The Hunger Games: Book Four - How it Might Have Been ... Gale.

Page Thirteen

Katniss

I am making a bad decision. I'm notorious for making bad decisions - in other people's eyes, that is. My decision to volunteer for Prim is still known to some people, especially ex-Capitol members, as one of the worst decisions in history. To others, it's seen as a life-changing moment - the moment that sparked the Rebellion. I still think my decisions are good. If they benefit others, but not me, that's fine. I'm just that self-sacrificing. And stubborn.

I kiss sleeping Kuwai's cheek and stoke Oeno's hair for what feels like hours, but it is defininetly a time substantially shorter. No matter how long I stay with them, saying my silent goodbyes, it will never be long enough. No amount of time is long enough for a mother to say goodbye to her children forever.

Eventually I am standing at the front door, a bag of small belongings in my hand. I have the letter, the one that still feels like Peeta's presence, food, water, my Mockingjay pin, and some items I may need that Gale won't mind me 'borrowing'. He'll be too distracted when he wakes up and finds me gone to be upset about these items anyway.

One of the items is the copy of the 74th Annual Hunger Games he has recorded. I can still hear Kuwai's sweet, innocent, young and naive voice ringing in my ears, asking who Rue is. My throat constricts in that undesirable way it has every time I have thought of Rue since that day. I never want my children to see what I had to do to win, or how their father and I cheated death multiple times.

Especially if I die today.

Gale has an alarm set to go off every 43 minutes. I have waited periodcally and have pretended to be asleep when he comes to check on me. He's groggy - it could be the medication I found next to his bedside, though I haven't seen him take any since my arrival - but once he sees I'm there and breathing, he leaves again for anothe 43 minutes. That last alarm went off 29 minutes ago; I spent too long with the kids and now I don't have a lot of time to put ground between my family and Gale. But I'll try.

I take no nostalgic or regretful look back into the apartment as I leave - I'm too practical for that. I know what I will see, so why waste precious seconds turning and taking it in? I will see Gale's moden and sleek home, empty of emotions and family life. Sterile. I will see out the huge windows down into the city that will still be twinkling despite the early morning hours. I may see the sun beginning to rise, just over the crest of the Nut.

But I don't look back.

I leave, closing the door silently as if I have just read Kuwai a bedtime story and am sneaking away while he sleeps, as I have done so many times. In our old home - our real home. I am grateful for Gale's hospitality, and I know he loves the children, and though they all will be distraught and angry when they realize my absence, they will be happy together. I could have stayed, been selfish, been happy. But Gale still loves me. And I am wearing a wedding ring that binds me to another man and restricts me fom loving Gale back.

But maybe I do.

He's stonger than Peeta, more solid, more practical and less romantic, but their love is at an equal. And maybe that's why I'm running. I'm sprinting down the streets now, abandoned and cold in the dawn hours, my braid trailing behind me. Maybe I'm running, not to only save the man I love, but to run from the man I do love.

Suddenly, I feel someone's eyes on me. Since I left the arena, not only the first but also the second time, this paranoia washes ove me every so often. I've come to decipher when the feeling is real... or not real.

I swing into an alleyway on my left, panting as silently as I can and hoping the eyes that were on me in this sleeping abandoned city have looked away, shrugging, no longer curious about the woman running down the road with a distressed expression and heart on her sleeve.

"Katniss Everdeen," a deep voice rumbles. I look up, and I see a broad figure standing above me, dressed in black, with a somber expression. I can't fight, so why try? I'm better at escaping. "You need to come with us, miss."

And like my husband let the Capitol take him, I let them take me.