Not real.

Chapter Twenty Two: Stubborn As Hell

*Gale*
   I've never been the grocery shopping type. Usually because I've killed or found all the food I've ever eaten since since I was fourteen. But now that hunting isn't our main source of sustenance we've actually had to go to the store more often. But Katniss usually takes care of it.
   So now as I find myself roaming the isles of the grocery store, trying to figure out which brand of cereal and which kind to buy, I decide I'll let her do it from now on. I now begin to appreciate the challenge of buying food items that people go through everyday. I should thank Katniss when she gets home...then ask her to save me from doing this ever again.
    My experience worsens at the check out when the woman scanning my items, proceeds to flirt with me. She must be at least ten years older than me, I decide as she eyes me up and down. I politely try to tell her I'm in a hurry, which I'm not, and she assures me it won't take long. She then proceeds to take as long as she possibly can. As she hands me my purchases I tell her thank you and she bites her lip.
"No problem." She winks at me. Gross.
   I shudder as I walk out the door, glad to finally be getting out of that place. I smile to myself and start to walk faster.
"Man do I have a story for Katniss." I mutter under my breath.
   I pull my jacket collar over my nose and breathe into the fabric, trying to create some heat in this late fall air. When I uncover my mouth again I can see my breath against the dark sky. I walk up the steps to Katniss and I's house and notice the lights aren't on. Katniss shouldn't have been gone that long. Maybe she left a message on the phone.
   After setting the grocery bag down on the kitchen counter I check the phone and notice there's no messages left. My pulse quickens. I check the counter. No note.
"Katniss?" I holler, skipping steps on the stairs. All the lights are off. No one's in our room. My heart pounds in my chest. This isn't like her. Where is she? Wouldn't her friends have called me by now?
   As if on cue the phone rings. I race downstairs and clumsily pick it up.
"Yes?" I say rather frantically.
"Gale! Thank God." It's Nadia.
"Where's Katniss??"
"Peeta showed up at the door and Katniss answered. When we turned around she was gone. She took off into the woods. We couldn't find her."
"Thanks Nadia." I say before hanging up and running out the door.
   I sprint to the fence before remembering that she must've gone through Nadia's backyard. I jog my way over to that general area and start from there. It takes a few minutes before I find her trail. She must not have been thinking about anyone following her because once I find it, her trail is extremely easy to follow. A boot print here, broken branches there, torn leaves over here.
   I start to worry more when I can see she caught her arm on a bush with large thorns, and drops of blood start to appear on her strange, stumbling path. I follow her tracks for almost an hour. Way past our hunting spot and into the deeper part of the woods.
   Finally her tracks stop under a large oak tree. I slowly look up and low and behold, there she is. Up in the highest branches.
"Figures." I mutter, as I prepare myself for a climb that may end up with me falling. But I find that the branches of this tree are very strong and very thick almost all the way to the top, and I easily make it up to Katniss's branch.
   I climb to the branch above her's first, and then drop down so that I can sit in front of her as she leans up against the trunk.
"You always did feel safer the higher you went." I huff as I sit down on the branch, out of breath.
"Only because no one but you would dare to follow me up this high." She replies curtly, avoiding eye contact.
"I have to admit, this one scared me a little. I think you broke your record height." I say trying to lighten the mood but I doesn't work.
"Well good for me then." She sighs and tosses a twig she'd been fiddling with down to the ground.
"Hey." I grab her hand and she looks into my eyes warning me not to ask. My eyes travel to her arm which is still bleeding from her encounter with the thorns. Not enough to be dangerous, but enough that it'd be bad if it got infected.
"Your bleeding. Let's go home and I'll take a look at it, okay?"
"I'm fine." She tells me in monotone. I grab her shoulders and force her to look at me.
"I know you are. But better safe than sorry, plus it's freezing out here." She stares back at me until she finally lets reason win out over stubbornness.
"Fine, but no talking." She tells me.
"Deal."
   We make our way down the tree, and then back home. Somewhere along the way she took my hand with a tight grip. I didn't notice until later that it was where Peeta had attacked us.
   We get to the house and I lead her into the bathroom and sit her on the counter top. As I start to clean the cut on her arm, I prepare myself for the conversation that needs to happen.
"May I ask why you didn't take notice you had a gash on your arm until I pointed it out?" I inquire nonchalantly.
"Wasn't thinking about it." She mumbles.
"Was it because you saw Peeta?" I ask quietly, trying not to arouse any fear or anger in my question. She nods. I wrap her arm in a clean bandage before asking my next question.
"Are you still afraid of him?" Her head snaps up, her eyes full of anger.
"I was never afraid of him Gale." She growls.
"Then maybe you should try to work things out." I tell her calmly.
"And why the hell would I do that?" She asks glaring at me with her stormy grey eyes.
"Because it's not his fault what the Capitol did to him. So I don't think you should blame him for things he can't control." I tell her honestly.
"Gale he nearly killed you. He put you in a coma for a month and you expect me to just forgive and forget!?" Her voice raises with her anger. "And you of all people are defending him?" She looks at me with disbelief. My voice rises with hers.
"As much as I don't agree with Peeta, I know that he doesn't deserve to get the cold shoulder from you over something he can't control. I know that it's not his fault and so I don't blame him. I blame the people that hijacked him in the first place. And thankfully they are either dead or locked up and I have moved on. So why can't you?" She stands up and looks straight up at me.
"Because, Gale, he is a threat. So if you want to go put your life in danger and start defending him, go right ahead. But I won't be there to save you this time." She hisses. And with that she leaves the bathroom and walks down the hall before locking the door to the bedroom.
   I follow her path and stop at the closed door. Before I knock I hear the faint sound of crying on the other side. My heart aches to knock and start apologizing but my mind says differently. What is her deal? If she's not afraid of him what is she afraid of? And why can't she go and talk to Peeta? She knows perfectly well that the breakdowns he has are not his fault. So why is she still bitter about it? This is something that I know she'll have to work out by herself. And something that I'll have to cool off about on my own. I head downstairs and grab my jacket. I'll stay in the cabin at the lake for the night and hopefully the place where my thoughts are usually sorted out will prove to be effective again.