Three in the Morning

You'll See

Peeta

Finnick sits across from his girlfriend, Annie, at our small kitchen table, their hands enclosed in each others' at the center of it. Finnick looks up and watches the door close behind me. His face is nearly as pale as the peeling eggshell paint of the table, and Annie looks as if she couldn't possibly be more uncomfortable, even through her curtain of lengthy brown hair.

Whatever's going on, I choose not to disturb it. Finnick's penetrative eyes follow me as I move swiftly into my room where I strip myself of Gale Hawthorne's clothes and pull on my own; an old wrestling tee from high school, and a pair of shorts that both actually fit me.

I have my suspicions about Gale. I always have.

From the day I first laid eyes on Katniss, I was never able to look at any other girl with the same level of fascination. However, it seemed to me as if she always had her eyes set on Gale himself.

Gale, the solitary, rugged boy that every girl in school fantasized about, and every boy envied. Strangely, Gale never acknowledged any girl but Katniss. Even stranger, I don't think they were any much more than friends, looking back.

Sure, there were plenty of rumors. They were nearly inseparable. A girl and a boy couldn't so much as sit together at lunch without rumors flying that they were sleeping together, so one could only imagine what kind of things were said about the two of them.

The three of us grew up in Texas, actually. In a small town where residents lived off of the land and everyone knew everyone else. I followed my family here to New York years later when the original bakery was left to my oldest brother and my parents set out here to open another one in a busier area, so when I first saw Katniss in that coffee shop I was incredulous. I still often ponder her reason for the relocation. I'd like to think it was purely fate, but there has to be something else.

I've never had anything against Gale. I still don't, I've just been jealous of him for longer than I can remember. Not jealous of his ability to make a girl nervous every time he so much as glances in her direction, but of his friendship with Katniss.

Once, when each of my brothers were out at a wrestling tournament with my mother, my father had requested I fill in for them that afternoon and go around on my bicycle delivering baked goods to all who had ordered them in our little neighborhood. He said he'd reward me with five dollars that I could put towards some new basketball sneakers. He'd only ever given me three- business was slow that day-, which with I defied his suggestion and went straight to the florist that evening; asking for her freshest, most beautiful bouquet of white roses that I could afford with only three dollars. It was the week of our school's spring formal dance, and I had high hopes that I might bring Katniss with me that year. My hopes were a little too high, though. I never got around to asking. I carried those roses around with me all day, and when I finally saw Katniss in the hallway after lunch, it's probably more likely that I would have passed out trying than actually worked up the nerve to approach her.

This is no time to dwell on the past, I tell myself. Especially when I have knowledge that Katniss Everdeen is just three floors below me this very second. I can't help but gleefully smile at the thought.

I can make out the scuffling of our heavy kitchen chairs scraping the floor, and the click of Annie's heels soon follows. She must be getting up to leave, but before I wander out of my bedroom, that might as well be a closet it's so painfully small, I crank open the window and crane my head out, watching the front door for Annie to exit the building. When she does, she pauses and holds the door open for someone behind her. A girl brushes past Annie and sprints away faster than I'd ever think would be humanly possible. Only just before she's out of sight do I catch the dark braid jumping up and down, matching her quick pace, and with that the fact that it's Katniss. Annie trods down the street with a hung head and her arms folded across her chest as if she's got something to hide.

Although this certainly does puzzle me, I try not to get caught up on it.

In the kitchen, it doesn't appear as though Finnick has moved an inch. He's staring at something undecipherable on the wall across from him.

"You want something to eat?" I offer, grabbing a plate for myself from a pile on the counter that Finnick said he'd put away yesterday.

"No, thanks," he says.

I saw off a slice of a loaf of bread my father had left me when he dropped in to inform me of the color scheme for my brother's wedding a few days ago. He could've called, but he likes to take every available opportunity to check up on his sons. Plus, hanging around our mother all day tends not to be most pleasant.

"Actually, toss me the heel of that?" Finnick requests.

I rip off the untouched end of the bread, bring it to him, and take the seat to his left.

"Did Annie have anything to say?" I inquire.

"Yeah. She did," he says, and his hand goes to the pocket of his sweatshirt.

Whatever it is he's taken out, Finnick studies it intently under the table.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know if I should be telling anyone this just yet, but you-"

"It's fine if you can't say," I counter, although on the inside I'm pretty impatient to know what's going on.

I'm best friends with the confident Finnick, not so much this unfamiliarly uncertain of himself version of him, so I'm going to be cautious with this.

"It's probably best if I don't just yet," he says, "you'll have to find out sooner or later, though."

His lips curl into the faintest smile but his eyes fail to brighten. I watch as he rises from the chair and trudges to the couch just a few yards away. Finnick picks up the telephone on the end table beside him and dials a number.

After a few rings with no one picking up, he says, "hi Annie, it's me. I just wanted to make sure you got home safe."

I can hear Annie faintly reply, "Finnick, I live three buildings away from you."