Chapter 1: I Would Have Said Yes

I twist the hem of my faded blue dress in my hands nervously, as I wait in front of the wooden door in the Justice Building. I don't really know what I'm doing here. And I didn't even know as I ran from Mother and Prim as we headed home from the Reaping, safe and unscathed for another year.

Except I am not unscathed. A boy has been Reaped for the 76th Annual Hunger Games. A boy who I now feel obligated to visit before it's too late.

Peeta Mellark is a classmate of mine. He's in my year in school, though I don't know him well at all. I only know he is a wrestler, and a good one at that. We've never even spoken; we only interacted once and it was years ago.

But it was an interaction that changed my life. And I must express this to Peeta Mellark, the Baker's son.

The door suddenly opens as a boy whom I know to be one of Peeta's many friends exits the room. A Peacekeeper pushes me in before I have time to turn back.

"Last visitor before the train. You have 20 minutes." How convenient. Most other visitors get a strict five minutes with the Tribute. I hope I have not been given this extra time because the guards think I am Peeta's...

Peeta Mellark is seated on a cushioned seat by the window as the door closes behind me. He turns and starts when he sees me, rising.

"What are you doing here?"

My mind has strangely gone blank as I take in his stocky build. He's actually shorter than me, with ashy blonde hair. And those eyes... eyes as blue as a summer sky...

He's attractive enough. One might even say handsome. And that beauty is soon to be destroyed, which re-energizes me into saying what I came here to say.

"I never got to thank you. For the bread. I just... thank you." Rarely have I ever expressed a debt like this so openly, and I feel my face growing hot.

Peeta stares at me quizzically, almost amused. "What? From when we were kids?"

I peer at him. "You remember that."

"I remember most things about you. And Katniss... you have to know that the reason I gave you that bread is because... because I love you."

I gape like a fish. Peeta Mellark loves me? I'm just the poor daughter of a Seam coal miner. Not particularly pretty, or even well-filled out. Prim is the real beauty of our family, having inherited our mother's Merchant features. Averting my eyes for a moment, I self-consciously tug at my braid.

"Well... thank you," I mumble. Shocking though it is, to tell someone out of the blue you love them. "But why didn't you say anything? Before?"

"I didn't know you," Peeta replies honestly. "We had never spoken; do you think I was going to walk up to you and say, 'Hey, remember me? I threw bread to you when we were kids; would you marry me?' No, no... but..."

I, however, have stepped back as if physically struck, eyes wide. "You... what?... What did you say?"

Peeta blushes, as if catching himself for the first time. He pulls a small object out of his pocket. "Oh. I was, uh... I've had this for several years. I was going to give it to you at the end of our last Reaping and ask you to marry me."

Peeta's intentions are common enough. It is customary for 18-year-old boys to, having survived their last Reaping, kneel before their sweethearts and ask for their hand in marriage. I know of many couples who marry at that age; Mother was only 19 when she wed Daddy.

I now run Peeta's ring through my fingers, my face furrowed in thought. It's true that in proposing to me in two years' time, Peeta would have likely been asking an almost-total stranger for marriage. I probably would have viewed his ring as foolish, a waste of money. Laughed at his gall. And yet... Peeta is strong. Good with his hands. He could have built a strong house for us and kept us alive with a worthy profession. Just as I know of many marriages in Twelve based on love, so also do I know of still more marital unions based on economic dependency. And even though I once vowed I would never take a husband in marriage for any reason...

"If you had asked me... I would have said Yes," I find myself confessing to him. And I surprise even myself when I realize I mean these words.

Peeta must be just as surprised, for he blinks, before breaking into a pleased smile. "I guess I'll just have to win then. So I can ask you proper."

I actually laugh – a rare thing for me. Prim, my baby sister, has only ever been the one to make me laugh. Well, that, and an occasional chuckle over one of Gale's jokes in the woods. But this kind of laugh is realistic: District 12 has only had two Victors in the past three-quarters of a century, and one of them is dead. And the other is a drunk who won back when Peeta's and my parents were our age.

"If you win the Hunger Games, I'll marry you and give you the biggest fuck you've ever had!" I should chastise myself for being so bold when it comes to propositions of romance and marriage and lovemaking, but this has to be a when-pigs-fly statement. A bet I am sure to win.

Peeta smirks, encouraged. "I'll take that bet."

I shrug, daring to smirk back. "Fine."

And we shake on it.