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My favorite time of year used to be just after the reaping, and it wasn’t just because we were as safe as it’s possible to be in District 12. The week before the Games started, in the midst of fashion fanfare and high-rolling bets, everyone was still alive, and it was possible to enjoy the summertime. It was always hot, too hot, and even more so once my father lit the ovens in the mornings. But from my bedroom window, just after waking up, I could watch the sunrise. Just for a moment, the night would pass and lighten the inky blue sky with strokes of melon and honey. Right before the hummingbirds began to trill. During the other seasons, it was still dark by the time we started working. Before and after the Games, the dread and grief would mute the beauty, the serenity, of the rising sun.
I’ll never see the dawn from my bedroom window again. Because in my big, empty house, my window faces west. The months leading up to the reaping will be spent wondering for which child I will be the last hope. Now, my illusion of a peaceful week will be spent on the rooftop of the Training Center in the Capitol, wondering how I’m going to survive mourning the children living their last days just under my feet.
Once, I tried to replicate the sunrise on the back of an old test paper, but I never had the right colors. Nowadays, I have access to every color in the rainbow and then some, but I no longer have the view. I tried to sit on my porch once, after yet another sleepless night, but Haymitch’s house obscures my line of vision. If I lean against the railing and turn my head just right, I can catch a glimpse of amber, but my leg can’t handle me standing for long enough to paint it.
Instead, I’ve started watching the sunset. That I can see perfectly from my bedroom window. Honestly, it’s more beautiful than the sunrise ever was. Peach merges with apricot and creates this orange, this shade I don’t yet have a name for beyond “sunset.” It’s the second most beautiful color I’ve ever seen and it makes me forget for a moment how weak I am at just one glimpse of the gray I’ve been enchanted by since the day I first saw the world in color.
But the downside to the sunset is that if I’m seeing it, it’s already too late. Haymitch recommended sleeping during the day to keep the nightmares at bay. The problem is that it’s the start of winter. The sun is setting earlier and earlier and I can’t keep up with it anymore. My brain is hardwired to rise at dawn for fear of the back of my mother’s hand, but my window to sleep keeps narrowing. It’s hard to sleep in the cold, anyway, because it reminds me of nights in that place. And I can’t handle that place without her.
I’ve given up on beating the sun to sleep and have focused my efforts on trying to capture its nightly routine on canvas. Thus far I have not been successful. The specific hue eludes me, and it’s never quite as vivid in my memory as it is in reality. I’m starting to think that my sunset orange isn’t for man to create, only to observe and cherish while it lasts. I’m making peace with that when the thumping starts.
It takes me a minute to process that the pounding is someone knocking on my door. I’ve seldom heard the sound in my new house, and it’s been so long since I’ve slept that my brain doesn’t recognize it immediately. I drop my paintbrush and allow myself just one brief, desperate moment to wish that it’s her on the other side. Of course, I’m disappointed. But only for a second, because I’m staring into deep blue eyes that mirror my own.
“Prim?”
“Hey, Peeta,” she says with a tired smile. Prim looks five years older than when I last saw her two weeks ago, her cheeks pale in contrast to the darkened skin under her eyes. Sometimes, when I go to help out at the bakery in the mornings, I walk her to school. But I haven’t been up to leaving the house since the autumn leaves started to decay.
“Um, why don’t you come in?” I gesture into my dark, quiet house.
Prim shakes her head and rubs her eyes. “No. I need you to come with me. It’s Katniss.”
My heart jumps to my throat. “What happened? Is she—”
“—Katniss is safe,” Prim says, putting her hand on my arm. She waits patiently for my breathing to steady. “I’m sorry. I should have been more careful with my wording. I didn’t think. I’m just so tired, Peeta.”
That’s when I notice her bottom lip trembling. Without a second thought I wrap this wisp of a girl in my arms and hold her as she lets out a sob so deep, so desperate, you’d think someone would have to live a hundred lifetimes to earn a sob like that.
“Your hugs really are as good as they look on TV,” Prim says, her voice wobbly. I can’t help a laugh.
“I’ve got one waiting for you anytime you need it,” I say. It’s a selfish promise, really. I’ve been so starved for human contact that comforting this little girl has brought me more joy than I’ve experienced in six months.
“I can’t take it anymore,” Prim whispers, gazing up at me with pleading eyes that take up half her face. “The screaming. The nightmares. It’s too much. Crawling into bed with her used to calm her down, but I’m not enough anymore.”
“What about your mother?” I ask.
“First thing we tried,” Prim says. “She helped a bit, but not enough.”
“I’m sorry, I just don’t know what I can do for you. You’re welcome to stay here, if you like, but honestly, I’m not sure if I’ll be much better,” I say. The admission that I get nightmares, too, sticks on my tongue. But with the way Prim’s looking at me, I can tell she knows.
“Peeta, she needs you,” Prim says, and I’m startled by the urgency in her voice.
I shake my head. “Gale—”
“—Gale isn’t who she’s crying out for every night,” Prim says. “She won’t tell me what she’s dreaming about. She thinks I can’t handle it. As if I didn’t watch the Games, constantly thinking that it could—it should have been me. But the only thing I know is that she thinks you’re in danger. She needs you. She needs to know you’re okay.”
I lean against the doorframe and scrub my face with my hands. I’m so tired I can hardly begin to process what it could mean that Katniss is calling for me in her nightmares. Does she dream of losing me like I dream of losing her?
“Prim, it’s not a good idea. She—” I cut myself off with a yawn. Prim yawns, too, and then her face lights up.
“You’re not sleeping well without her, either. Please, Peeta. You both need this. My mother needs this. I need this,” Prim begs. And because there’s something about this tiny 12-year-old that’s impossible to say no to, I allow myself to be dragged along the path toward the Everdeen household.
I hear her before we even reach the front door. With how loud she is, it’s a wonder I don’t hear her at night, even from three houses down. The pain, the fear in her screams forces a whimper from my lips. If I’d known she sounded like this, I’d never have hesitated to come over here.
“She’s been trying to sleep before dusk,” Prim says. “It worked for a while, but…”
“But she couldn’t keep up with the sun?” I ask. Prim nods.
We pass the kitchen, where Mrs. Everdeen sits at the table with her head in her hands, her long, light, graying hair in a messy braid. When she looks up at me, her expression is so much like one I’ve seen on Katniss’ face I take an involuntary step back. Then, her face softens and she stands up to greet us. “Thank you, Peeta. We wouldn’t have bothered you, except that I mixed up the ingredients for a tincture this morning. The mistake would have been fatal if Prim didn’t catch it in time. I can function on little sleep, but not at the expense of my patients.”
I nod, and am about to respond when I hear my name in a strangled wail from upstairs. Forgetting all pretense of etiquette, I run as fast as I can up the stairs, my artificial foot pounding against each step. I reach Katniss’ door in a few seconds, and I open it to find her thrashing in bed, her voice hoarse from wretched cries of my name.
“I’m here, I’m here, Katniss, I’m here,” I say in as soft a voice as I can manage.
I crawl into bed beside her, and the cold air dissipates under her comforter. I pull her to my chest and stroke her hair, making soothing noises like my father used to do for me when I was sick as a little boy. She’s shaking violently, sobbing my name over and over, and I hold her tighter, trying to hold back my own tears at the sound of her pain. When she calms, I look down and see the shade of gray I almost died to protect. Katniss is half-awake, enough so I can see her eyes but not so alert that she’s likely to remember seeing me in the morning.
“Peeta?” Katniss croaks.
“I’m here,” I say. She wraps her arms around my middle and pulls me closer, down further into the bed.
“I thought they got you,” she whispers. I can only guess at who, or what, she means by “they.”
“They didn’t. I’m here,” I repeat. It takes some convincing, but soon, she calms down again.“Stay with me?” Katniss murmurs, her eyes drooping.
“Of course. As long as you need.”
“Always?”
“Always.”
It’s a promise she won’t remember I made but one I know I’ll keep, anyway. I’ll stay with her as long as she needs me. Maybe one day, she’ll want me, too. Today may not be that day, but for now, it’s nice to feel needed by someone, anyone, but especially her. I listen to her steady breathing, relish every second I can of her body so close to mine until my eyelids grow heavy and I allow myself the indulgence of one more night in her arms.
When I wake up, it’s still light out, and Katniss’ head rests on my chest with her arm draped over my ribs. I fear that no time at all has passed, until I take a better look outside and find that the blue sky is fading into murky darkness. Katniss’ window faces west, just like mine in my big, empty house. The way I feel is so foreign I hardly recognize it. I’m rested. And calm. I listen to the soft breathing of the woman I love as she dozes peacefully in my arms, and I watch the sunset.
I wish I could show Katniss my sunset, because it’s the only thing that’s ever rivaled her beauty. But when she sleeps without nightmares she is so at ease, so undisturbed, that I couldn’t bear to break her rare moment of respite for any reason, much less one so selfish. Yet, I can’t claim gallantry because I let myself stay in her bed, holding her, until the pitch black sky is speckled with bright stars. I watch the moon grow brighter and illuminate her face. It feels fitting, somehow, for a huntress to rise with the moon. But I hope she doesn’t open her eyes quite yet, because I’m not done capturing the moment in my mind.
When I can’t avoid it any longer, I untangle our limbs, and, as soundlessly as possible, tiptoe from her bedroom. She’s still fast asleep when I close the door. The spot where my artificial leg meets the stump pinches as I climb down the stairs, but it’s so small a price to pay for the bliss spreading through the rest of my body. When I pass by the kitchen, the light is off, and I hope the other two Everdeen women have managed to claim a restful night.
As I walk across the path to my house, I bask in the moonlight, which I love because it’s a reliable source of the very shade of gray I’ve now loved from up close and from afar.
The next day at dusk I wonder if I’ll ever sleep again without Katniss in my arms. I open my window, hoping that maybe I’ll hear it if she calls for me again, but she doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t, because, in the end, I’m not the one who she’ll choose. I can’t blame her. It’s impossible not to fall in love with those gray eyes.
And yet, when I drift off again, I see the sunset, and the orange is just right. In my dreams, I show her the peach and apricot over the woods, her woods, and she loves it just as much as I do. I’ll never see the sunrise like I used to and I’m starting to come to terms with that. Because watching the sunset every day wouldn’t be so bad if she’s with me. I do love that color, after all.
Before the dream fades, as dreams do, I hear the song of a bird. A hummingbird, maybe, just like I used to hear from my bedroom window. No, not a hummingbird. A mockingjay.