Three in the Morning

How's Your Dad?

Katniss

Regardless of its gracelessness, that was my second real kiss of the entire twenty one years I've walked the earth. My first was with Gale, at the airport he drove me to so that I could move halfway across the country to here. By real kiss, I'm discounting the times when someone had kissed me but in which I hadn't exactly reciprocated the action. That's happened more times than I can count. The concept of being in love isn't something I'm terribly familiar with.

But being with Peeta makes me wonder if this is what it feels like.

We've been engaged in a painfully competitive match of Scrabble for a while now. For the past five minutes, he and I have been in a friendly yet heated argument over whether or not "wisk" is a word. Not so much whether it's a word or not though, rather if it's spelled correctly.

"You should know it's w-h-i-s-k, Peeta, you're a baker!" I say.

"But what if I said I want to whisk you away to my apartment right now for some pizza and a movie?"

"It's still spelled with an 'h.'"

"Damn, that would've been a double word score, too," he says, rolling his eyes over-dramatically.

I flick his four letters off the board and set down my own, forming the word 'couple."

"The noun or the verb?" Peeta asks.

"You're disgusting," I joke.

Instead of taking his turn, he lines up some tiles on the carpet.

'Let's get lunch,' it reads.

"Let's go for a walk. I'm not very hungry," I tell Peeta.

"Only if we're walking to a diner."

"Fine."

So I braid my hair, put on a pair of boots, and we enter the insanity of the city together.

In a matter of minutes, we've arrived at a rundown-looking eatery called Rooba's. The neon sign in the window saying 'open 24/7' is only half lit up, the tacky checkered wallpaper is peeling at the seams, and the overhead lights flicker feebly. I mumble that that's giving me vertigo, and a waitress glares at me disapprovingly from a few feet away.

We sit down at a booth on opposite sides. The foam of the seat is visible through the ripped up fabric that should be containing it. I'm almost afraid to eat anything this place has to serve, so I order something they hopefully can't mess up.

"Raisin bran."

Our waitress raises an eyebrow, but scratches the two words into her notepad.

"I'll have some tea. No sugar, please." Peeta tells her.

Over our skimpy facade of a lunch, Peeta gabs about how he suspects they served him chamomile tea and that it's going to make him fall asleep with his face right in the mug. Had they the common sense to serve earl grey, "an worldwide beloved," Peeta would be content.

I only pay attention to that much before zoning out, thinking only of how soon Gale's coming to see me today. I wonder how long he'll stay. I wish forever.

I poke at the cereal, torturously choking down a few stale flakes every so often. I wonder if Gale ever grew out his stubble. I wonder if he's gotten a haircut, or tried out a new scent of deodorant or something. I try to recall every single detail about Gale, but I haven't seen my best friend in nearly a year.

"So how's school going?" I ask, trying to make conversation with the guy treating me to this meal.

"Well enough." He says, and I let him rant about this one girl in his 'history of French cuisine' class always bribing their overweight professor with cookies from the dollar store, and how the gluttonous man accepts them always in return for a guaranteed passing on assessments.

He's so talkative once you get to know him, apparently.

"So I told my dad that I ran into Katniss Everdeen from San Doce the other day," Peeta starts.

"And?"

"He asked where your parents are these days. He says he and your mom used to be close. That's interesting."

"It is."

"So I told him that your mom's here in the city. I've seen her around before in the grocery store I realized, now that I put two and two together. What about your dad?"

"My dad?" I restate, feeling the color drain from my complexion.

"Yeah."

"Oh, he's still in Texas," I reveal, leaving out the fact that he's technically six feet under Texas.

A wave of dizziness is sent through my body. I've lived the majority of my life without a father, but little name droppings like this are all it takes for me to spin out of control.

How does Peeta not know that my father is dead? Everyone in our hometown knows he is gone.

"Living alone?" Peeta presses further.

I don't answer.

"Hm?"

"Yes Peeta! Living alone! Okay? Living all fucking alone in a casket in the ground!" I say, but realize I hadn't said it, I'd yelled it.

Across the room, a mother has her hands cupped over her little daughter's ears, anticipating more harsh language to be shrieked, I guess.

I breathe heavily, and start to think about the most random things, like how it's been twelve years since my mother knocked on my bedroom door while I was playing Go Fish with a six year old Prim to break to her daughters the news of her husband's death. Of our dad's death. I think of how he'd promised to take me on a hike that following weekend. Instead, I'd stood over his grave while a man with a shovel piled dirt atop it. I think of how if I had maybe just stalled him for ten more minutes in the morning that one day, maybe he would've missed that plane.

Peeta has set his mug on the table. He's not meeting my eyes.

My friendship with Peeta has been nothing but a pattern of him trying to be nice, him accidentally setting me off, me overreacting times ten, and ending up just pushing him away further. Eventually, I'll end up pushing him so far away that he will give up on me, and I'll be back to square one sitting in a therapist's chair, so I try to compose myself and sit back down.

I drag my spoon through the milk in the cereal bowl, stirring slowly. Peeta stares down at his tea.

"How's the tea?" I ask quietly.

"Okay."

And then I feel a vibration from my pocket. So I pull out my phone and see that Gale has texted twice.

Apparently he's been waiting in the lobby of my building for almost twenty minutes.

"I have to go, Peeta. See you tomorrow... or something. Bye," I say.

"Okay," he says again, and although that frustrates me, I continue on out the door.