“I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I’m right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women and children. There will be no survivors.” The shock I’ve been feeling begins to give way to fury. “I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there’s a cease-fire, you’re deluding yourself. Because you know who they are and what they do.” My hands go out automatically, as if to indicate the whole horror around me. “This is what they do and we must fight back!””President Snow says he’s sending a message. Well I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?” One of the cameras follows where I point to the planes burning on the roof of a warehouse across from us. “Fire is catching!” I am shouting now, determined he will not miss a word of it, “And if we burn, you burn with us!”

“Only.. I want to do die as myself”

“Peeta,” I say lightly. “You said at the interview you’d had a crush on me forever. When did forever start?”“Oh, let’s see. I guess the first day of school. We were five. You had on a red plaid dress and your hair… it was in two braids instead of one. My father pointed you out when we were waiting to line up,” Peeta says.“Your father? Why?” I ask.“He said, ‘See that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner,’” Peeta says.“What? You’re making that up!” I exclaim.“No, true story,” Peeta says. “And I said, ‘A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner if she could’ve had you?’ And he said, ‘Because when he sings… even the birds stop to listen.’”“That’s true. They do. I mean, they did,” I say. I’m stunned and surprisingly moved, thinking of the baker telling this to Peeta. It strikes me that my own reluctance to sing, my own dismissal of music might not really be that I think it’s a waste of time. It might be because it reminds me too much of my father.“So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing it for us. And I swear, every bird outside the windows fell silent,” Peeta says.“Oh, please,” I say, laughing.“No, it happened. And right when your song ended, I knew—just like your mother—I was a goner,” Peeta says. “Then for the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you.”“Without success,” I add.“Without success. So, in a way, my name being drawn in the reaping was a real piece of luck,” says Peeta. For a moment, I’m almost foolishly happy and then confusion sweeps over me. Because we’re supposed to be making up this stuff, playing at being in love not actually being in love. But Peeta’s story has a ring of truth to it. That part about my father and the birds. And I did sing the first day of school, although I don’t remember the song. And that red plaid dress… there was one, a hand-me-down to Prim that got washed to rags after my father’s death.It would explain another thing, too. Why Peeta took a beating to give me the bread on that awful hollow day. So, if those details are true… could it all be true?“You have a… remarkable memory,” I say haltingly. “I remember everything about you,” says Peeta, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re the one who wasn’t paying attention.”“I am now,” I say.“Well, I don’t have much competition here,” he says. I want to draw away, to close those shutters again, but I know I can’t. It’s as if I can hear Haymitch whispering in my ear, “Say it! Say it!”I swallow hard and get the words out. “You don’t have much competition anywhere.” And this time, it’s me who leans in.”

“No problem,” Gale replies. “I wake up ten times a night anyway.””To make sure Katniss is still here?” asks Peeta.”Something like that,”…”That was funny, what Tigris said. About no one knowing what to do with her.””Well, WE never have,”…”She loves you, you know,” says Peeta. “She as good as told me after they whipped you.””Don’t believe it,”Gale answers. “The way she kissed you in the Quarter Quell…well she never kissed me like that.””It was just part of the show,” Peeta tells him, although there’s an edge of doubt in his voice.”No, you won her over. Gave up everything for her. Maybe that’s the only way to convince her you love her.” There’s a long pause. “I should have volunteered to take your place in the first Games. Protected her then.””You couldn’t,” says Peeta. “She’d never have forgiven you. You had to take care of her family. They matter more to her than her life.”…”I wonder how she’ll make up her mind.””Oh, that I do know.” I can just catch Gale’s last words through the layer of fur. “Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without”

“Stay with me.Always.”

“No. Now, shut up and eat your pears.”

“Technically, I am unarmed. But no one should ever underestimate the harm that fingernails can do. Especially if the target is unprepared.”

“You here to finish me off, Sweetheart?”

“You’ll never be able to let him go. You’ll always feel wrong about being with me.”

“Not like this. He wanted it to be real.”

“I just…I just miss him. And I hate being so alone.”

“You have a… remarkable memory.””I remember everything about you. You’re the one who wasn’t paying attention.”

“Sometimes when I’m 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.”

“You love me. Real or not real?”I tell him, “Real.”