Finding the Missing Piece: An Everlark Story

Chapter Ninety-Nine

Katniss POV-

I couldn't take it any longer.

I needed to get away, even if it was just for a little bit.

I ran to the woods across from our apartment to clear my head.

It isn't the exact place I would like to visit every time I get angry or upset or need a good cry but it'll do.

I know Peeta is probably worried sick about me but in this moment right here, right now, I don't care.

I have tears rolling down my face and as the summer sun slowly begins to rise, my eyes burn.

I sit watch the things around me and just try to connect it all.

I watch the sun rise and the bugs fly around in the distance, the trees swaying back and forth and I look down to see bugs crawling about the shreds of grass. I see little wildflowers that have sprouted up and out of the little crevices in the earth.

Suddenly, I hear a car pulling up and somebody getting out.

I am frozen still but I know it has to be Peeta.

Then I hear footsteps from behind me and I'm too nervous to move but right about that time I hear them shout.

"Katniss?" A familiar man's voice booms.

I gasp and turn to see the person who is not Peeta.

And I see it's none other than Gale Hawthorne.

One of the last people I expected to see.

"What the hell are you doing here, aren't you and Peeta leaving today?"

I look up at him, feeling my heart pounding.

What is he doing here, at this time of morning and at this exact spot?

I look at his dark brown hair, olive skin, and gray eyes. He resembles me more than my mother and more than Prim ever did.

We could be brother and sister or at least cousins.

We have always been pretty good friends, he was my second best guy friend before Peeta and I met.

He is my now third best guy friend and he knows it but he shouldn't feel sad about it being that he has Madge. I only did to him as he and my other friends did to me, bumped me down in rating.

It's Peeta, Finnick and then Gale.

I shrug, "I am not going." I say simply, having made up my mind.

"What? Why?" He asks me, confused.

I think for a second and speak.

"I am not going because I can't leave this place. I can't leave my mom either." I tell him stubbornly.

That is why I am here, well one of many reasons.

"Katniss, that is not a good reason to stay here." He says as he gracefully sits next to me.

"What if something happens to my mom while I am gone?" I ask him.

"That is a big 'what if,' Catnip but if that something was to ever happen, you have Peeta." He says.

I don't respond.

"If you stay here, what if something happened to Peeta, then what happens?" He asks.

I shrug my shoulders but thinking about it makes my heart hurt.

"Come on, Katniss. You know this isn't what you want." He scoffs.