A/N: Hey guys! I finally got this chapter finished! Huzzah! Thank you all so much for your love and patience for me during this difficult time.
The fanfiction awards 2017 nominations have finally opened on Wattpad! I qualify as an author for a couple of awards with Me Katniss, You Peeta but I need you guys to help me get there!
Me Katniss, You Peeta can be nominated for:
-Best literature Fanfiction
-Best Fanfiction plot
-Best Overall fanfiction
You could also nominate me, Blueberry, for the Best of the Little {Next Big Thing} Award if you wanted to ^_^
You nominate through the wattpad app by visiting this book: : The-fanfiction-awards-2017 and leaving an inline comment on chapter two beside the award you think this story (or author) deserves. The comment must include the story's name and then link my author name Blueberrychills94.
Massive love and thanks to anyone who decides to nominate me! 3
Chapter Sixteen
I know who the father of Delly's baby is. It's obvious that it's Gale. Not only did I catch them exiting the house of flowers in secret, but Peeta himself even said that Delly had fancied him, that's why he had been at the Homecoming Ball. All the signs point to this Gale fellow. The real question is, where can I find him? How can I find him? Most importantly, if he knows that Delly's child is his, will he want to become involved?
If he doesn't, I will force him. There will be no room for argument.
The most difficult thing of all, however, will be getting Delly to even admit that she has cheated on Peeta at all.
According to Peeta, Delly has continued to be adamant that she has not been unfaithful. She is insistent that the baby she carries belongs to her husband, despite its impossibility. Her friends believe her, they don't have any reason not to. Primrose and I are suspicious, and I know that Madge is as well. Madge is a clever woman, clever to the extent of wishing to remain out of the affairs of others. I know she is wise in this decision, but that opportunity is long gone for me. I'm in too deep.
The house is empty besides one person. I make my way through the corridors with ease. It wasn't hard for me to map the layout of Peeta's shelter in my mind, I've memorized much larger terrains in much shorter lengths of time. I know where to find her and it almost feels as if she's waiting on me. I don't hear a single footfall heading my way, no creak in another room, no scraping of a chair far in the distance, she is clearly standing still. She hears me coming. She's expecting me.
I open the door that leads out onto the patio and there she stands. Still as a statue, the afternoon sky lighting her pale, glowing skin to a point where she almost looks unreal. Despite everything, I have always been conditioned to appreciate beautiful things, and I never could doubt Delly's attractiveness. She has a natural celestial glow that followed her even before she was pregnant. I'm not threatened by this. I enjoy how I look and no one will ever make me feel bad about that. Besides, appreciating someone else's beauty does not dispose your own. Everyone views beauty differently: some will look at moss and see beauty in how in grows and consumes, others will look at moss and think of it as gross. It's how the individual sees it.
She doesn't look at me.
"I thought you would be gone by now," she admits.
I wonder why. Just because she's pregnant now? That doesn't make any sense-
Wait. Does Delly know that I know about Peeta's being unable to have children?
"It's pointless hanging around any longer. If you believe he will leave me now that I'm with child, then you're most definitely deluded."
I approach her, rounding the garden furniture and standing beside her on the edge of the patio. She glances at me momentarily before returning her gaze to the garden. I copy her stance, looking out across the land behind their shelter. My eyes immediately find the house of flowers and lock there by instinct.
"Unless you intend to wander around our home as a lonely fourth party for the remainder of your days, it could be arranged. However, I'd say that you'd always feel like an outsider looking in that way, especially when our boy is born."
My eyebrows draw together. How in the world does she already know she's carrying a son? I know boys are most desirable-for some bizarre reason-but she surely hasn't assumed that she's carrying one purely on instinct? Well, you know what they say about a mother's instinct, I suppose . . .
"You remember the night we bumped into each other in the corridor? That's when I conceived." Delly's hand goes to her stomach and she rubs. "How lucky are we that the first night we are intimate in so long is when we finally conceive."
My head turns and I stare at her profile. Her eyes are so distant, like she's reminiscing on the night in question. She doesn't look like she's all there. Like her physical body is standing here beside me but her mind has gone somewhere else completely. Don't tell me that she's so unbalanced that she actually believes her own lies? Is that possible?
"You will leave once he's born." Delly makes this a statement. I raise my eyebrows but she still won't look at me properly. Almost like she doesn't care what I have to say on this matter. "We don't need you here anymore. You won't distract him anymore. Once he's born, his attention will be back on me. Not on you."
She's not saying any names and it's becoming difficult to discern who she is talking about, whether it be Peeta or her unborn 'son'. All she is using are male pronouns. She falls silent after that and continues to stare the garden, directly where my gaze used to lie: On the house of flowers. I wish I knew what was going on inside her head. I wish I knew what she was thinking about.
There's no mistaking the lowkey hysterical tone to her voice, like under the hundreds of layers of determination and stubbornness, Delly Mellark is slowly losing her mind. And with that unsettling thought in mind, I can't help but fear that maybe she truly is.
Her behaviour is bothering me. Mainly because none of this adds up at all. Peeta said long ago that Delly didn't love him anymore, mainly due to the fact that he couldn't give her children in the first place. Was he wrong? Or is Delly's whole agenda here the equvialent of a baby throwing their toys out of their pram because they don't want someone else touching their things? Does she only view her husband as property? Or was her husband wrong at all to think that she didn't have any emotional connection towards him anymore? It's hard to know.
"I know that you doubt me," Delly says firmly. "I know that you all doubt me. Everyone that you have been in contact with doubt my honesty. Primrose; Madge; even Peeta himself doubts me. He refuses to share I bed with me now because he doesn't know what to think. Soon he'll come around. I'm sure of it. I don't know what you have been trying to do to them, but I want it to stop."
I wonder what she thinks that I could have possibly done to convince them of her dishonesty. I'm a persuasive person but not that persuasive. If I had been the only person to see the cracks in this story I would most definitely be on my own in this. But I'm not. There are so many holes in Delly's story I'm surprised there is any stable ground for her to stand on at all.
"It's a gift from God." Delly looks to the sky and it makes me wonder if she thinks she can see her God up there. I don't know much about human religion but I do know that this God of theirs most definitely would not waste his time giving Delly of all people a child through impossible means. Surely there would be more important things for him to deal with at the moment than the wanton whims of a woman losing grip on her husband. "We've been blessed."
I cringe. Blessed? Delly? I'm pretty sure Delly has been cursed more than she's been blessed. Maybe the curse comes in the form of me, I don't know, but this definitely does not feel like a blessing. Especially not for Peeta, who-if this were a gift from their God-would be feeling blessed as well. Instead I'm pretty sure he's having a checkup with Primrose with his hair falling out from stress.
"I prayed and prayed and he finally rewarded me," Delly sighs.
"You're crazy," I want to say to her. But I don't. There's no use trying to speak to her until I find my voice. She doesn't know sign language so I'd just be waving my hands around in front of her.
"He rewarded us both," Delly corrects. She seats herself on one of the garden chairs and gazes out over her garden. She doesn't say anything else. My feet stay planted to the spot, waiting in case she decides to add anything else. I watch the way the breeze catches her blonde hair, brushing it over her pale face and pink lips. It almost looks like she has turned to stone, a statue in the garden like an ornament in the grass.
I hear the front door opening and I immediately leave her there. I weave through the corridors and fly down the stairs, arriving at the front of the house just in time to catch Peeta hanging his coat up on the rack by the door. He's been getting tests redone by Primrose to see if anything has changed in his fertility. Primrose has explained to me already that she highly doubts that there has been any change but since Delly is so insistent about their baby, they might as well make sure.
Peeta's gaze meets mine and I can see a heaviness in the blue of his iris'. "So?" I ask.
Peeta shrugs. "Still infertile," he says, the statement more of a sigh than spoken words. "No change at all."
I hear a shift behind me and I turn. Delly is standing a couple of paces away, hovering nervously by one of their guest room doors. I raise my eyebrows at her. She flushes and rushes down the stairs, her skirts a whirl of red in her hurry. She practically elbows me out of the way. "Don't you see?" she insists. "This is a true miracle! We've been blessed, Peeta!"
Peeta regards Delly with a weariness that I've never seen in him before. "Blessed," he says slowly, his voice questioning.
"From God," Delly presses. She tries to take his hands but he doesn't let her, so her own hands just hovered between them awkwardly. "We've been chosen!"
"Delly, this isn't a gift from God," Peeta says. "You are not the immaculate conception. Pardon me for saying this in company but you are nothing like the Virgin Mary. You're losing your mind."
"You'll see that this baby is yours when its born," Delly continues to press. There's a softness to her voice, like she isn't mad at all at Peeta for not believing her. Maybe she concentrates all her venom and rage on me, since she seems to believe that I'm the reason for his disbelief.
Peeta eyes Delly curiously. "So, you believe there's a means of proving the baby is mine once it's born?"
"You'll just know, I'm sure of it!" Delly smiles. She touches Peeta's face briefly before wandering off. I watch her with bemusement as she disappears again up the stairs. She's been doing that for days now, just wandering around the house like she doesn't have a purpose besides acting like a ghoul haunting the mansion.
Peeta and I's eyes lock. I shrug, showing him that I'm not going to comment on the matter since anything I say would probably seem catty anyways. "If she keeps talking like that, she's going to get committed," Peeta says.
"What does that mean?" I ask him.
"Ah, there's a . . . hospital . . . for people who are sick"-
"Yeah, Primrose works at one," I say.
"This is a different type of hospital. It's for people who are sick, but more . . . mentally, than physically." Peeta and I fall in step beside each other. The idea fascinates me. A sickness of the mind? I didn't realize that was a thing. "I personally don't agree with them. I think it's great trying to help people are mentally unwell but those places . . . they're very tough on them."
"How so?"
"They treat them like they're crazy. They put them in padded rooms so they can't hurt themselves and sometimes even strap them down to the things." Peeta shuddered. "If Delly keeps talking like she's the Virgin Mary carrying the baby Jesus someone is going to notice and they'll call someone with concern. It always starts with concern . . ."
"What are you going to do to help her?" I ask as we mount the stairs. "Appeasing her will only make the situation worse and trying to tell her otherwise just makes her want to drive the point in harder."
Peeta shrugs. "I've asked Primrose to speak to her. Give a medical opinion. It's all I've got."
I nod my understanding. This predicament seems to swell in complexity every day. Whether this is Delly's intention or not is unclear but I certainly can't tell if even finding Gale will make it any easier. The way things seem to be going, Gale could fall to his knees in front of Delly and declare how he was willing to be the best father he could be and Delly would frown with confusion and insist to him that her baby belongs to Peeta. I hope this isn't the case.
So far, finding Gale is all I've got. Without him, I have nothing.
A/N: I'm still struggling with my writing, sadly, and I just got a bolt of inspiration that helped me finish this chapter so quickly. I still can't guarantee regular updating, I'm sorry. I can't thank you all enough for your love and patience for me and this story 3