Real or not real? (everlark)

34

These characters as well as their original story belong completely to Suzanne Collins.

"Katniss, you better open this door!" Peeta yells, pounding on it with his fist. "Katniss!"
I sit on my bed, staring up at the ceiling fan. I've long since stopped trying to explain the situation to Peeta. The fact that I refuse to continue living with such a large chunk of my family dead. I've been in here for three days, and I'm starving. My stomach seems to growl louder by the passing second, and I feel like it's a black hole, sucking everything in existence into it's depths.
"Peeta, please, just let me die." I croak back finally.
"No! If you don't come out I'm calling the fire department to come pry open this door!" He sounds like he's crying. Hearing him so upset breaks my heart. He cares so much, and yet here I am, doing such a mean thing. Locking myself in our bedroom and waiting to die.
"Okay, you know what? You don't even have to answer, just listen."
And so I do.
"When I was really little, I felt unloved. I thought no one cared for me but my father." I lift my head slightly, staring towards the door. These weren't the words I expected to come from him. "I was wrong. When I started school, I made friends and realised that there were so many other people who loved me as well. My best friends, the stray dogs I occasionally brought home...
"But when I first started kindergarten, my father walked my in through the door, and I spotted a little girl, about my height, with two long braided pigtails in her hair. She was perched on her tippy toes, scanning the room, taking in everything. My father pointed out the girl's mother to me, explaining how he had loved her but she ran off with a boy from the Seam."
My eyes tear up at the mention of my father.
"Instantly I knew I would turn out just like him, forced to watch someone I love fall for someone else. And I knew that you were the one that I was always going to want. I watched you sing in school, watched you laugh and play with your friends, never noticing me.
And one day, class was interrupted by a loud siren. Everyone knew that the siren meant that there had been a mine explosion and we needed to get to our homes quickly. I was scared, and I glanced over at you and your face was pale. You were stumbling around, looking for your sister, and I wanted to help you.
"So I followed you out of school and down the road to your sister's elementary school. Prim was there, looking terrified, and you took her hand and ran. I didn't know where to go, but I saw you hug your mom, and saw her whisper something to you. And then you bursted out crying.
"I remember wishing I could help you, but you ran off with your mom. At school the next day, you didn't show up. You weren't there for a week. I was worried, and planned on bringing over something with my father to help you feel better. But you showed up, with fresh tears on your face, handing a note to our teacher excusing yourself for being gone so many days. I knew then that you had lost someone in the mines. Word traveled quickly that it was your dad."
I sit in silence, listening to his story through the door. I lean my head back onto the door as he continues.
"The years went on, and then came the day that the two of us were sent to the games. And the day you said you loved me, and the day Jen was born...
"I've made so many memories with you, Katniss. I don't want it to end now. We were going to get married next month, remember? And it'll be your twentieth birthday soon. There's so many things to live for, Katniss."
I sit in silence for a moment, processing his words and the hurt that struggles to the surface in them. At the pure emotion he showed me while he told me his story. I feel so bad that he felt that way for so long.
I stand up slowly and pull a bobby pin from my hair, picking the lock on the bedroom door.
I open it to reveal a tearstained Peeta, and he gasps at the sight at me.
"Katniss..."
I don't respond. I just fall into his arms into a comforting embrace and cry.