You Only Live Once

Chapter 12

Someone shakes me awake. I groggily open my eyes, immediatly being blinded with the light that comes through the car's window.

"Wakie wakie, sleepy head." Peeta says softly, while shaking my shoulder's lightly. I grunt in response.

"Are we there yet?" I ask him, rubbing my eyes.

"Nope!" Peeta answers, getting out of the car. I open the car's door to view where we are.

"Where are we?" I ask Peeta, since the only thing I see is a parking lot. The sun is already setting, we should be in campus by now, where the hell did Peeta take me this time?

"I decided there was time for a sligh detour. Don't worry, we should be in campus before dawn." Peeta answers. With that he starts walking, and I pick up my pace to catch up to him.

"What are we going to do?" I ask Peeta, sounding light a desperate child. Peeta simply points to our front. My gazze lands on the silhouete of a ferris wheel. "A fair?" I ask curiously.

"Yeah, since today is our last day in our roadtrip, I thought we could make the most of it." Peeta explains. I smile at him.

The moment we enter the fair I'm invaded with the smell of cotton candy and corndogs. A catchy song travels through the air, making me feel that I'm a child again, and the atmosphere is simply vibrating. Everywhere I look there are this diversion stands with games, or people dressed in red and white stripped vests and funny hats selling treats.

Peeta heads to a small man selling toys and stuff like that and gets a pink balloon chapes like an unicorn. He walks towards me and gives it to me. I laugh, blushing slightly, and thank him.

"How did you come across this place?" I ask Peeta, while we walk around, still not taking my eyes from the unicorn balloon.

"I've been coming here since I was a child." Peeta states. "Well, before I got sick, that is. While I was in the hospital, the thing I missed the most to do was coming here. Now that I think about it, I don't evem know why I loved to come here so much."

"I like it. I understand why you enjoyed coming here so much, it's kind of like what every kid wants to do: eat candies and dance around for no particular reason." I argue. Peeta laughs.

"Correction, it's what everyone wants to do, no matter the age." he states.

After walking around for a while, Peeta and I decide to buy some hot dogs from a food stand, and I end devouring both mine and Peeta's food, resulting in Peeta laughing at me and a very awkward moment when I smudged some ketchup in my face and Peeta cleans it with his thumb.

We are buying some cotton candy when I spot one of those games where you have to shoot down some cardboard picture with small guns. Suddenley I'm hit with a image of grey eyes and dark hair, shooting down cardboard cowboys, while my 7 year old self begged him to let me try it to. The simple memory of my brother playing that game in the summer festival brings tears to my eyes. "Princesses can't carry weapons, birdie."he had said. It was our game, we always played it in the summer festival, and he always won.

I tap Peeta's shoulder, who is paying the cotton candy and point towards the stand. "Can we go play that?" I ask him.

"Sure." Peeta answers handing me a pink collored cotton candy. I basically run to the stand and immediatly pick up a gun. "Someone's eager to play this." Peeta teases, while handling a dollar to the bored looking guy that sits behind the stand. "Let me warn you that I'm pretty amazing at this game." Peeta says, taking one of the guns for himself.

I chuckle before answering. "I'm sure I can handle a little competence."

Obviously, with all those afternoons I spent playing this game with my brother at the festival held in our neighbourhood every summers, I easily win the game. Peeta doesn't completely suck at this game, but he was certainly overreacting when he said he was pretty amazing at this. I smirk when my score is twice higher than Peeta's.