A few weeks had passed and nothing was the same.
I couldn't sleep anymore. I had become nocturnal. For those nights that I could finally close my eyes, I would be shocked awake from the extremes of my nightmares. Every nightmare was so real, so handcrafted from the vast selection of terrors I had lived through. Fortunately, my mother and Prim were able to combine herbs that would help me sleep as best as I could; they would numb my mind for a couple hours at most so that I could at least have some sleep.
With the herbs, I would awake not in screams, but in silent sweat and tears. It would always be around 2 AM. I would need a few minutes to calm myself, to grab onto the covers and force my fingers to feel the physical comfort of my safety. It would take minutes to open my eyes and force my breathing to a slow. These minutes were long and unbearable, but they did not ease with time. I would walk to the bathroom and turn on the shower. I would undress myself and stand inside the boiling temperatures. Most nights however, I ended up sitting on the floor of the shower, not remembering why I was crying or how I had gotten into this position.
The shower would take a while. It would take the longest to open my eyes to the hot water, running down my head, along my forehead and bridging over my eyebrows. I had to remember and remind myself I was safe. I would mix my tears with the water, trying to act as though the tears did not exist. It was just the shower water. The cycle begins.
I dry off and put on my hunting clothes. It was mid August and the summer heat was still humid and dense. This meant that I did not need to spend much time getting dressed. I would braid my hair, and before the twilight, leave my house in the Victor's Village and go to the fence. The day would be spent outside, alone. Gale was now working six days a week so I only saw him on Sundays. The days were long, lonely, and tranquil. The nights did not last and I ached for the moments I was conscious.
This was my life. I started to wonder if it was worth winning the games. These thoughts, so dark and so ignorant, were some of the most prominent. I could have never expected the night terrors and the lonely days. I could have never expected the games to haunt me outside of the arena. I felt less safe than my time during the games. With each night, the nightmares became more and more real. They were vivid dreams of Marvel shooting Rue, of me shooting Marvel, of Cato being mutilated by the wolves with the eyes of Marvel and Rue. It was everything human instinct and human fear. I felt like an animal.
My mother and Prim knew how I felt, but only to an extent. My mother had watched people go mad over the years as she treated them, but I do not think she wanted to address just how far my madness had gone. It was different than the physical treatments she was used to, trained to take care of. These were points where my mind was in control; the trauma was so alive in my head that it drained so much of my thoughts. I would think over Rue and Marvel, Clove and Cato; I would think over Glimmer's mutilated body as I pried the bow from her hand. I would think of the fear of loosing Peeta those moments in the cave when his livelihood seemed so distant.
The worst of the trauma was my mindset. It was difficult to stray from the night terrors and the daydreams that would bring me back to the field of the arena. It was more difficult to stray from the moments where my mind faltered between survival and reality mode. While life for me and much of those in the districts had always been about survival, it was a different survival than in the arena. The arena had turned my survival mindset into an animalistic one; it was a mindset for extinct to kill rather than be killed. I had been forced into a position where for days, I was the animal surviving.
I noticed this when Prim and my mother would serve me dinner. We would all sit gathered around the table, smiling and holding each other close when the time was right. When the moment passed, I would feel my fist clutching the butter knife, turning my knuckles white. My eyes would dart from side to side in what was only a second; I know my sister noticed. She would place her small, delicate hand over mine, easing it and me back to reality. It was a silent acknowledgement of the ghost of the games, and it was something I had never considered when I fought so hard to survive the arena. I now had to survive these traumas.
I would hide it as much as I could, or maybe it was more of a suppression. I did not want to see it, so I did my best to hide it from myself.
The times I began to feel a detachment from the traumas were in the meadow, or even better, in the woods. I was surrounded by the silence that was so tranquil compared to everything at home. It was safe for me.
I had not seen Peeta since the night we moved into the Victor's Village. It was alright that way, definitely sided in my decisions. He visited my house daily, delivering bakery items to Prim or my mother, whoever answered the door. I knew the sound of his knock quite well by now. It was one light tap, one hard tap, one light tap of his knuckles against the wood. The aroma of the pastries or loaves would fill the house immediately. I could not make myself leave my room when he visited.
I missed him. I felt my heart ache every time he knocked. I would listen quietly to the conversation between Peeta and Prim or Peeta and my mother. He would ask how I was, how my family was. He would ask Prim about school starting again this month. He would ask my mother if she preferred the lavender cookies to the vanilla madeleines. He would never pry for me, just leave a note with whoever it was talked to him at the door, and be back on his way across the street.
I can't say why I did not want to see Peeta. I think it was because it would force me to see the trauma, to recognize it and acknowledge it within Peeta as well. I wanted life to be back the way it was before the games, though I know that I just needed time to know it would never be like it once was to me.
Prim and my mother were quiet when they handed me Peeta's notes. I never looked at them. They never asked why I didn't want to see him, and that was OK between us all.
Being a victor was so lonely. Being a killer from the games made me someone else. I couldn't see myself anymore.
