Stay • Everlark (REVAMPING)

4. irreplacable

Peeta:
Katniss tells me I shouldn't be sorry. I should be. I almost killed her and I left her alone. She's been hugging me for a while, and I don't think she's realised, burying her head in my shoulder, crying.

"You're home." She whispers tearfully.

"Yeah." I say back.

My feelings for her are still slightly foggy, I'm not going to lie about that. But I do know that I care about her. I recognise the warmth and butterflies in my chest like it's an old friend. Katniss slowly pulls way from my embrace, and I didn't realise how cold and lonely my body feels without her. She gives me a slight nod, a weak smile and a look that makes me shiver.

"See you, Peeta." She mutters giddily and walks into her house before I grab her hand and ask her to stay.

I'm still standing here in the same spot as she hugged me. Katniss doesn't know the effect she can have on me because I'm sat against the wall of my house in shock. Katniss  touched me.

The realisation confuses me, her fingertips send rays of electricity through me which I can't explain in words. Coincidence? Maybe. Me overthinking? More likely.

I run into my house, bumping into things along the way, fall onto my bed and roll over the face the wall with the painting. I feel like I'm losing my mind. Her touch feels like fire, fireworks in the Capitol, and even after all these years, the butterflies are fluttering in my stomach as if they're trapped. Katniss makes me weak to my knees and my vision hazy. The way I felt before and still feel to some point is creeping up on me again. I don't think it ever really left.

Just thinking about her and her wary smile, her cloudy eyes and her small demeanour is making my head spin and start to feel sick. Lovesickness. I recognise the feeling. This feeling I was all too familiar with when Katniss told me that what she said in the first games was an act and again when she wanted to be just friends on the Victory Tour. But eventually, I had her arms, her lips and her being to combat it. Now it's just me, my aching heart and my resurfacing memories. Fun.

After I stopped her from killing herself  when she killed Coin in the Capitol, it really put into perspective; all the memories we had and that I really do care.

The nights on the train, the fighting to protect each other and the irreplaceable kiss in the Quarter Quell. Before that mixed with the hijacking it made me just view her as 'Katniss.' It was its own category. Nothing more, nothing less but confusion. Saying the words "I can't" after she told me to let her go made me know I can't live without her.

At the time I didn't know in what way, I just don't know what I would do if she wasn't in the world; she was and still is all I have left. But now I know. Katniss is the only person left that I love.

Despite spiralling into confusion, I can hear the muffled sobs and cries coming from what seems like the next house over. I slowly sit up on my sheets and look through the window. 25 yards away, I see Katniss weeping into her pillow, her hair strung out of the once braid with strands shaping her sunken face.

Her body is hugging a pillow, burying the bottom half of her face in it as it collects her tears. What affects me most is the look in her veiny grey eyes, it shows pain and despair which makes me want to break the window and run to her side. She looks so frail and small. I need to do something, but I don't know how. After I blink but before I can even knock on the window she's out of eye shot.

I end up getting on edge and nervous myself, and start playing with my hands whilst at the same time trying to draw. Fiddling with my hands has become a new habit of mine since I wore handcuffs to restrain myself back in the Capitol. I would look like a psychopath if I kept a pair of actual handcuffs with me, so I've resorted to this to calm myself down instead. It works well but it leaves my hands red and sore.

When my hands stop shaking, I gently pick up the pencil and start to sketch. My hands control themselves, guiding the pencil across the page. That's what happens when you're an artist, when inspiration comes it controls you, you don't control it. I find I'm drawing Katniss and the pearl I gave to her in the Quarter Quell.

Since I've been getting back into painting and sketching, I've drawn out a lot of the memories to reassure myself that they're real. I think they are. Katniss is in a lot of them, not that I'm complaining as she's my favourite thing to draw, but I guess I underestimated how much time we actually spent together after the first games.

Just as a finish the outline of her and the pearl, there's a persistent but short knock at my door. Unless it's Haymitch, I have no idea who it is. I make my way down the stairs, getting faster because by instinct I feel something is wrong. When I look out as I open the door I immediately can't see anyone, but when I hear a begging yelp of my name I know my instinct was right. Katniss is lying, collapsed at my feet.

"Peeta..." She whispers, almost inaudibly.

"Hey. It's okay, I'm here now, my god, Katniss!" I stammer. "What happened to you?!"

She squints at me wearily and lifts her limp hand to my face.
I pull her into my lap and lift her from the hard concrete.

'I'm sorry, Peeta." Katniss manages to say before she passes out in my arms.