Catching Fire: The New Story

Chapter 70

Katniss's POV

"Katniss. Sweetie?" I open my eyes and see my prep team. They smile at me, looking above me. I look up and see Peeta asleep. His hair, flopping everywhere as he sleeps. I smile, then look back to my prep team. They grab my hands from Peeta's arm and try to drag me out of our embrace. I groan and pull myself back to Peeta. He squirms around for a second and has his eyes open. Peeta blinks before realizing my prep team was above us and I was clinging onto him.

"Come on Katniss. We have to get up." He says, trying to take my arms off of him.

"No!" I groan. They all laugh. I hold Peeta tighter.

"I know you're tired Katniss. But we have to get up now." Peeta says in my ear. I groan again and let my prep team help me up off my bed. Peeta kisses my lips and walks out of the room. Venia and Octivia 'aww' and giggle away. Flavius brings me to a chair and starts to do my hair, massaging creams of all kind into my hair. Venia starts on my nails, trimming them down because I haven't been bitting them much and placing a smooth white coat over them. Adding a few black diamonds at the tip. Octivia rubs lotion after lotion onto my body and by the time she's gotten the fifth cream into her hands, I feel so tired and hungry, I want to puke. The smells of the creams that have gotten onto my body somehow have been stuck in my nose and are all I can smell. My prep team have a good time talking at they make me perfect, I close my eyes and thin of something different.

"Katniss?" I feel my shoulder being shook, I open my eyes and see Venia in front of me. "Break time." She says. I smile and grab the white robe Octivia offers me.

"Thank you." I say. I realize my hair is up in a braid, like always, and my skin feels as soft as silk. I walk bare foot to the dinning room with my prep team behind me. Peeta, his prep team, Portia, Cinna, Haymitch, and Effie are all sat at the table eating. Food is spread everywhere on many plates, for the first time in an hour possibly, I can smell something other than lavender.

"Hello, sweetheart." Haymitch says, greeting me first. And without a scowl or rude comment this time. He doesn't seem drunk either. Today's going okay.

"Hi."

"How's it going?" Peeta asks, possibly about my preparation for the interviews. Which were at six. He slides out the chair besides him and bend down slightly to kiss his lips. I sit down and scoot my chair forward.

"Fine." I mumble.

Everyone, but Haymitch and I, get into a conversation about the color blue. I'm not sure how it came up, I was too focused on filing my plate and eating. No one looked at me suspiciously, they all knew. And I'm glad. Haymitch raises an eyebrow and looks around at everyone talking normally. As if we weren't going to die in a few days. I shrug and laugh a bit. I laugh harder, making Haymitch laugh. Soon Peeta and Effie are laughing. We continue until were all laughing for no reason. It feels good to laugh.

Soon, the laughter died down and we continue eating, without a word of the random conversation before our laugh attack. Peeta intwines my hand with his own under the table and I smile while eating. Everything me and Peeta did yesterday came to mind. He's so sweet, why didn't I fall in love with him before? He's perfect. And I love him. But why didn't I say it back to him last night? Because I'm scared? Or it's not true? Okay. That's a big lie. I'm just scared to say 'I love you," to anyone. I do love Peeta with everything I have. But, those words have hurt me so many times. I'll wait to use them right. And I think that yesterday was a good moment, yet not the best.

"Come on, we need to continue with your preparation for the interviews!" Octivia squealed. Venia and Flavius drag me back to my room as the aroma of the food I recently ate still filled my nose, my stomach growled. I'm still hungry. Cinna and Portia went to grab our costumes for the interviews. Venia mentioned for me to just close my eyes and relax like I did before, and I listened. Their voices soothed me through my thoughts of my child inside me. How he would grow up to look like? Just like Peeta. How he would act? As sweet as Peeta. I hope they have rarely any traits I contained. I'm such a mess. It would be hard to control another Katniss. Just thinking of two of me, I want to cry. But two of Peeta, I wish. I couldn't stand not having Peeta with me. I needed him most of all. Especially now. Now, now I need him so much, just his love and his sweeteners could calm me. I'd go crazy if I couldn't see him in the next hour or so.