Catch Your Breath

Part V

Part V

Katniss noticed that Peeta wasn't at the bench.

She didn't want to notice, in fact theory dictated that she should have been pleased by this discovery. Instead she felt worry broil in her gut. Was he okay? Had something happened? Had the cancer suddenly worsened from when she had last seen him? Was he in hospital?

Why did she care?

Katniss mentally chastised herself and tried to refocus on her book. It was almost impossible, and instead she found herself thinking about how tomorrow was his birthday. Tomorrow was also the date that she was supposed to kill herself, in accordance to The Reaping. Was this possibly . . . it . . . for both of them? Katniss shuddered. Of course not. Peeta had plenty left to give, of course he hadn't . . . Surely he wasn't . . .

Katniss dropped her book into her bag and looked over the back of the bench at Peeta's house. She didn't know how to tell if it was empty or not, unless she somehow gained X-ray vision in the proceeding five minutes . . . If something had happened, there would be no way for her to know. Would Ariel think to come out to tell her some afternoon, or would she only think of Katniss as that girl she looked after that one evening?

The idea of Peeta being dead made Katniss physically ill, and she put her head into her hands to try to quell the throbbing that had developed in her brain. God, why did all the good people have to get hurt so badly? Why did they always get the short end of the stick, while assholes like herself somehow got the longer straw over and over again? If the world had to take someone, Katniss would rather it be her than him.

Sadly, Katniss did not have a choice. Nobody did. The world took who it wanted to take and no mortal being had a vote.

"If you hold your head any harder, your brain is going to come out of your nose."

Katniss' head snapped up. Low and behold, there stood Peeta. He had been grinning, but when he saw the alarmed look on Katniss' face, it faded. "What?" he asked, looking slightly dumbfounded.

Relief was the first emotion Katniss felt, but she didn't want to let it show. Instead she scowled. She stood up and smacked Peeta's arm, causing him to yelp with surprise. "What?!" he repeated, confused as to why she spontaneously decided to beat him.

She was annoyed because he had made her feel that way. Peeta hadn't done it purposely, but he had drawn something from Katniss that no one else could, and made her question things she had never questioned before. And for what? So he could just swagger up to the bench like there was nothing wrong with the world?

Ripping her notebook from her bag, Katniss scribbled, "Why are you late?!" and thrust it into his hands.

Peeta's blond eyebrows furrowed together as he read the note. "It's my birthday tomorrow . . ." he said unsurely, probably thinking that Katniss would never have remembered him telling her the date. "My parents rang to tell me they won't be able to make it to the party, nor my brothers. Not that I figured they would." Peeta scratched his head sheepishly, looking slightly confused still as he added, "I'm sorry if I worried you . . .?"

This made Katniss feel worse. God, if his own parents couldn't even make it to his birthday, and he had been homeschooled for who knows how long, isolated from any possible friend due to his illness, who exactly was going to be there for his eighteenth? Ariel? Was that it?

"I didn't want a party anyway, really," Peeta quickly said, clearly not liking the look on Katniss' face that resembled pity. "Hence why I had no qualms with asking you out that time." He grinned the usual cheesy smirk and added, "An offer which is still up for grabs."