The Hunger games - I'm still breathing (Everlark)

Chapter 33

So many people. So many people died because of me.

My sobs are carried away on the wind. I clamber along the grassy pathway, tripping on the uneven ground. A row of multicoloured houses stand on my right, a cliff-face to my left. I stop and stare closely at the houses, they are identical to the ones in the Victor's Village in District twelve. This must be District Four's Victor's Village.

Victors who are now dead or mentally broken. Because of me.

I turn away from the lifeless houses and find myself stumbling towards the cliff. I don't stop until my toes are poking over the edge. One step. That's all it would take. One step and I'd be exactly where I should be, where I deserved to be.

I look down at the jagged rocks that stick into the air. The foamy waves breaking over them. There would be no coming back. Fear causes a round of choked noises to escape from my mouth. But I can't stay here, not after everything I've done.

What are you waiting for? Jump.

I shake my head in despair. I don't want to do this.

Think of all those people who died in your place.

"Please stop," I cry. I move my hands up to my head, gripping onto my hair and pulling hard.

I can pull as hard as I like, it won't stop the voices.

Jump.

"Peeta," I wail, turning my head back to look at the hotel in the distance that he's sleeping peacefully in right now.

What would he do if he woke up and found me gone? If he found out that I would never be coming back to him? I feel his grief stab my heart a thousand times over.

Do you think he actually cares? He doesn't love you. He never did. All he feels is pity for you.

Is that true? Peeta never loved me? That can't be true, not after everything he's done for me. But maybe he does pity me? Maybe he only stays with me because he has no where else to go? How could I expect Peeta to love me when I don't even like myself? I hate who I am, what I've become. A broken shell of a girl. Unfixable. I'll never get back to the girl I was before I volunteered as a tribute for my sister. Peeta knows that. He can't love me.

Thoughts and voices whir around my brain, arguing against one another. They make me second guess everything that I know and convince me that they're true all at the same time.

One step.

That would shut them up for good.

The sea breeze whips my hair across my face, sending shivers down my spine. My silk night dress flaps against my knees. I look up at the stars twinkling in the sky, taking comfort in that fact that I could be one of them by tomorrow night. I'd never leave Peeta really, not if I was shining down on him every time the sun set. I promised him always, what a better way to give it to him?

One step. Go.

"You'd never make a fall like that."

That wasn't a voice in my head. I crane my neck around to discover where it came from.

"But that's what you want isn't it?" Annie Cresta comes into view behind me. She has an oversized dressing gown on that she holds tightly to her waist. She walks slowly towards me, stopping by my side and looking out towards the sea.

I say nothing, unable to answer her question. After a few moments of silence, she turns and looks me in the eyes. She smiles empathetically at me.

"It's okay. I've been here, done this, felt everything you're feeling right now. I've lost count of the number of times I've contemplated throwing myself off this cliff," she says.

"What stopped you?" I ask.

She turns and looks back towards the houses.

"I have a baby, a baby who needs me. He's the only piece of Finnick that I have left. So I have to be here to look after him and to treasure him. I can't do that if I'm laying dead at the bottom of the ocean," she says.

"Annie, I'm so sorry..." I start to say but distress clogs itself in my throat. I could say sorry a million times but it wouldn't change anything. It could never make up for what she's lost.

"He chose to leave and fight with you in the Capitol, Katniss, that wasn't your fault," she says.

I shake my head looking back down, the rocks look almost welcoming now.

"You have Peeta to think about."

Just hearing his name makes me feel guilty.

"Peeta would be better off without me," I say quietly.

"You're wrong," she starts, "Do you remember how he was the first time you got him back from the Capitol?"

My hands instinctively go up to my neck as I picture our first meeting. Peeta's eyes wild and afraid, his hands squeezing the life out of me.

"Well compare that Peeta, to the Peeta you have now."

I think about waking up next to him. His smile being the first thing I see. The way he handles me when I go down, always bringing me back up. Always.

"You alone pulled him out from the nightmare he was living, no one else. He needs you, more than you know. Don't leave him like this. Trust me, it hurts to be left behind."

And with that she is gone.