I Just Want to be Me

Part III Peeta: A story of finding peace

A/N: Here it is! The final part!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.

Part III Peeta: A story of finding peace

The first punch is always the most painful. It is the one that makes way for the rest. It rattles the bones and twists the stomach. The rest just pile on top, making the original pain build up into a crescendo of agony that results in you curling up into a ball and wishing for it all to be over.

Some of these beatings are brutal, others are brief just to put me in my place. According to them I deserve it and someday I will thank them when they finally manage to beat it out of me. Because to them I am wrong and everything I stand for is wrong. They're helping me though, apparently. Apparently, when I finally come to my senses I'll thank them for helping me see how wrong I've been. That how I have felt since I was five years old has been wrong. That they know how I should be and in beating me they are showing me what way that is.

They feel like they have the right to determine my gender.

I have always hated the whole 'I am not your ordinary eighteen year old teen' but, in my case, I'd say it's true. For my entire life I've felt out of place. I thought when I figured out what was wrong with me, people would be accepting when I tried to change myself. You know, want me to be happy. Except, they weren't. Boy, were they angry.

My parents didn't like it. I didn't except them to be immediately happy. It was a bit of a curveball I sent their way. However, I thought they would adjust. I thought they would understand that this would make me comfortable in myself and the life I'm going to lead in the future. And, as my parents, I thought they would support me.

They didn't.

I don't care though. This is who I am. Of course, I can't go walking around putting it on display. Not yet. I can't. Not until I leave District 12 and find somewhere where people don't know me as just Peeta. I have it all planned out. When I leave school, I will leave 12 to pursue college or university in a different District, maybe even a different country altogether. Then I can change myself completely.

I didn't want the people at school to find out. I go to Capitol High School for Boys, a building stuffed to the hilt with testosterone. I didn't have any intention for any of the boys in my class to find out about my future plans. No, I didn't want them to know. I figured they'd find out in the future when I was long gone but then it wouldn't matter because I'd be happy and be living a good, honest life far, far away from them.

It was an accident. I got pushed into a corridor by someone rushing to class and the palette I took from my mother's room fell out of my backpack. Nobody knows the full story, they only think I'm a sissy, but it's enough for them to treat me like a punching bag.

They don't know that I am fascinated by being a girl.

I don't know if I want to be a girl, not completely. I'm comfortable as a boy, I am, really. There's just something about girls that peeks my interest. Not in the sexual way-I'm as straight as a roundabout-but in a different way.

I've never worn a dress, or a skirt, or any form of feminine clothing. However, when I see other girls in similar clothes, I can't help feeling like it's something I'd be a lot more comfortable in. I used to do it when I was a kid, according to my brothers (who told me this before they knew, now they deny it ever happened). I'd steal my mum's clothes and walk around my parents' room putting on a voice and trying to be like her.

I know this is who I should be but . . . nobody else seems to understand. My family think if they ignore it then it will go away. The boys at my school think they can beat it out of me. Nobody has ever said, "Peeta, is this who you want to be? Because if it is, even though I don't completely understand it, I will support you." They want me to be unhappy. They want me to be something that I'm not. I know they would be more than happy for me to pretend, to act like being Peeta is something that I am more than obliged to do. But it's not. I am painfully uncomfortable. Every day I wake up filled with dread because I know I must walk out of my room and to continue a charade that is tearing me apart bit by bit. Soon there will be none of me left to pretend with.