Finding the Missing Piece: Book 4

Chapter Fifty-Two

Katniss POV-

"I need you here with me, Peeta. Not an hour away and not for a week at a time." I start, crying into his lap.

He holds me tight, pressing his chin to my shoulder.

It's the first time we've touched in about two weeks and it feels so comfortably alien.

He's comforting me from himself, how's that for a change.

He pulls me into his lap and I hug him tightly, voluntarily, though my belly gets in the way.

"I'm so sorry, Katniss." He says and I know that he is but I've accepted his sorries too many times for it all to be okay again now but I'm willing to try because we've worked three years on us to give up like this.

I don't say anything back.

I can't forgive him yet but I don't want him to go.

We've spent too many days loving each other and too many 'I love yous' to change that and one too many times of having sex to change the fact that I'm pregnant and we are having a baby together. If not, maybe then it would be okay but it's not because it's not Willow's fault and we both need to quit taking it out on her.

I'm just as at fault here.

"I'm tired of you treating this like it's not a big deal. When did you decide lying and breaking promises was a good idea?" I ask him, my tears hot in the cold, November air.

I bring my head up and look into his eyes.

I know he's sorry but I can't just keep letting things like this happen.

We are going to end up hurting Willow in the long run, I'm sure we already have.

We've already made what's suppose to be the happiest year and moments of our new life, something of terror.

"I don't know." He says, ashamed.

"It's hurting a lot of people, not just me." I state.

He nods his head, "I know it is." He mumbles.

"Then why do you keep doing it to us?"

"I'm trying to protect you and it's backfiring." He says and I think that's true.

I sigh and take in his sweet scent.

"If you keep pulling things like this, going behind my back or leaving, I'm not going to have a choice." I tell him, suggesting I'll leave him.

I just can't stop thinking about the many times he said he wanted her to have a 'normal' family.

"Do you really think I wanted this all to happen?" He asks defensively, pulling away from our hug.

"No, but you know in your heart right from wrong and it shouldn't matter why you chose wrong. It was nobodies choice but your own."

He shrugs, "I keep making bad decisions but I want so badly to do what I can for you and Willow, that I'm terrified nothing is going to be enough, Katniss."

"Peeta, we don't have to be rich. We don't have to be anything but loved by you for us to be okay. I wish you would understand that." She says.

"Sometimes, I wonder if maybe I wasn't really ready. I thought I was and you thought you weren't. Maybe it was really the other way around."

"Maybe neither of us were ready for a baby but at one point, that's all you wanted. Now, it's all I want and she's coming whether we like it or not."

"I want her more than anything but I'm just as scared as you are."

"The only thing I'm scared about now is how we are going to make our marriage work after everything that's happened this year."