You Said Always

Chapter Five

Peeta POV:

After the fight between me and Katniss, I had to apologize for me and Melanie. I look out the window, and I get a perfect view of Kantiss's house. All the lights are off.

I still walk over to her house and ring her doorbell. I hear quiet footsteps nearing towards the door. Katniss opens it, with a tear stained face and cuts up and down her legs and arms. I gasp at the sight of them.

I look down at the top of her thigh, and the scars write out "MUTT".

"Katniss I-" start to apologize but she cuts me off.

"Just go home to your fiancée Peeta." She mumbles, looking down at her shuffling feet.

"Your arms and legs." Is all I can say. I stare at her, speechless. Why would she do this to herself?

This is all your fault. My conscience tells me. I try to fight back, but I know it's right. I look over at her arms and it says Prim and her mom and dad.

"Tell me when you started cutting." I demand and she rolls her eyes at me.

"Just go home to Melanie. You don't really care about me. You made that clear when you didn't call or write to me after the rebellion, and then you found someone new to love." She snaps, tears swelling up in her eyes.

I'm just standing there speechless. I attempt to say something but she cuts me off again.

"I really did love you." She whimpers, before shutting me out again.

I stand at her front doorstep, dumbfounded. I start to walk back to my house when I hear Katniss's sobs coming from the living room.

"Where were you, baby?" Melanie coos. She had eaten all the cheese buns.

"Just talking to someone." I say, looking down at my feet.

"It wasn't that Kantiss b**ch, was it?" I slowly nod.

"Are you serious!" She screams. "We didn't do anything wrong! She's the one who brought this upon herself. She was the one who was acting your love story the whole time!" I slowly nod again, not knowing what I would be able to say.

Our argument is interrupted by a knocking at the door. I'm just assuming it's Haymitch, coming to give me a lecture about Katniss again. I look out the window to see who it is. It's Katniss.

I rush to the door, trying to get to the door before Melanie does. She beats me to it. She opens the door quickly, already knowing who it is by my reaction.

"Why are you here!" She yells at her. She still has a t-shirt and shorts on, so almost all of her scars are visible, but Melanie doesn't seem to care.

"Here." She says, thrusting a paper, torn out of a book, into my hands. I looked at it, and it was part of the book of plants and family that her father had created. She runs off, not saying another word.

The picture on the page showed me, as a baby, my 2 brothers, and my mom and dad. You were allowed to take 1 picture of your child when they were born, but that was when President Snow was still alive. We had decided to take the picture all together.

I read the words below the picture:

"Marcus - Died at age 41. Father of Ryan, Tyler and Peeta Mellark. Husband of Jeanine Mellark. Curly bloke hair. Quiet and kind.

Jeanine - Died at age 39. Mother of Ryan, Tyler and Peeta Mellark. Wife of Marcus Mellark. Blonde hair and blue eyes. Abusive to her sons."

"Tyler - Died at age 20. Son of Marcus and Jeanine Mellark. Eldest brother of Ryan and Peeta Mellark. Curly blonde hair and blue eyes. Muscular, but kind."

"Ryan - Died at age 19. Son of Marcus and Jeanine Mellark. Younger brother to Tyler Mellark and eldest brother of Peeta Mellark. Curly blonde hair and blue eyes."

"Peeta - Still alive. Son of Marcus and Jeanine Mellark. Youngest brother of Tyler and Ryan Mellark. Curly blonde hair and blue eyes. You just melt into his embrace, when he hugs you. He's the sweetest person you will ever meet. He saved my life, and I'm in love with him. "

The words 'I'm in love with him.' Repeat in my head. She must have made it during or after the rebellion.

"What's that?" Melanie asks innocently, looking over my shoulder to get a better look of the paper.

"It's noting." I say. "It's a page in a book we had written together. The book tells us about dead people and which plants are edible and which plants are poisonous." I crumple up the paper, but I soon regret it.

When Melanie goes to bed, I dig through the trash to find the paper. I finally find it, and flatten it out.

"Did she really care that much about me?" I ask myself.

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Kantiss POV:

It's been a week since I've eaten a full meal. All I usually have is a piece of fruit that is shoved down my throat by Haymitch. I eventually just lock the doors so he can't make me eat so much.

I know before I said that I wouldn't starve myself to death. Saying that it would take me too long, but now I'm just too depressed to do anything. I wake up from nightmares every night, that were worse than ever before. I had Peeta to comfort me when I got those nightmares, but now I have to live with sleeping 4 hours every night, because I'm too afraid to go back asleep. I know that if I drift back off, the nightmares are going to be worse than the one before.

I hear a knock on the door. I'm not surprised it Haymitch. He just let me do whatever I had wanted the whole week I was starving myself.

"Open up!" He yells, trying to open the door.

"Why should I?" I snap back.

"Because we need to talk to you." He yells, now trying  to kick the door open.

"Who's we?" I yell back. "If Peeta's there, I'm definitely not opening the door."

"We'll you're going to have to deal." He yells, before finally kicking the door open with Peeta's help. I yelp, and try to wipe up my blood from my new scars.

They both stare at me, in my own puddle of blood. It's mostly dripping from my arms, and onto the floor.

"You shouldn't help me." I whisper. "I'm beyond any help you can get me."

"We care about you Katniss." Peeta says. I glare at him and he backs away from me. I grab the razor blade from the table and wave it in front of their faces.

"Why start to care about me when I'm just eventually going to kill myself." I say, tracing the point if the razor. "Why don't I just do it now." I hold up the blade to my neck. "No one would care. No one else loves me." I let a tear escape my eye as I push the blade into my flesh.

I look over at Peeta and Haymitch. They both try to come closer, but that just makes me push the blade farther into my throat.

"Don't." Peeta pleads, reaching his hand out to me.

"Why would you care?" I snap. I remove the blade from my throat, and Peeta and Haymitch inch forward. I let my finger go along the cut on my neck to get enough blood on my finger. On the floor next to me, I spell out "YOU SAID ALWAYS."

And that's when I slit my throat.

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