Finding the Missing Piece: An Everlark Story

Chapter Thirty-Eight

He smiles and brings his warm lips to mine and kisses me but I'm not through talking.

I break away and continue.

"Peeta, you see things in me that no one else sees and I don't know what I would do without you. I know I'm a brat but I love you." I say, taking a few breaths here and there and happy tears form into his eyes now.

"And I love you." Peeta says, sniffling.

I croak out some noise from the back of my throat, making him laugh.

He sits up a bit and so do I.

I hug him so tightly, I'm surprised he can breathe and he rocks us gently side to side.

"Why were you tearing up?" I ask him.

He pulls away and says, "Because I think I'm starting to rub off on you."

I laugh, "Huh?" I ask slightly confused.

"You are getting so good with words and I'm so proud." He says making his voice croak and brings his hand gently to his heart.

I laugh a little and kiss his cheek, making a smacking sound.

"Are you tired?" He asks me after another minute or two.

I shake my head, "Not really."

"Well, it's only 8 o'clock. You wanna go do something? We could play a game or watch another movie or I could read you a book or something." He suggest.

"Let's play games!" I whisper excitedly.

"Alright, come on." He says, lightly nudging me to get off of him.

I quickly get up and pull Peeta with me to the game closet and pull out a few games and then we head into the kitchen to play.

We play a drawing game but if you can guess who won, that would be me surprisingly.

Peeta is an artist so I could guess everything he drew and I however, I am no artist so he lost pretty bad.

We even play Candy Land.

After a whole bunch of games we decide to eat some of our pie we made the other day

Peeta makes me some pumpkin pie with whip cream on top and him some as well, then we devour the treat and go to upstairs, hand in hand, we sneak up the dark staircase and up to my room.

While we are looking through my bookshelf I find a picture.

"Peeta, look!" I squeal with excitement.

It's a picture of my dad and me when I was just a baby.

"Awwww! Katniss, you were such a beautiful baby." Peeta says, admiring the photo.

"Thank you." I laugh.

"Is that your father?" He asks, unsure if he should go there.

"Yeah." I say smiling.

I don't get too emotional about my father anymore because like Peeta has said before good and bad things happen for a reason.

I mean, even though I miss my dad more than anyone, I don't think I would've ever met Peeta without the death of my father.

I think for a moment contemplating whether or not to say anything to Peeta and after a few seconds of silence I decide to speak up.

"You know as bad as it sounds my father's death was kind of in our favor." I blurt out.

"How?" Peeta raises his eyebrows and looks at me as if I am insane.

"I honestly don't think I would've ever met you without it and I don't think I would've been as happy as I am now." I admit to him.

Sure, I would love my dad to be here but maybe he wasn't meant to be here to see it as bad as it sounds.

"Katniss, I am sure even if you wouldn't have met me you would've been happy or at least met someone who made you happy." He says sadly.

"You have made my entire family happy. You made my mother smile the first time you met and you also made us grow back together. Prim made a new friend and I made a friend too, my best friend." I say truthfully, knowing he needs to hear it.

Peeta steps closer, bringing his soft, warm hand to my cheek and begin to blush like crazy.

"Peeta, I can't imagine being with anyone other than you. I don't care what you say or think."

"I can't imagine life without you." He murmurs, ultimately topping anything I said.

Eventually we head back down stairs with the book I picked.

Peeta has his back leaned up against the arm of the couch and together we are small enough to sit right next to one another with plenty of room.

The couch is sitting about five feet away from the fire and the coals are almost completely dimmed but the heat is still radiating throughout the room.

Peeta turns on the lamp and puts a blanket over us and begins to quietly read me the story.

It is a book I got for Prim awhile back but she didn't like it very well, so she gave it to me.

Peeta begins reading the blue book with white font.

I watch as he annunciates every word perfectly.

Every pause and period is right on and he stops for just the right amount of time.

Before I know it, I am mesmerized by his ability to move someone with just words out of a book, not counting the words from his head.

Last thing I remember before falling asleep is Peeta reading me the part about the girl getting proposed to by the boy.