Catching Fire

know I’ll never leave that arena alive, I’m still holding on to the hope that Peeta will. After all, he didn’t pull out those berries, I did. No one has ever doubted that Peeta’s defiance was motivated by love. So maybe President Snow will prefer keeping him alive, crushed and heartbroken, as a living warning to others.
    “But even if that happens, everyone will know we’ve gone out fighting, right?” Peeta asks.
    “Everyone will,” I reply. And for the first time, I distance myself from the personal tragedy that has consumed me since they announced the Quell. I remember the old man they shot in District 11, and Bonnie and Twill, and the rumored uprisings. Yes, everyone in the districts will be watching me to see how I handle this death sentence, this final act of President Snow’s dominance. They will be looking for some sign that their battles have not been in vain. If I can make it clear that I’m still defying the Capitol right up to the end, the Capitol will have killed me . . . but not my spirit. What better way to give hope to the rebels?
    The beauty of this idea is that my decision to keep Peeta alive at the expense of my own life is itself an act of defiance. A refusal to play the Hunger Games by the Capitol’s rules. My private agenda dovetails completely with my public one. And if I really could save Peeta . . . in terms of a revolution, this would be ideal. Because I will be more valuable dead. They can turn me into some kind of martyr for the cause and paint my face on banners, and it will do more to rally people than anything I could do if I was living. But Peeta would be more valuable alive, and tragic, because he will be able to turn his pain into words that will transform people.
    Peeta would lose it if he knew I was thinking any of this, so I only say, “So what should we do with our last few days?”
    “I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you,” Peeta replies.
    “Come on, then,” I say, pulling him into my room.
    It feels like such a luxury, sleeping with Peeta again. I didn’t realize until now how starved I’ve been for human closeness. For the feel of him beside me in the darkness. I wish I hadn’t wasted the last couple of nights shutting him out. I sink down into sleep, enveloped in his warmth, and when I open my eyes again, daylight’s streaming through the windows.
    “No nightmares,” he says.
    “No nightmares,” I confirm. “You?”
    “None. I’d forgotten what a real night’s sleep feels like,” he says.
    We lie there for a while, in no rush to begin the day. Tomorrow night will be the televised interview, so today Effie and Haymitch should be coaching us. More high heels and sarcastic comments, I think. But then the redheaded Avox girl comes in with a note from Effie saying that, given our recent tour, both she and Haymitch have agreed we can handle ourselves adequately in public. The coaching sessions have been canceled.
    “Really?” says Peeta, taking the note from my hand and examining it. “Do you know what this means? We’ll have the whole day to ourselves.”
    “It’s too bad we can’t go somewhere,” I say wistfully.
    “Who says we can’t?” he asks.
    The roof. We order a bunch of food, grab some blankets, and head up to the roof for a picnic. A daylong picnic in the flower garden that tinkles with wind chimes. We eat. We lie in the sun. I snap off hanging vines and use my newfound knowledge from training to practice knots and weave nets. Peeta sketches me. We make up a game with the force field that surrounds the roof — one of us throws an apple into it and the other person has to catch it.
    No one bothers us. By late afternoon, I lie with my head on Peeta’s lap, making a crown of flowers while he fiddles with my hair, claiming he’s practicing his knots. After a while, his hands go still. “What?” I ask.
    “I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever,” he says.
    Usually this sort of comment, the kind that hints of his undying love for me, makes me feel guilty and awful. But I feel so warm and relaxed and beyond worrying about a future I’ll never have, I just let the word slip out. “Okay.”
    I can hear the smile in his voice. “Then you’ll allow it?”
    “I’ll allow it,” I say.
    His fingers go back to my hair and I doze off, but he rouses me to see the sunset. It’s a spectacular yellow and orange blaze behind the skyline of the Capitol.