Always: A Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 95

Katniss

I'm left with my mother in the kitchen. She's preparing a meal big enough for all of us to have after the ceremony and The Toasting. The bakery has provided a cake and bread. Haymitch has agreed to clean up for the event, after a mild amount of persuasion. I have requested that we eat lamb stew and my mother seems to agree. There's also cheese buns, a different assortment of bread, fish from District 4, and apples that Finn helped harvest earlier. Johanna arrived with a bowl of iced fruit that we're keeping cold with any ice we can find.

I don't care much about the preporation. My mother keeps wanting to add more, but all of this is even too much, but I don't dare say it. Annie and Johanna, seemingly good friends, left a few minutes ago to help with the setting. I told them where the lake in the woods with the little cottage was and they agreed quickly to the idea.

Later tonight Peeta and I will make our very first fire and we'll be sung to as we cross through the doorway of our house. That's how The Toasting ritual has always worked in 12 and Peeta and I don't have any intention of stopping it.

There's a knock on the door, but I'm not alarmed. I'm sure it's Johanna or Annie or Haymitch. My mother smiles reasurringly at me as I stand to answer the door. I turn the doorknob and open it. Everything seems to be in slow motion. The person standing there is not Johanna, Annie, or Haymitch. It's someone I'd have never expected to see today. As I stand in my wedding dress, my old hunting partner and best friend stands tall before me. "Gale. . ." I barely get his name out. I feel my cheeks grow warm and I look at me feet.

"Hey, Katniss." I feel a pang of sadness at his use of my real name. A part of me was longing for him to use my old nickname. "You look great." I assume he's just being friendly, but I don't make eye contact just incase.

"What are you doing here, Gale?" I ask.

"I just wanted to congratulate you. I heard the wedding is today." For a moment I feel bad for not inviting him, but then I remember that he's not a part of my life anymore. We're completely different people now. I think of the times we spent in the woods years ago and feel that longing of him as my best friend again. I manage to mumble a soft thank you. I look up slowly and cautiously, as if he's a ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment. "I should be going now. My family and I are moving to District 3 tomorrow."

I glance up now and try to read his face. He's emotionless; not a hint of sadness to be seen on his face. This could be the last time I ever see Gale again. He'll see me everywhere, on the news, on tours that I'm forced to participate in. But I won't see him. Not like this anyway; not face to face. "Goodbye, Katniss." He's about to turn but I stop him.

"Gale, wait," I say, stepping into the cool air. My bare shoulders and arms get covered in goosebumps within seconds. "Come to the lake tonight. It's where the wedding is."

He scrunches his eyebrows together and focuses his eyes on something next to me that I can't see. "Peeta's okay with that?" It's the first time I've heard him say Peeta's name without bitterness in his voice in a long time.

"He will be. Please, come," I say, looking him straight in the eyes.

"I'll think about it," he says. Gale gives me a sad smiles and slowly walks back to the square. I lean my shoulder against a post in front of my house and sigh.

"Katniss?" I hear my mother call from the kitchen. "Who was it?"

"Just a neighbor here to congratulate Peeta and I," I say back. And I'm not lying either. Gale is a neighbor, and he did come here to say congratulations, but it feels like I'm lying. He's not just a neighbor. He'll never be a faceless stranger in the crowd. He's impacted my life forever and that will never change.