A Fresh Start-After Mockingjay (Before the Epilogue)

Chapter Five

Katniss POV- (The next day)

"Good morning, Katniss." Greasy Sae says as she enters my house.

I sit up, swallowing hard as she gives me a pitiful smile. "I'm good on everything today but thank you for coming over." I tell her, hoping she will just go away. Hoping she won't insist on cooking meals that I won't want to eat or cleaning the house, only for me to destroy it in the night.

She shakes her head at me, "Well, I'm due for a visit at least. How are things between you and the Baker's boy?"

I freeze, looking down in shame.

"Still not talking, huh?" She asks, sitting next to me on the couch.

I look up at her, "I kissed him."

"You kissed him?"

I bury my hands in my face, "Yes. I regret it now because it only made everything worse." I tell her.

"Was he angry?"

I shake my head, "No, but I knew better than to do something so stupid."

"Maybe but whether you want to admit it or not, you really do care for that boy, Katniss." Sae tells me knowingly.

I shrug my shoulders, wrapping the blanket tighter around my body. "I keep confusing him and myself."

"What are you confused about? You either love him or you don't."

"It's not that, it's in what way that I'm so unsure of." I admit.

"Romantically or platonically, that boy doesn't care. He loves you." She tells me and she's right.

"What about Gale?" I say, knowing Sae might could shine some light on my relationship with him. She knew us better than most, having been around us and dealt with us both for years. She witnessed things I might have been too blind to see myself.

"Gale loves you too. He fought very hard to keep your mother and sister alive while you were gone."

"He designed the bombs that killed my sister. He treated Peeta badly during the Rebellion and didn't treat me much better when I weeped for him." I tell her.

"Gale judged Peeta very unfairly when he was in the Capitol, I witnessed it myself. I was angry and I told him so."

"Why did he volunteer to save Peeta?"

Greasy Sae sighs deeply, "I told him how unfair he was being to the both of you. That he needed to cut you some slack because what you and Peeta experienced was far more intimate than the years you were friends."

"Do you think that Gale had feelings for me before the Games?"

"Hardly. I always felt like he saw you as more of a possession rather than a friend. He was overprotective and treated you like a sibling."

"I suppose I didn't treat him any differently."

"No. Maybe he did want more with you but you always kept to yourself so Gale never saw anyone else as a threat to his relationship with you."

"Did you ever think that I had feelings for Gale?"

She sighs, "I don't know what you felt, Katniss. You were both always so hard to read but there was no doubt some type of love there. Everyone at the Hob just assumed you were related."

"That's why everyone thought he was my cousin?"

"You two look so much alike and I really didn't ever think there was anything going on between the two of you until the Games. Particularly when you sought out Peeta. Gale was so angry with you."