Catching Fire: Peeta's POV

Chapter One

Chapter One

When Katniss let go of my hand, it was like a part me died. It was like my heart was ripped from my chest. It was like I was stabbed in the gut. It left a feeling of coldness seeping through my body as he warm hand left mine.

I can't believe she was just acting in the arena. How does anyone act for so long? How does anyone act like they love someone when they don't? Does she have any idea how much I actually love her? Maybe she thinks mine was all an act for the cameras to save us both. It wasn't in the slightest. Now, she knows mine wasn't an act. I haven't lied about my feelings for her one bit.

Our arrival home a few months ago was greeted with interviews about our family, friends, and life after we won the games. They went on for weeks. The Capitol sent doctors to us to check our mental states, to make sure we didn't suffer from insanity after the Games.

We left our homes and made the move into Victor's Village. The collection of houses seem empty with only three being inhabited; but, I welcome the quietness it brings. No one bugs us out here. Most people don't venture this far out. Katniss lives across the way with Haymitch's house separating ours. She moved in with her mother and sister. Although, technically their residence is still the house in the Seam. I moved in by myself. My family stayed at the house above the bakery. My father says it's because it's closer to work for them, but I know the truth that my mother still not very fond of me. You would think me coming home alive would be enough. It's not for my mother. She told me I was "weak" and "embarrassing" with my "stupid little love tale". Nothing I do will ever be good enough for her, so I decided to stop trying. I only go back to the bakery to visit my father and brothers. Anytime I go my mother ignores me anyways.

With the extra rooms in my house, since my family didn't move in, I filled them with art stuff. One, because I realize how much I love art after coming home from the Games. Two, because all victors take up a hobby after they return to their district. Three, because painting helps me release all my terrible memories from the Games. Four, because art helps me express what I'm feeling. Art covers what I need: something to fill my empty to rooms to feel like I'm not alone, a hobby so the Capitol will leave me alone, a escape from my mind, and a form of expression. I can only hope other Victors are as lucky as me to find something that means so much to them.

The study I use as a sketch room. The room is filled with finished and partially finished sketches. Small slips of paper are scattered across my desk with ideas for new pieces. On the walls hang up my favorite paintings and sketches. On an easel by the window, sits a work in progress of a painting of the cave Katniss and I stayed in during the Games. I want every detail perfect. It's slow work, but it keeps my hands and mind busy.

Art is a great hobby. The Capitol and all of Panem is likely to be shocked when my hobby is announced at the start of the Victory Tour. My expected hobby is probably baking because, well, I'm a baker's son.

I stop gazing at my study filled with my work when the clock chimes eleven. One hour remains. One hour until Katniss and I are "cross starred lovers" again and the start of Victory Tour. I have a hour to get mentally prepared to pretend everything is fine and that everything's A-okay with Katniss and I, even though it hurts on the inside.

A few weeks ago, I received a . . . well basically a book. A "book" on how to dress, act, and protocol. It's a book on what is all of expected of me on the Victory Tour. Of course, the gift was Effie, along with a hefty minute by minute itinerary of the tour. I get to tour the Districts because I'm sure they want to see a victor from another District who lived over someone from their own District.

The Games seem like a lifetime ago, but still fresh in my memory. My memories of the Games haunt me in my sleep. This tour is sure to only drag up more unwelcome memories that I would rather be suppressed.

I sigh and head out to wake Haymitch. He told Katniss to wake him an hour before the cameras arrived and Katniss might need help waking up his still intoxicated self. Well, I guess, we couldn't expect him to give up drinking forever.

I walk into the house shortly after Katniss, but she doesn't notice. Walking into Haymitch's house the smell always paralyzes you. The smell comes from years of liquor, vomit, boiled cabbage, burned meat, unwashed clothes, and mouse droppings. A hint of fresh baked bread lingers in the air in front of me coming from the loaf I brought over. You would think with the smell and the amount of money Haymitch has, he would let someone to clean up for him, but he refuses to even entertain the idea.

Katniss heads to the kitchen while I hang back by the wall. She still doesn't notice me as she nudges Haymitch's shoulder, "Get up!" His snoring pauses momentarily but he doesn't wake up. She shoves him harder, "Get up, Haymitch. It's tour day!"

She shakes her head at Haymitch's snoring, dead to the world body. The window in the kitchen is hard to open from the years of disuse and neglect, but she manages to pry it open enough to let some fresh air to enter. She moves some junk, or more like to pushes it around to new locations, around until she finds what she's looking for. A coffeepot with stains of past coffee remnants in it. She fills it up with water from the creaking sink and sets the pot on the stove.

I look back at Haymitch, whom is still asleep. Katniss gets a bowl of water and dumps it on his head. He jumps up, kicking the chair he fell asleep in across the room. He starts brandishing his knife, ready to attack the person who dared to wake him, until he realizes it's just Katniss.

He wipes his face with his sleeve. "What are you doing?"

"You told me to wake you an hour before the cameras come," she says from her perch on the windowsill.

"What?" he sounds confused.

"Your idea," she says.

He remembers now and looks down at himself, "Why am I all wet?"

"I couldn't shake you awake. Look, if you wanted to be babied, you should have asked Peeta."

I chuckle, "Ask me what?" I cross the room to the table and put down the bread I brought so Haymitch has something decent to eat.

"Asking you to wake me without giving me pneumonia," he says handing me the knife.

I wash it with some liquor from the bottle on the floor and dry it on my shirt. I start to slice the bread evenly and hand Haymitch the first piece. I look at Katniss, "Would you like a piece?"

"No, I ate at the Hob. But thank you," she says.

"You're welcome," I reply stiffly. I always offer her the food I bring to Haymitch, and she always refuses. I always bring bread and pastries to her house when I make them too. It's the only other thing I enjoy doing besides working on my art.

Haymitch takes his shirt off and tosses it into the already compiling mess on the floor. "Brrr. You two have got a lot of catching up to do before showtime."

"Take a bath, Haymitch," she says before disappearing out the window.

Haymitch gives me a sympathetic look, and I turn around a walk out the front door and back to my house. I go immediately to my study and begin to work on the cave. I'm mixing paint to receive that perfect green of the vegetation in the arena when I hear a knock, I put my paintbrush down and wipe my hands on the towel on my desk to get the wet paint off my hands. I glance at the clock on my way out the door, only eleven-thirty, too early for the cameras.

I open the door to a bunch of Capitol Peacekeepers. They don't say anything as they walk in leading President Snow.   

Edited