average human’s Reviews > Back to Twelve > Status Update

'm a bird, pushing off of the ground - my eyes are on the trees, whose leaves look like watercolor smudges. It's taking me a long time to get up over the treetops, but I can feel I am in flight, making progress, when I'm suddenly ripped out of the air, trapped in netting, thrashing around, falling ….

I wake, thrashing around in my blankets, crying out in a throttled sort of voice. Peeta is hurrying over to me - "Katniss? Katniss?" - and the room resolves around me.

"I'm OK," I choke, looking up at him.

"Sorry, I went so late," he says. "Let's get you up to bed - your real bed."

Before I can protest, he's lifted me up in his arms and is walking me upstairs. Like I'm a child, he sets me gently down on my bed, wrestles aside the sheets and blankets, and covers me up. I haven't stopped shaking, but look up at him, feeling hopeless and pathetic. He swallows, and, without a word, climbs into the bed, and wraps his arms around me.

For a split second, I feel that panic again, and I tense, but then something strange happens. My body relaxes, thoroughly and completely, practically melting away. I touch his scarred arm, put my fingers around it and let the callused pads of my fingertips gently rest on his scars. I feel his breath - in and out - and relax into its rhythm, as if it is my own breath. "Thank you," I whisper. "Thank you."

And just like that, I'm asleep.

When I wake in the morning, I feel like I have been asleep for years. For a moment, I wonder what I'm doing upstairs, then I remember, and turn around. I'm alone in the bed.

Downstairs, Sae is making breakfast. The paints from last night have been cleaned away, and there is no sign of Peeta except for the neat stack of our pages, with his brightly-colored painting of Rue set on top.

The door opens and Haymitch comes in - one of his rare breakfasts here. He and Sae chat amiably - he's in so good a mood, in my agitated state it feels like a bad portent. But I keep up with their chatter, join in once in a while, hiding my distress. Wishing I could worm around inside myself and figure out why I'm so distressed in the first place.

Both of them seem inclined to linger, taking their time over the dishes and clean-up, while I resist the temptation to pace. Finally, they are saying goodbye, and I am telling myself not to panic - he probably stayed up late taking care of me, and went home to sleep - not to panic - I'll just go over to his house and check in on him … when he comes in. Then I remember what day it is and that there was a district planning meeting today. If anything, he's earlier than usual.

He's carrying some mail and looks distracted. I find myself holding back the urge to greet him with a hug; I just pull out some leftovers for breakfast and sit him down, perching on a chair opposite him to watch him eat.

Finally, I say, "I slept so well last night."

He looks up. "I thought you did - you looked so peaceful this morning. I did too - no nightmares."

"No nightmares," I agree.

"That's why we did it before - real?"

I hesitate on the precipice of what could be a very loaded conversation, considering the last time the subject came up between us. "You mean - slept together on the train? Yes, real. It was the only way I could sleep, on the Victory Tour." That hangs in the air between us for a while, then I say - "What's wrong? Did something happen at the meeting?"

"No, I had a letter come in - from Delly. I might be reading between the lines too closely, but she is hinting that life in 13 isn't so great, anymore. She was a little too close to us, I guess. And - we're - not very popular there right now."

By which he means me. I feel a rush of sympathy for Delly. It really must be bad at 13, if she has complaints. "Can she come home?"

He hesitates. "If she wants to live in a tent. We can't let anyone jump ahead in line for a house. She wants to stay in 13 for a couple more months, anyway - for her brother's sake. She seems to have big ambitions for him and he’s doing some coursework there. But I think she'd like to be back after that. Maybe I can persuade the planning council to let them temporarily move in with me. It's crazy - you and I have six empty bedrooms between us. But I know that - even the thought of inviting Delly and Drew to stay with me - makes me nervous."

He doesn't have to explain it - he's thinking of himself waking up in front of sinks, the sudden onset of flashbacks.

I let him sit in silence for a while, staring out into space while I clean up after breakfast. Eventually, he pulls out our box of papers and the pencils and paints. "Who's next?" he asks me. But he is already sketching as he says it, almost absently.

I sit opposite him and watch his hands. Their new scarred appearance has become so familiar to me. The girl in the sketch is not. "Who's that?"

"Lily Bell. She was Delly's best friend - and one of mine." He puts the paper aside and grabs another one. "I'll finish it later."

He starts a second sketch, and I get a glass of water. There's something … off about him. And I'm not sure what to do. When I go back to the table, I see he's drawn a picture of Portia, who was his stylist in the Capitol. She's grinning, holding a sketchbook to her chest in both arms. Her partner, Cinna, was my stylist, and I was close to him - and I know he was a genius. But I realize that Peeta's relationship with Portia might have been closer, in a way. They must have had a lot more in common.

This sketch, too, gets pushed away, mostly finished but not quite complete. "Cinna, next?" he asks.

"Peeta - we can do - whatever."

He stands up, suddenly, pushing back his chair. "Can we go - outside?"

I follow him - his stride quicker than normal as he walks out of the village - through town - and then turns toward the Seam. We go through it - the pockmarked dirt roads with the big, white tents on either side. The house I grew up in has long been torn down, and I no longer look for it. We walk through the Seam, to the old mine entrance - the twisted remnants of the steel building between the slag heaps, the coal-black hills of used earth from the mines. Generations tall, cold and silent now. In the limited range of opportunities for kids to be kids in District 12 - this was one of our landmarks, especially for the townies whose parents did not work in the mines. It was also one of the places the older kids went to make out with each other. I wonder uneasily what is going through his mind - what memories are chasing him here, of all places.

But we don't stop here, either. Once again, Peeta makes for the fence - and I curse myself for not bringing a knife. There's a small gap here that I wasn't aware of, but he seems to know exactly where it is. He pushes through, cursing a little as his prosthetic foot gets tangled in the chain link. I follow after him and then wait, eyebrows raised, for what is next.

He sits down in the grass. Then his breath starts coming out, ragged and loud, as if he's been holding it all this time.

"What's wrong?" I finally say.

"She's dead. Because of me. Because - they left her behind."

I put a hand on his shoulder, but he stiffens.

"Like me. Like they left me. And when they finally came for me - after weeks, Katniss. After there was almost nothing left of me to come back for. And - they left her behind, and they killed her."

"Peeta, I -." My heart sinks. I've been dreading hearing this.

He looks up at me, frowning. "I'm not blaming you. Maybe I don't know - what they tried to do for her. But they were so reckless with our lives. Not just hers - not just mine. Yours, too. If 13 was ready to combat the Capitol, why even let them throw us in the Quell? Why leave Portia behind - after they killed Cinna, they must have known she was in danger."

Peeta's pronouns are confusing - I have to keep track of what he means by "they" - the rebellion or the Capitol. In the end, maybe there isn't much difference. "Peeta - if we go down that road … Try to answer questions that we can't …. I'm so sorry, Peeta. It wasn't my choice - who they decided to keep safe. If I could change anything …."

"I know why they chose you. And it isn't that, exactly. It's … It will pass. I guess - I feel like we've left Delly behind. I'm worried about her and I don't have it in me - I don't have enough energy for it, anymore - to care, to fight. I want peace. That’s what I need: peace."

"It's just a couple of months," I say. I don't understand. I'm trying to, but I really don't. Is this about Portia or Delly - or even his dead friend, Lily?

"Yeah. Yeah. I don't know - what's wrong with me. Something for Dr. Aurelius to figure out, I guess," he says.

I finally sit down next to him, silently, trying not to feel like we've slid backward today. Trying not to feel selfish - that I rely on his strength, and I don't know how to talk to him about it like he knows how to talk to me. Forget that - I know I'm selfish. I lean against him and put my arms around his right arm.

After a pause, he puts his head down on mine. "I have one of her sketchbooks - Portia's," he says, suddenly. "Really?" "Yes, her family let me have it, when they cleared out her apartment. She had let me draw in it, once."

"You know what I have?" I say, suddenly remembering. "I have all your old sketchbooks, don't I?"

"You do? Why?"

"You left them at my house," I explain, "when my heel was broken. We were using some of the pages to write notes."

Now he lifts his head and looks at me. "You're making that up."

"No," I laugh. "That's how we talked about the uprisings in 8 without - talking."

"Can I see them?"

"Of course, you can have them back - but I don't think there are any pages of our notes left. We destroyed them when we were done."

"Oh," he says, "that sounds familiar."

I sigh. "I'm glad. Sometimes - it makes me so sad, the things you have forgotten."

"Me, too," he says. "And I'm sorry - I wish …" He gives me a slight, slanted smile, and I'm suddenly aware of the proximity of our faces - my chin tilted up, his forehead leaning down. I find myself wondering - what it would feel like now, after everything. Most of them felt like nothing much, really - they were put on for cameras and crowds. Then there were those couple of other ones. And the thought makes me panic a little - acid actually starting to gather in my throat.

"Why don't we go look at them, see if they ring any bells?" I suggest hastily.

We walk back home, more slowly this time.

Peeta seems a little better - I feel a little anxious. I don't want to think about this. It might be comforting to know - from Peeta - that he, like me, isn't into it. That would settle it, I think - there would be no more suspense over if or when it will happen - I won't have to worry about how to avoid it, what to say if I can't. But I can't possibly bring that subject up.