Finding a dandelion in the snow

Chapter 15: Finding out

Chapter 15

Peeta's P.O.V.

I don't know why, but I agreed to help Katniss parents to go through her stuff and pack them up. My friends as well.

None of us are up to it. Looking around my dead girlfriends room, going through her stuff. The stuff she's touched, worn, written or even kept hidden.

The thought is actually scaring the tiny remaining life in my body. I don't want to go through her stuff. I don't. I just want her to come back. I want this to be a nightmare and I want to wake up. Right now I want to wake up. But I won't. This is a nightmare, yes, but it's also reality and I'm not asleep. But god I wish I was.

I haven't slept for weeks. If I drift off I wake up again just as fast because of nightmares. Will I ever be able to sleep again?

I think I agreed to help Katniss parents because I realized that her family is the only once who may be having a harder time than I do. Maybe not harder but just as hard. I know Katniss was their daughter and sister, she was their family, but she was my best friend, my girlfriend, my fiance, she was my family too.

"Peeta, if this is too hard..."

I look up and see mr Everdeen right in front of me. I tend to black out a lot these days. I've been meaning to go to the doctor but I know it's because of my lack of sleep.

I realize that my face is wet. Like that's a surprise, I cry all the time now, I can't stop it. I destroy things, I cry, I scream, I don't sleep and I barely go to school.

I need Katniss. I need her so bad. I need her to breathe, to walk, to smile, to touch me, to stroke back my hair from my forehead like she used to do. I just need her to be alive. To be safe and sound.

"Yes it's hard, but I promised to help out", I say and stand up from the kitchen chair. The others are standing around in the kitchen, waiting for my move. "So I'll be going upstairs now".

I leave the kitchen and the rest follows me up the stairs. The door to Katniss room is closed. There's a sign on the door. "Here lives Katniss! (And a lot of days, Peeta!)"

I tear the sign down and rip it apart into tiny tiny pieces. She doesn't live here anymore, and she never will again. I open the door and step inside Katniss room.

It smells like Katniss inside this room. The scent of her perfume is hanging around in the air. Her bed is messy like she just left it.

I realize that no one has been inside Katniss bedroom since we found her. Everything has been left untouched and in this room, time has frozen, nothing has aged. Everything's the same as the morning she left to go to my house, the day she was murdered.

"I think I'm gonna be sick", Annie says. "It's like she's going to walk in any minute with a joke or something".

Yeah. Being in here, it feels like nothing has happened, like Katniss has woken up and gone to the bathroom and is returning any second. But of course she doesn't. And she never will.

"Let's just get this over with", I say.

We start going through Katniss stuff, packing it in boxes. Packing up Katniss life in this room.

I reach to pick up a pillow who is lying on the floor, and find Katniss diary. I hold the bright green book in my hands. It's a simple green book. Katniss has written 'Katniss Everdeen's diary' on the cover with a black marker pen. I stroke my fingers over the letters. Katniss.

I don't know if I should open Katniss diary. I don't want to invade her privacy.

"It's okay to open it, Peeta", Madge says. "Katniss isn't coming back, it's okay to read inte and remember her".