Peeta is the Capitol’s w e a p o n , the same way you’re ours.
It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.
Ally. Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancee. Target. Mutt. Neighbor. Hunter. Tribute. Ally. I’ll add it to the list of words I use to try to figure you out. The problem is, I can’t tell what’s real anymore, and what’s made up.
Sometimes when im alone, i take the pearl from where it lives in my pocket and try to remember the boy with the bread, the strong arms that warded off nightmares on the train, the kisses in the arena.
“I don’t want him to go. In fact, I want him to climb in with me, to be there when the nightmares hit tonight.
It’s impossible to be the Mockingjay. Impossible to complete even this one sentence. Because now I know that everything I say will be directly taken out on Peeta. Result in his torture. But not his death, no, nothing so merciful as that. Snow will ensure that his life is much more worse than death.
“Cut,” I hear Cressida say quietly.
“What’s wrong with her?” Plutarch says under his breath.
“She’s figured out how Snow’s using Peeta,” says Finnick.
There’s something like a collective sigh of regret from that semicircle of people spread out before me. Because I know this now. Because there will never be a way for me to not know this again. Because, beyond the military disadvantage losing a entails, I am broken.
Several sets of arms would embrace me. But in the end, the only person I truly want to comfort me is Haymitch, because he loves Peeta, too. I reach out for him and say something like his name and he’s there, holding me and patting my back. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay, sweetheart.” He sits me on a length of broken marble pillar and keeps an arm around me while I sob.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I say.
“I know,” he says.