I just recently got into The Hunger Games and haven't even finished the last book, but I couldn't resist writing this.

Same Small World

Leave your home
Change your name
Live alone
Eat your cake

Vanderlyle crybaby cry
Though the water's a-rising
Still no surprising you

Vanderlyle crybaby cry
Man, it's all been forgiven
Swans are a-swimmin'
I'll explain everything to the geeks

All the very best of us string ourselves up for love

The National - Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks

Gale's words linger in my mind for a while, his proposition echoing inside my head as the goat cheese melts across my tongue, warming me from the inside out.

I bump the front of my boot against a large rock, moving it in small, slow circles, my fingers fumbling absent-mindedly with the seam of my pants at the side of my knee.

Gale is immobile by my side, his upper arm pressed tightly against my own in the narrow space, but unlike all the days we spent here together, his presence suddenly feels strangely uncomfortable, tense. Something lingers between us since we fell into silence.

My mind is still having trouble to really grasp on everything Gale has said – his proposition to run away, the mention of having children, of not living in District 12, everything sounding heavy with a false bottom, something hidden behind his words – as I swallow the last bite of bread. I close my eyes to savour the slowly fading taste of the warm bread and cheese, running my tongue slowly across the roof of my mouth.

The sigh that escapes my lips is loaded with longing, the taste, the warm, satisfying sensation of a full stomach, and the sunshine tickling my skin.

Gale shifts beside me, readjusting his long legs, I see as I dare to peek at him, his eyes fixed at the sky, yet not really looking at all. Lost in thought. It's a state I rarely ever see him in. He is always so focussed, concentrated, in charge of his thoughts, that the absent look in his gray eyes arouses a boiling fear somewhere deep inside of me. In a place I have not been aware of until now. A place that is not only afraid to lose a friend and a hunting partner, but is afraid of Gale slipping through my fingers like smoke.

This look, his earlier words, it all seems so out-of-place, so confusing, so foreign, and I can not help but wonder if something is really changed – would I have missed things become different, more complicated between us? – or if it is merely the spirit of this day that seems to build walls I struggle to even just peek above.

It is a sentimental day, that much is for sure. And fear might be omnipresent if we allowed it to take control of our thoughts. Still, there have been reaping days before and no matter how hard I try, I can find no memories that could compare to the emotions flickering between me and Gale today.

Was this just fear? Was it another height in Gale's hate against the Capitol? Or was it something else entirely, something I could not put a name on?

I can not deny that for a splint second an image flashes in front of my inner eye, Gale and me hunting through the woods, providing for our families just like we always have, but not having to live under the pressure of the District, free to move, free to breathe, free to live. It is a tempting thought, an utopian illusion that causes a dull ache in my chest, because I know for sure it will never ever come true.

I'm pulled out of my thoughts by the sound of Gale releasing a deep breath beside me, not quite a sigh, but loud enough to be noticed. He has been eyeing me, I do not know for how long, his eyes filled with curiosity.

Swallowing, I quickly turn my head back to me knees, my fingertips immobile against the seam now.

"What do you want to do?" I ask, clearly aware of his eyes still fixed on me. There is a long silence, heavy with unspoken thoughts.

My mind tries to avoid delving too deep into this new, foreign territory, and so I attempt to focus on how to spend the rest of time we have left until we need to go back home and get ready for the reaping.

Fishing. Hunting. Some greens. It's a clear, sunny day, we have all the possibilities, nothing to intervene with any plans we could come up with.

If it was not for the inevitable dark spot in my plans for this day, I might look forward to another small feast tonight, full stomachs, that satisfied smile on Prim's face, maybe a night without bad dreams haunting me.

"Can we just sit here for a little longer?"

Gale's quiet but determined words turn my head without my intention, our eyes meeting. I try hard to decipher the expression in Gale's eyes – longing, sadness, anger, frustration, fear – but I fail to form an explanation for it.

"Okay," I answer. The whisper is unintentional, but somewhere between making the decision to speak this single word and it leaving my lips, courage fails me and my voice breaks. I swallow, hoping for a reaction, for something to break the stare I'm caught in.

Everything happens too fast for me to comprehend, and for a splint second after Gale's lips suddenly press against my own I feel something like disappointment, usually being so proud of my instinct and my reflexes – a hunter's best weapons – and not having realized what was happening fast enough to react. But then I realize very well what is happening, the feeling of Gale's lips – so much warmer and softer than I would have ever thought - pushing urgently against mine, my heart beating frantically, goose bumps covering my skin below the layers of clothes, a calloused palm taking hold of the hand on my knee, fingers intertwining with mine. I feel my eyelids flutter close, shock sipping from every fibre of my body.

It is over as quick as it came, Gale's lips parting from mine, his warm breath fanning over my flushed cheeks, but his hand stays entangled with mine.

My breathing comes and goes as uneven as my heartbeats, and when I finally gather enough courage to open my eyes again, I feel dizzy. Perplexed.

"Catnip," Gale says carefully, not allowing me much time to recover. I shudder as I feel his thumb draw circles on the back of my hand. "I had to do that. At least this once."

The reaping. It might tear us apart. Kill one of us. Both of us. Although I never dare to think about it that precisely. Thinking about being part of the Games, someone I love being part of them, is too cruel. It either happens, or you get lucky.

And I finally find a word to describe the look in Gale's gray eyes. Despair.

"Are you scared?" I whisper, the question answering itself, but lingering on my lips, needing to be asked.

"Out of my mind."

I might not understand what has changed between us, what I am to make of the tingling sensation that still lingers on my lips, the meaning behind the kiss – Gale kissed me, my mind repeats like a mantra over and over again – but I understand his motives in this very second.

Because we think alike. The same fear drives my hand to cup Gale's cheek, my fingers to grasp onto his, my head to lean in slowly, my lips to brush gently against his cheek.

"I wish we could just run away like that," I whisper against his skin, eyes closed, and leaning against his chest as Gale's arms carefully move to wrap around me.

I don't remember him ever hugging me, but the warmth that spreads through my entire body feels so familiar, so comforting, that I lean my head against his shoulder. Our breathing is slow, my heartbeat returning to normal.

This is new, unexplored terrain. But in Gale's arms, I suddenly hope even more that the reaping will pass by us like they have in the past years. That I won't be forced to watch Gale be killed on television, that I won't be killed knowing it's breaking Gale back home. That it won't come down to the two of us.

For the first time, I truly wish for Effie Trinket's stupid annual slogan to come true, for the odds to be in our favour, for another year of time to understand what just happened.

"Let's go fishing, Catnip."