Begin Again

Chapter 2~ The Scream

Katniss's P.O.V

I don't return Peeta's statement. I can't and I won't and I'm not sure if I ever will.

It's hard to believe that there's any love left in the world. And Peeta loving me just sounds so improbable. It has since the day he returned from the Capitol hijacked. When he choked me, the thought of us having what we once did was farfetched. To actually consider loving and trusting the person who gave me trust issues in the first place would be insane. I had just gotten the hang of letting people in before they lose interest in trying to cooperate with my stubbornness. And he demolished any construction I had being done to that skill. Of course he's not the only reason for my disorder, but he takes a huge toll. Which I know deep down it isn't his fault. That it's the Capitol who destroyed him. But the question is, how much can be repaired?

I can only bear the thought of being with one person. But he's gone. Actually, I should hate him. He's the person I should love the least and hate the most. He left me. In fact, he is probably kissing a different pair of lips all the way in district two as we speak.

"I'm sorry Peeta, but I can't return that yet," I whisper back to his statement, disallowing myself to think anything more of . . . him. "I'm sorry."

His face falls at this. The corners of his mouth droop down into a perfect arc. His fingers find my dark black hair and he slowly runs them down my braid to where it is tied off at the end. There's lots of pieces sticking out from within the pattern of my hair that was singed off unevenly in the war. Lots of it has grown back now, but not enough to make a perfect braid.

"It's him, isn't it?" Peeta whispers in a voice that's barely audible. I glance down at his fingers which rest at the end of my braid and shift in the bed uncomfortably. It doesn't take an adept at knowledge to know who he's speaking of.

My mind goes vacuous and it's as if I've forgotten how to communicate. My mouth opens, a string of stutters rifting the silence that lasted awhile in the air. Nothing. I am speechless to Peeta's assumption.

When the moment is tense and hushed once again I focus on the sound of the cleaning and renovation outside. It sort of distracts me from my reality. The one that I wish I could quickly and easily be deteriorated from right now. That way I wouldn't feel obligated to answer the question that seems to have no correct answer. And just as I feel like I've finally gathered the right words and I begin to utter them, an euphonious scream from outside cuts through the air.

Without a second though, I stand straight up.

"Did you hear that?!" I ask Peeta, one million shades of insanity imprinted in my voice.

"Hear what?" he asks oblivious to it completely.

"That . . . that scream! It was so l-l-loud, s-so clear!" I explain frantically, already pacing around the room. My body shakes uncontrollably. I've heard so many screams in my lifetime, too many to count. But this one was by far the worst. It was the type that I uttered when I wake up from a nightmare, or the type that haunt my nightmares.

I grab Peeta by the shoulders and give him a small shake, feeling as if it's impossible he hadn't heard it too. This has happened before, multiple times actually, but it's never this austere.

I traverse to my wide, circular window and split the curtains, pushing them to either side of the window's frame. I lift up the dirt layered glass and stick my head out, inhaling a deep breath of air. The breezy, and once clean air of district twelve will never again smell or feel the same. It might just simply be a mind thing. But anything the Capitol toyed with to me will always be intoxicated.

I had a nightmare once, where I was choking on the smoky air of district twelve when it was littered with bombs by the Capitol. Every breath I took consisted of more effort each time till I couldn't breath at all. Outside the district was nothing but pandemonium. It was a frenzy of flames and sculls and dead bodies; a catastrophe of screaming people who took their last breath as fire swallowed them. And Gale had been standing right there, right outside my old house's window which I was peering helplessly out of. He hadn't caught my eye, yet I saw him perfectly. And since I couldn't call out, I died, just one scream away from being saved by him. No matter how many times I told myself it was only a nightmare, I knew that it had been reality to someone else. I'd had this nightmare the day I moved in. And ever since that nightmare, I knew that I'd never be able to think of district twelve or any part of my life the same again. Ever.