The Hunger Games - I'm Still Burning

Chapter 20

"Haymitch!" I rap on his front door. The red paint is peeling and I pick at it as I wait for his grumbling protests. 8:30am is far too early for him to be woken at. The night was long, full of mutt infested nightmares. I started to lose count of how many different mutts I watched kill Prim. I sigh and rub a stray bit of sleep out of my eye.

"Come on, Haymitch!" I try again, knocking harder this time.

When there's no answer, I move to peer into his windows. There are no lights on, no signs of life. When I try the handle I find it unlocked.

"Haymitch?" I try one last time before entering the house.

It's silent, eerily silent. All I can hear is the sound of my own footsteps on the creaky floorboards. I check out the back window to make sure he's not outside with his geese but all I see is the geese looking very sorry for themselves.

"Haymitch I'm not in the mood for games, are you here or not?"

Nothing.

"Well I'm coming up the stairs to make sure you're still alive and if you're face down in vomit then I will be leaving again and sending Peeta in my place!" I yell.

I poke my head around his bedroom door. He's sat in a wooden chair in the corner of his room, staring at a bottle of liquor resting on his dresser.

"You never shut up, do you Girl on Fire." It's more of a statement than a question, a blunt one at that.

His eyes are glassy and bloodshot, his nose red. His appearance suggests he's drunk but he's far too clean, the room too immaculate. I ask him anyway.

"Are you drunk, Haymitch?"

"I am stone cold sober, Katniss. More so than I'd like to be," he says.

I go to take the bottle but he reaches out and grabs my wrist before I can even get close to it.

"What do you want, Katniss?" He growls.

I yank my arm back and glare at him.

"Just to talk!"

"Isn't that what Peeta's for?"

"No, when I say talk I mean someone who will sit silently and brood over the past with me," I say, plonking myself down on the floor in front of him.

"Ah, well then you're in the right place." He grabs the bottle from the side and unscrews the lid.

"Do you really think you should start drinking again?" I ask.

""Do you really think you should start drinking again?"" he mimics. "You sound just like Effie. And Peeta."

"Well good. Maybe one day you'll start listening to one of us and stop."

"And maybe one day you'll mind your own business and leave me to it," he says sullenly.

I get up and grab the bottle, Haymitch attempts to move it out of my reach but I'm too fast.

"Let go, Katniss," he hisses through gritted teeth. My stubbornness won't let me as I wrestle with his arms to keep the bottle away from his mouth.

As I pull, he lets go sending me backwards onto the floor, bottle and all. He stands over me and I can almost see the steam coming from his ears. I shake the liquor from my hair and stand to meet his icy gaze. Haymitch Abernathy does not intimidate me.

"Just as you have the free choice to replace people with a baby, I also have the free choice to replace them with a drink."

For the second time in my life, I slap Haymitch. The sting from the contact vibrates through my hand, the loud clap echoes through the room. I watch as the red hand-shaped imprint appears on his cheek. It is nothing compared to the imprint he has put on the concept of my little girl's life.

"Drink yourself to death, Haymitch."

My eyes burn with unshed tears and I turn to go, leaving my heart in pieces on Haymitch's bedroom floor. How dare he turn something beautiful into something so ugly. So black and white. Is that what I've done? Tried to replace Prim with Willow?

I slam his front door for good measure. Jack ass.

The Autumn sun warms my back as I stalk to the meadow, kicking pebbles as I go. Who does Haymitch think he is, making me doubt every decision I've made. How could he be so matter of fact about it? I sit down in the grass, cursing his existence. And I scream. Because how else do I get all these emotions out? I'm so angry with him, so angry that he could be right. So angry that Willow will get to live the life Prim couldn't. So angry that I come with so much baggage that will all have to be revealed to Willow eventually.

I don't hear him come up behind me.

"I had a bad night."

I jump and turn to stare at him, wiping my running nose. My throat is hoarse and sore. He's crouched beside me, playing with a blade of grass. I can't even look at him, just the sight of Haymitch makes my stomach curl. I turn my back on him, rolling my eyes. No excuse can make up for what he said.

"I'm sorry, Katniss."

I block him out, pull my knees into my chest and pretend he's not there. I don't want his apologies. They never mean anything anyway.

"The Capitol was pretty mad with me when I got back from my games. I made a fool of them, using their arena as a weapon. Unlike you, I had no mentor telling me I needed to be careful, no one watching my back. President Snow gave me his threats and I got cocky, I thought I could outsmart him."

He's never really spoken about his games or the aftermath before. I turn to him, my sympathy for sixteen-year-old Haymitch winning out. And my curiosity, might as well add that in there too.

"We tried to run, my family and my girl," he swallows, squeezing the bridge of his nose. "They gunned us down, made damned well sure I stayed alive to watch it. One by one, like ducks shot out of the sky. I saw every bullet pierce their skin, smelt the blood in the air. That scene scorched itself into my brain and it hits replay every night."

And just like that, the strong, surly man in front of me collapses, leaving a sobbing wreck in it's wake. I have no words. I don't tell him what I've been told a thousand times before. That he should try talking to someone or that maybe medication could help. We both know that it's no good. Therapy and pills can't re-write the past for us. They can't bring people back. Instead I place a hand on his shoulder to let him know that I am here for as long as he needs me.

Eventually his sobs turn into hiccups and I manage to lead him back to our house. Peeta coaxes bread and soup into him while I stare at Willow sleeping in her Moses basket. There's no denying it, we are broken. Dysfunctional. Even after all this time. I'm beginning to believe Prim had a lucky escape.

Later, when Haymitch is snoring soundly by the fire, Peeta offers Willow to me. I refuse. I can no longer look at her without Haymitch's tainted theory hanging over me. All I see is Prim and Rue and the hundreds of other children that had to die so that we could be here. When she cries my body aches to hold her but I remain stiff and unrelenting. Did we think this could fix the world and make up for the past?

What have we done?