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

Chapter 38

                   

Another month has come and gone. The sickness, although it has subsided, is still here. I don't tell Peeta anymore. He's usually up and out before me at the bakery most mornings so he never has to see it.

I spend my days in the woods, never hunting, but gathering fruits and edible plants that we can use in our meals. Now that Spring is around the corner the woods are starting burst with life again. Animals are coming out from hibernation with more confidence than they ever had before. Their main predator has ceased her fire so they are free to roam as much as they please.

Being outside, in the green-leafed environment that I grew up in, stops my mind from spinning in circles. I collect, I gather, I walk. That is my routine. Any little change and I feel the world slipping from beneath my feet.

My nightmares return with a vengeance. They always start out the same. I am rocking a baby back and forth in my arms, singing a gentle lullaby. Peeta watches us proudly from the doorway. All at once everything feels perfect. Then the room goes dark and it all goes wrong. Peeta becomes his hijacked self and I can do nothing but stand helplessly by as I watch him rip our baby from my grasp and lock his hands around it's little throat. The next night President Snow makes an appearance, feeding my child to the wolf mutt with Cato's eyes.

I wake screaming, thrashing around in the sheets, at the arms that try to contain me. Disorientated by my dream, everything is a threat until Peeta's voice pulls me back through. He holds my shivering body until the whimpering dies down. The remaining hours till dawn trickle slowly by. Sometimes, the sun takes so long to come that I wonder if it has forgotten to rise.

When Peeta asks to talk about it, I brush it off as another twisted arena flashback. Lying to him only adds another weight to my shoulders but for some reason I can't bring myself to break it to him. And why should I? He'd only be disappointed that I can't be as excited about this as he is. Could he understand that this was never on the cards for me? That this is yet another game I never wanted to play?

I can feel the strain that this secret is having on us. I've barely let him touch me in the last month and as someone who knows me better than anyone else, I know that he can see that my deflections are not by accident. It's not because I don't want to, I do. But I'm afraid that something as simple as a kiss will give me away, that he might be able to taste the lies on my lips. When he asks what's going on, I become defensive and hostile. It usually ends in a heated argument and us with our backs to each other at opposite ends of the bed. Some how though, through his and my night horrors, we find a way to meet in the middle and we are back in each others arms by the morning. And the day goes on as the one before.  

But when I come home one blustery afternoon and find a subdued Peeta sitting by the fire in the kitchen, I know that I can't play out my 'it's not happening' scenario for much longer.

He sits in the old rocking chair, gazing into the flames that dance wildly on his irises. His sketchbook lays in his lap but his pencil is unmoving. He's deep in thought, the frown lines on his face indicating his unhappiness.  

"Artist block?" I ask.

He jumps a little as he reverts his gaze onto me. I smile at him and nod my head at his blank page. He looks down and lets out a small laugh.

"Yeah, I've been sat here for the past hour and nothing has come to me," he says. 

I move further into the kitchen and place my game bag on to the table.

"I got you something today," I say, removing the blackberries that I collected earlier. I put them into a bowl and wash them under the sink before handing them over to Peeta.