The Hunger Games

roses?” he asks Caesar, and then there’s a whole run where they take turns sniffing each other that brings down the house. I’m coming back into focus when Caesar asks him if he has a girlfriend back home.
    Peeta hesitates, then gives an unconvincing shake of his head.
    “Handsome lad like you. There must be some special girl. Come on, what’s her name?” says Caesar.
    Peeta sighs. “Well, there is this one girl. I’ve had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I’m pretty sure she didn’t know I was alive until the reaping.”
    Sounds of sympathy from the crowd. Unrequited love they can relate to.
    “She have another fellow?” asks Caesar.
    “I don’t know, but a lot of boys like her,” says Peeta.
    “So, here’s what you do. You win, you go home. She can’t turn you down then, eh?” says Caesar encouragingly.
    “I don’t think it’s going to work out. Winning . . . won’t help in my case,” says Peeta.
    “Why ever not?” says Caesar, mystified.
    Peeta blushes beet red and stammers out. “Because . . . because . . . she came here with me.”



For a moment, the cameras hold on Peeta’s downcast eyes as what he says sinks in. Then I can see my face, mouth half open in a mix of surprise and protest, magnified on every screen as I realize, Me! He means me! I press my lips together and stare at the floor, hoping this will conceal the emotions starting to boil up inside of me.
    “Oh, that is a piece of bad luck,” says Caesar, and there’s a real edge of pain in his voice. The crowd is murmuring in agreement, a few have even given agonized cries.
    “It’s not good,” agrees Peeta.
    “Well, I don’t think any of us can blame you. It’d be hard not to fall for that young lady,” says Caesar. “She didn’t know?”
    Peeta shakes his head. “Not until now.”
    I allow my eyes to flicker up to the screen long enough to see that the blush on my cheeks is unmistakable.
    “Wouldn’t you love to pull her back out here and get a response?” Caesar asks the audience. The crowd screams assent. “Sadly, rules are rules, and Katniss Everdeen’s time has been spent. Well, best of luck to you, Peeta Mellark, and I think I speak for all of Panem when I say our hearts go with yours.”
    The roar of the crowd is deafening. Peeta has absolutely wiped the rest of us off the map with his declaration of love for me. When the audience finally settles down, he chokes out a quiet “Thank you” and returns to his seat. We stand for the anthem. I have to raise my head out of the required respect and cannot avoid seeing that every screen is now dominated by a shot of Peeta and me, separated by a few feet that in the viewers’ heads can never be breached. Poor tragic us.
    But I know better.
    After the anthem, the tributes file back into the Training Center lobby and onto the elevators. I make sure to veer into a car that does not contain Peeta. The crowd slows our entourages of stylists and mentors and chaperones, so we have only each other for company. No one speaks. My elevator stops to deposit four tributes before I am alone and then find the doors opening on the twelfth floor. Peeta has only just stepped from his car when I slam my palms into his chest. He loses his balance and crashes into an ugly urn filled with fake flowers. The urn tips and shatters into hundreds of tiny pieces. Peeta lands in the shards, and blood immediately flows from his hands.
    “What was that for?” he says, aghast.
    “You had no right! No right to go saying those things about me!” I shout at him.
    Now the elevators open and the whole crew is there, Effie, Haymitch, Cinna, and Portia.
    “What’s going on?” says Effie, a note of hysteria in her voice. “Did you fall?”
    “After she shoved me,” says Peeta as Effie and Cinna help him up.
    Haymitch turns on me. “Shoved him?”
    “This was your idea, wasn’t it? Turning me into some kind of fool in front of the entire country?” I answer.
    “It was my idea,” says Peeta, wincing as he pulls spikes of pottery from his palms. “Haymitch just helped me with it.”
    “Yes, Haymitch is very helpful. To you!” I say.
    “You are a fool,” Haymitch says in disgust. “Do you think he hurt you? That boy just gave you something you could never achieve on your own.”
    “He made me look weak!” I say.
    “He made you look desirable! And let’s face it, you can use all the help you can get in that department. You were about as romantic as dirt until