THIRTY-TWO

Peeta opens a restaurant and Johanna is employed for exactly two days. She decides to teach self-defense to the kids in town and sell her pottery on weekends. It's better for everyone. Finnick's father helps me run my own boat. Haymitch finds a dog. He's a big yellow lab that will eat your face if you look at Adric funny and for some reason only eats Johanna's shoes. Haymitch refuses to dignify that accusation with a response. Johanna throws a handful of salad at him. Annie leans across a table to smack her, colorful bracelets slip down her thin arms. She volunteers at the library in town. Twice a week, she runs story time for the kids.

Adric is six when Peeta and Annie decide to get hitched. They came together slow and sweet. They're all lightness and harmony. Their kids call us Aunt Jo and Aunt Kat. Johanna teaches them to swear. I teach them to shoot. Haymitch is a fun time and a cautionary tale. They ask us about the Games and we tell them.

"You're happy. Real or not real?" Peeta asks one warm summer night.

"Real." I answer without hesitation. "What about you?"

"Real." He beams.

The threat of relapse is always there. Johanna and I fight it hand in hand. You'll never fathom the how or the why of all the shit that happens in a life and you can't just fill the empty space with other things. The holes are always going to be there, but you can find new spaces to fill and maybe the new things press in and those gaping holes shrink.

She's in my arms tonight and we're moving together in the sweet ocean air. The swell of her breasts. The taste of her tongue. We're secondhand lovers. All fraying ends and cracked glass. We're rough around edges, but there is something firm in our experiences. The smell of her. The bite of her words. She's solid all the way through and she doesn't care that some days I'm paper-thin.

"Happy and whole."

"Fuck yeah we are."

The End

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