I can still do this

chapter 9

I slam my fist into the door once or twice, then give up and go back into the living room. "Cato? I say hesitantly. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah..." he sighs, dragging the word out. "What'd he say about me?"

If I'm going to trust him, then I'm starting now. And I'm going to trust him. I have to trust someone, sometime, and for some reason, I've chosen him. So I say truthfully, "He said I should keep you close." I sit on the couch but don't touch him.

"Don't screw with me," he says wearily, turning his head to look at me. "Really."

"Really. And he said we should get to know each other."

"Yeah," Cato says unhappily, tightening his lips. "We should."

"You don't want to?"

"Not because I think I'm going to have to kill you or anything," he says, echoing what I was thinking. I'm suddenly very uncomfortable. "But I'm not... I'm not someone you want to get to know," he finally mumbles.

"And that means?" I move a little closer to him.

"It means don't. There's nothing to get to know," he shakes his head, holding his hand close to his chest.

"That's not true," I say obstinately. "And you know it."

"You think that?" he frowns at me. "Really? You're trying really hard to justify saving my ass. That's what I think."

From the kitchen, out of sight, I think I hear Haymitch snort.

"No, that's not it," I say, annoyed. "And I do really think that. If you were just a killer, you wouldn't have agreed to win together. Nothing I said could've convinced you."

He has no answer for this, so he just sits there, looking at the ceiling, and I sit there, looking at him. "Really?" he says at last. "You think that?"

"Absolutely I do," I say quietly, scaring myself.

Cato doesn't talk for a long time again, and then he just puts his hand on my leg, patting it in a kind of spaced out way. "You're so..."

"Yeah. You too," I say sarcastically.

"So no sleep," he sighs. "For how long?"

"A few hours," Haymitch says, walking into the room with a vial of liquid. He hands it to Cato. "Drink this," he orders.

Cato downs it without argument. Considering that he accused me of poisoning him at one point, I'm pretty sure this means something, but I don't know what. "Oh," he coughs after swallowing. "This is the good stuff."

"Yep. Should wear off by nightfall. Can you stay awake until then?" Haymitch asks, leaning on the back of the couch between Cato and me.

"Sure," Cato sighs. "Didn't survive the games to die from getting shot in the hand." He cuts off the first syllable of my apology. "I'm not going to actually die. Don't feel bad about it for anything. I'll be fine."

Haymitch raises his eyebrows at me, and I glare at him, but he ignores that. "Good to hear," he says to Cato, slapping his shoulder, then gets up and walks away.

"Wait, did he just..." Cato points over his shoulder at where Haymitch went. "So are we cool now?" he finally says.

"I'm not sure. Maybe." I shrug. "Hey. Hey, sit up." He does, even making the effort to hold his head up. "You need to stay awake. What do you want me to do?"

"I don't care," he shakes his head. We sit there in silence together for a second. "We should probably talk. Get to know each other or whatever," he says.