Mockingjay Part 3. Rekindled Flame

New Beginnings

"You're back," I say. 

"Dr. Aurelius wouldn't let me leave the Capitol until yesterday," Peeta says. "By the way, he said to tell you he can't keep pretending he's treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone."

He looks well. Thin and covered with burn scars like me, but his eyes have lost that clouded, tortured look. He's frowning slightly, though, as he takes me in. I make a half-hearted effort to push my hair out of my eyes and realize it's matted into clumps. I feel defensive. "What are you doing?" 

"I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her," he says. "I thought we could plant them along the side of the house."

I look at the bushes, the clods of dirt hanging from their roots, and catch my breath as the word rose registers. I'm about to yell vicious things at Peeta when the full name comes to me. Not plain rose but evening primrose. The flower my sister was named for. I give Peeta a nod of assent and hurry back into the house, locking the door behind me. 

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When Peeta comes to the house the next day with a fresh, warm loaf of bread with Greasy Sae, I feel the guilt of leaving him outside the day before pang through me like a jolt of electricity slicing through my brain. The first thing he did when he was released from therapy in the Capitol was come running back to me. With Primroses as a tribute to my dead little sister. I repaid him by running away and locking him out of the house. Things have not changed. Peeta thinks of anything but himself, and I think of only myself. 

I first hear his low voice speaking to Greasy Sae as she bangs around in the kitchen, looking for breakfast for me since I have been out of it since the snow was still on the ground. 

I run my hands roughly over my face and up through my hair. Buttercup peers at me with his ugly yellow eyes calmly while I contemplate going down stairs at all. I could just stay up here and pretend to be asleep, and maybe they will leave at a decent time. Or I could feign illness and refuse to come out because I don't want to risk giving it to them since there are not healers back in 12 yet. 

But no. If I stay up here and pretend to be asleep, they will come up here and try to coax food into me. If I pretend to be sick, I will still have to talk to them, and they will no doubt stay with me the entire day. I'm being a coward, and I know it. 

With a shake of my head, I finally decide to get out of bed and get dressed into some regular clothes before they come searching for me. My draws smell musty since they have not been opened since before the Quarter Quell. The pajamas I have on are the first things I have changed into since I got home. When I saw Peeta yesterday and ran away, I had stripped my clothes off and thrown them out immediately. I cleaned myself up and raked a brush through the endless knots on my head until my hair was left silky smooth. To anyone else, I look like anyone else that just woke up. To me, I look like I transformed into a whole new person. Someone I recognize from long ago. 

I decide on some regular pants and a blue T-shirt that I would have worn on a day like today to go out and hunt. I figure I don't need to wear my hunting boots around the house, so I leave them off. I pull my hair into a messy ponytail, but I don't have the energy or motive to try and make it look any better. 

I stand in front of my bedroom door, hand hovering over the doorknob for a good five minutes when I hear Buttercup mew from beside me. He scratches lightly at the door, obviously impatient with my stalling. "Hush," I mutter.

With one last deep breath, I turn the knob and open the door with the intensity of someone who is trying to handle a bomb before it detonates. I don't know what I expect; Greasy Sae and Peeta to be standing outside my door with handfuls of food and giant smiles waiting for me to emerge from my cave maybe. No one stands outside though. No one is on this floor. I hear them talking in the kitchen still, and the smell of bacon wafts up the stairs and makes my mouth water. Buttercup trots off to follow the smell with his tail flicking behind him as if he's beckoning me to follow.