10.
For a moment, the cameras hold on Peeta’s downcast eyes as what he says sinks in. Then I can see my face, mouth half open in a mix of surprise and protest, magnified on every screen as I realize, Me! He means me! I press my lips together and stare at the floor, hoping this will conceal the emotions starting to boil up inside of me.
“Oh, that is a piece of bad luck,” says Caesar, and there’s a real edge of pain in his voice. The crowd is murmuring in agreement, a few have even given agonized cries.
“It’s not good,” agrees Peeta.
“Well, I don’t think any of us can blame you. It’d be hard not to fall for that young lady,” says Caesar. “She didn’t know?”
Peeta shakes his head. “Not until now.”
I allow my eyes to flicker up to the screen long enough to see that the blush on my cheeks is unmistakable.
“Wouldn’t you love to pull her back out here and get a response?” Caesar asks the audience. The crowd screams assent. “Sadly, rules are rules, and Katniss Everdeen’s time has been spent. Well, best of luck to you, Peeta Mellark, and I think I speak for all of Panem when I say our hearts go with yours.”
The roar of the crowd is deafening. Peeta has absolutely wiped the rest of us off the map with his declaration of love for me. When the audience finally settles down, he chokes out a quiet “Thank you” and returns to his seat. We stand for the anthem. I have to raise my head out of the required respect and cannot avoid seeing that every screen is now dominated by a shot of Peeta and me, separated by a few feet that in the viewers’ heads can never be breached. Poor tragic us.
But I know better.
After the anthem, the tributes file back into the Training Center lobby and onto the elevators. I make sure to veer into a car that does not contain Peeta. The crowd slows our
entourages of stylists and mentors and chaperones, so we have only each other for company. No one speaks. My elevator stops to deposit four tributes before I am alone and then find the doors opening on the twelfth floor. Peeta has only just stepped from his car when I slam my palms into his chest. He loses his balance and crashes into an ugly urn filled with fake flowers. The urn tips and shatters into hundreds of tiny pieces. Peeta lands in the shards, and blood immediately flows from his hands.
“What was that for?” he says, aghast.
“You had no right! No right to go saying those things about me!” I shout at him.
Now the elevators open and the whole crew is there, Effie, Haymitch, Cinna, and Portia.
“What’s going on?” says Effie, a note of hysteria in her voice. “Did you fall?”
“After she shoved me,” says Peeta as Effie and Cinna help him up.
Haymitch turns on me. “Shoved him?”
“This was your idea, wasn’t it? Turning me into some kind of fool in front of the entire country?” I answer.
“It was my idea,” says Peeta, wincing as he pulls spikes of pottery from his palms. “Haymitch just helped me with it.”
“Yes, Haymitch is very helpful. To you!” I say.
“You are a fool,” Haymitch says in disgust. “Do you think he hurt you? That boy just gave you something you could never achieve on your own.”
“He made me look weak!” I say.
“He made you look desirable! And let’s face it, you can use all the help you can get in that department. You were about as romantic as dirt until he said he wanted you. Now they all do. You’re all they’re talking about. The star-crossed lovers from District Twelve!” says Haymitch.
“But we’re not star-crossed lovers!” I say.
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