Fragile

Chapter Ten: She and Her Mother

Peeta had gone off to his classes while Katniss remained in the motel room. She was watching the news, seeing if there were any reports on her being "missing", which thankfully, there weren't. Yet.

Katniss honestly preferred to stay in the motel room. If she went out, she had the chance of being caught by Gale possibly just driving through and looking for her. She didn't want to face him, not after the way he kicked Peeta out. She loved Peeta so much that it hurt sometimes, and she told Peeta that. He only sighed and looked at her sadly when she did.

Peeta knew that in the end, this wasn't going to work. Gale would find a way to get Katniss to come back, like he did Madge. According to Instagram, Madge had taken him back only about three days after Peeta and Katniss made a getaway. He cheated on her multiple times for crying out loud. She's either really stupid or she's doing this to get back at him later, Peeta had thought. It was most likely the latter reason since Madge had a lot of common sense.

Katniss continued to watch the news until her phone had rung. When she looked at it, the screen said, "Elizabeth/Mom 💙"

Katniss' mother hadn't called her once the entire time she was supposedly staying with Gale and Peeta. Gale and Peeta both didn't know the full reason why Katniss wanted to stay with them. All they knew was that she apparently wanted to stay until she could get on her feet and get a place of her own, but who was she kidding? Who would hire a high school drop-out other than a fast food restaurant? And even some of those had qualifications that she didn't meet.

She answered her phone. "H-Hello?"

Her mother sighed in relief. "Katniss, Sweetie, are you okay? Where are you? Gale's been calling me nonstop for the last three days and I haven't been able to answer his calls because of work. He said you ran away with an older man--"

"Are you still with him?" Katniss asked quietly. The real reason she left was because her mother had reconnected with Matt, Katniss' molester. She remembered exactly what happened when her mother came home that night so vividly.

Katniss was on the floor in the bathroom, on her knees vomiting and heaving into the toilet as she cried. She was sick and disgusted with herself. She couldn't even pull herself together long enough to retrieve her clothing from the living room where he ripped them off of her.

"Katniss?" She heard her mother call out. That sent Katniss into even more sobs and her mother quickly came to the bathroom, gasping when she saw Katniss' appearance. Her hair was tangled and messy and she was as nude as the say she was born in the bathroom and her eyes were bloodshot as she cried. She had bruises along her body as well in places there shouldn't be bruises. Elizabeth quickly grabbed a towel off of the rack and draped it over her shoulders before wetting a cool rag and crouching down to her level. She then proceeded in wiping her face.

"What happened, Sweetie?"

"I-I-I," Katniss sobbed, not being able to exactly say what happened as her mother wetted the cloth and ringed it out before placing it on the back of her neck to cool her off a bit.

"Katniss, I can't help you if you don't tell me what happened." She said softly, running her fingers through Katniss' tangled, dark hair. Katniss didn't want to tell her Matt did it. She saw how much her mother loved him, so she quickly conjured up a lie.

"I-I-I must've l-left the b-back d-door unlocked," she sobbed. "A-A guy w-walked i-in and h-he h-had a g-gun and I-I didn't want to g-get shot," she continued. "H-H-He s-said either I-I l-let h-him t-touch m-me and I-I d-do the s-same t-to h-him or h-he'd sh-shoot me and r-rob us," Katniss continued to cry. Elizabeth gave her daughter a tearful look before pulling her close and letting her cry with her head to her chest as she pulled out her phone and called the police, reporting this.