week and we’ll see where you are after that.  Okay?”

~

One week goes by and I’ve only had the one episode, so I go talk to Doctor Aurelius, hoping he’ll let me go home.  I knock on his office door and he lets me in. 

“It’s been a week,” I state.

“I know, and I said we’d see where you are.  Sit down Peeta.”

I take the seat right across from his desk. 

He’s blunt with me when he says,

“I don’t think you’re ready to go back, but you don’t really need to stay here.  Is there anywhere else you can go?

I take a minute to think through the list of people I know who aren’t dead.  And then I remember one friend. 

“District 4,” I tell him.