The Hunger Games: Retold

Chapter 4

Katniss and I stare wordlessly as Haymitch struggles feebly to rise from the mess. I meet her eyes and I can tell we're both thinking the same thing. This wreck is our only chance once we're in the arena. We both take hold of his arms and haul him up. Of course Effie has abandoned us at speed. As frustrating and frightening as it is to know my only hope for getting Katniss home depends on this drunken, reeking, vomit-covered ruin, I can't help but feel bad for him when he's so obviously baffled. He's smeared sick across his face and can't seem to figure out what's going on.

"Let's get you back to your room," I tell him. "Clean you up a bit."

I'm grateful for Katniss' help getting him down the corridor. He's barely able to stay mobile and we carry him as much as lead him. In his room she glances at his fancy bedspread doubtfully, but I nod toward the bathroom and she helps me dump him in the bathtub and turn the shower on him. He's so out of it he barely flinches. Katniss is clearly disgusted and right on the edge of gagging herself. She's been keeping up her impregnable front for so long today, how can she never let any of it show it's getting to her? I'm amazed at how strong she is, and a little amused by how stubborn. She definitely needs some rest.

"It's okay," I say. "I'll take it from here."

She is clearly relieved and says, "All right. I can send one of the Capitol people to help you."

I think of how they will come and help, but will look down their noses at Haymitch. How they'll be disgusted by his mess and be quick to judge and uncaring in dealing with him. He doesn't deserve that. "No. I don't want them," I say. She nods and turns wearily to the door.

"Okay, Abernathy," I sigh. "Time to get personal." Haymitch tilts his head toward the water and gapes open his mouth to let the spray fall on his tongue. I start to undress him while the water washes away most of the puke. I'm making idle chatter as I try to get him clean, he's so close to passed out he's in no condition to help, let alone respond to what I'm saying.

"You'd think the Tribute Train would have a 'Mentor Cleaning' setting in the shower," I tell him as I scrub. "A lot of you guys seem messed up, this must be pretty routine on the trains. I could just put you in the shower, close the door and press 'Drunk with Despair.' You'd get power washed and then, DING, the door opens and I haul you to bed. Done and done."

I'm trying to wash his greasy hair but he's lolling his head around to look at me. As his gray eyes meet mine, I pause. He doesn't seem quite so out of it.

"Despair," he repeats, voice low and raspy. He looks away. "Every year, two more. Every year."

I sit back on my heels and look at him. I can't tell if he knows what he's saying or not, but his words make me shudder. He shivers in the cold water and I lift him up and help him out of the tub. Drying him off, I wrap him in a plush robe and he drops onto the bed. I pull a blanket over him and leave a large bottle of water on the nightstand before closing the door behind me.

As I make my way back to my compartment I pause at a window and see lights in the distance. Which district must that be? I have no idea, but I know two of the homes will have blinds drawn tight and the families will be huddled together, trying to figure out how they will endure the next few weeks.

My throat tightens as I think of my own family. What they must be going through right now, and I feel tears sting my eyes as I imagine my mother and Uri. Will they miss me? Or just notice that I'm gone? If I can't answer that question, why do I still miss them so much? I try not to think of my father and Jasper. What this loss is doing to them, and how they'll change because of it.

This makes me think of Haymitch and what he said. I try to imagine his life now. He has no family, no friends that I can tell. He has drinking buddies, rough men from the Hob who seem to hang around him because he always has money to buy liquor. My father said he couldn't believe Haymitch still had any money at all, the way every drunk in town squeezed him for rounds everywhere he went. I hadn't really paid him that much attention, but now I consider what it must be like to be a mentor from a poor, outlying district like ours.