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No matter how much glitter the stylists dust across her skin, Katniss does not belong among the people of the Capitol. The neon lights of the city burn her retinas every night. The cruel faces of those who applaud her triumph and cheer the fallen haunt her nightmares. The deep beat of the music that pervades every party and club sets her very bones trembling.
She longs for the fresh, crisp air of the forest outside of District 12. She yearns for the quiet twang of the songs that have been passed down through generations upon generations of coal miners. She pines for the gentle whisper of a genuine smiles across worn and sun-damaged faces.
It often feels as though Panem is a place made up of many different worlds, rather than a single unified country. As much as the people of the Capitol pretend that they want to hear stories of life in the Districts -- how shocked and awed they might seem whenever Katniss herself speaks on the struggle and joy that walk hand in hand back home -- they do not care to understand who she is or where she comes from. To them, she will always be a skilled fighter and ferocious lover. They cast her in a role that she will be forced to play for the rest of her life without asking her whether or not it was what she wanted, or even if it was real.
Katniss didn't like dealing with people when she was allowed to be herself; she likes it even less when she has to pretend to be somebody else.
Bitterness and anger cling to her like ghosts, haunting the hollow space in her chest where her heart once lived. Going into the Games, she knew that if she won, then she would have to mourn the people that she killed, but she did not know that she would have to mourn herself as well. There are many days when she feels like a single person cannot possibly hold enough sadness to support both her burdens. Those are the days when she is most inclined to lash out. Those are the days when she demands that Peeta not speak to her. Those are the days when she threatens to start brawls in the middle of the dance floor. Those are the days when she thinks that she would rather set the world and her life on fire than try to make peace with her situation.
But the people around her always grab her arm, tsk their tongues, and stop her short. Peeta speaks softly into the dark, bringing his mouth close to her ear as he chases off her nightmares with worries and cares of his own. Effie sniffs and reminds her that everyone in Panem has their own burdens to shoulder, and that Katniss's load is lighter than some. Haymitch often says nothing, but in the instances when he does dare to speak his mind and talk her off the ledge, Katniss suddenly finds that she she is not as alone as she thought she might have thought.
One night, while surrounded by a sea of vapid people at a party that looks like an artist's worst nightmare and smells like artificial flowers, Katniss feels as though she is self-destructing. Every word that slips her way -- dripping off of condescending, vapid lips -- stokes the fires of irritation in her belly. Every glimpse of someone stealing away to the bathroom to clear their stomachs convinces her hand to tighten into a fist at her side. Every smile she tries to force kills another part of her soul.
At the beginning of the evening, she had a fairly large contingency at her side -- Peeta and Effie and Cinna's many stylists -- but people have slowly vanished, leaving her alone and unsupported. It's not their fault. Peeta was snatched by a talon-fingered woman dressed like an exotic bird. Effie was dragged into a spirited debate about something asinine. Haymitch was kidnapped by a friend. She knows that they didn't choose to leave her alone, but, still, Katniss simmers. The feeling of abandonment makes her anger all the worse.
She does not usually drink, but the conflagration eventually grows so overwhelming that she stalks towards a tray of bubbling shots and picks up a glass, throwing it back in a single, fluid motion before reaching for another.
A hand reaches out and plucks it from her fingers, and an affectionately tutting voice says, "Take it easy, sweetheart. Wouldn't want to start something that you can't take back."
Torn between relief and more anger, Katniss spins, coming face to face with Haymitch as he downs the drink on her behalf.
"I didn't ask for your help," she says, bristling. Her reaction to everything is sharp these days, even to people she likes. "I have just as much of a right to drink as you do."
Haymitch raises his brows, his eyes flicking over her as his lips curl into a wry smile. "You are a broken child. I am a broken adult. You'll have plenty of years in which you can blissfully drink yourself into oblivion, but you're not going to start today."
Katniss sniffs. "You're not my keeper."
Haymitch turns to glance over his shoulder, melodramatically surveying the room before looking back at Katniss. "I don't see anyone else looking to volunteer."
"Effie would let me," Katniss fires back. It is all she can do to keep from stomping her foot, a gesture that she knows would only serve to further prove Haymitch's assertions of her childishness.
Laughter bubbles in the space between them. "If you want Effie to be your guardian, be my guest. You two could preen and prim for the rest of your life in peace. Of course, that would mean you'd start having to respect her everything else as well. The speeches, the media dinners, the interviews..."
Haymitch trails off teasingly as a scowl buries itself deep into Katniss's face. She tries to turn and stalk away from him, but he follows close behind.
"...You could spend your entire life reading chirpy little nothings from her cards!" he adds with relish.
"She's lightened up on the cards."
"They'll get heavier the closer we get to the next round. The interviews, the bargaining with sponsors, the wedding..."
Katniss stomach lurches at the reminder, and she stops so suddenly that they nearly collide.
A thousand thoughts spiral in her brain, and she latches onto the worst of them all, the most shocking. Partially because she wants to win, partially because she feels safe admitting things to Haymitch, partially because she needs someone els to hear the sullenness that sulks about her ribcage. "This would all be a lot easier if I lost the Games. Then you'd just have Peeta to wrangle."
Darkness intrudes on their shared air, a mutual moroseness that once invited in, is difficult to shake.
Haymitch is the first to challenge that shadow, striking out at it with a roll of his shoulders and a touch of barbed sarcasm. "Little late for that, isn't it?"
Katniss does not answer. Her eyes roll, idly and dismissively sweeping across the roiling crowd, wondering if any other people are as burdened as she is. None of them seem to be. They burn and glitter and dance as if they had not a single thought in their head or crack in their heart. Haymitch's own gaze fixes on her face, narrowing slightly as if he is trying to predict what words might come out of her mouth next.
"Not if you ask President Snow." Katniss meant to be a joke, but there's too much truth in it to be funny. Humor has always been a bit beyond her, an affliction that has only gotten worse with time.
The statement falls to the ground between them and shatters into a million pieces.
Haymitch snaps to attention, grabbing her elbow as he escorts her out of the press of the party. Their feet trip over each other every few steps, and Katniss offers up an exaggerated "ow" every time her foot is crushed beneath his or his hand grips her arm a bit too tight.
It is only once they walk up the stairs to the door that he lets her go, turning her loose in the empty street and the cool night air.
They face each other, Capitol finery glittering frantic breaths pooling in clouds in the air between them.
"There are some things," Haymitch says, choosing his words carefully, "That should not be said when you have an audience. By all means, Katniss, rage in the quiet of the apartment all you like, but once you leave it, that kind of behavior puts everyone you know in danger."
Katniss opens her mouth, ready to argue. Even in the face of well-deserved criticism, she is naturally defensive, but Haymitch continues before she has a chance to interject.
"Me, Effie, Peeta, Prim, your mother, everyone you've ever met becomes a target if you run around spouting whatever pops into that little head of yours. It doesn't matter if you're uncomfortable or upset, if say the wrong thing at the wrong time in front of the wrong person, just like that --" Haymitch steps forward, clicking his fingers in front of Katniss's face, "Your entire world falls apart."
Katniss steps backward, blood boiling, "I don't think --"
Haymitch interrupts her. "No, you don't."
"I wasn't finished!" she snaps back at him.
"You are. I don't care if you don't value your own life, but I watched my family be slaughtered, Katniss. I'm not going to let that happen to you, too. All of this --" he casts a hand behind him, indicating the debauchery that exists behind the closed door -- "is terrible to bear, I know, but if you have no one around you, it gets a hundred times worse."
He pauses, chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath, which forms tiny clouds in the air before him.
There is something so broken, so vulnerable, so true in that admittance that it lends Katniss pause. For the first time in a long time, she remembers that she is not the only person in the world with pain, that she is not the only person in the world that suffers, and that everything could always be worse.
Any arguments she might have been tempted to mount die on her tongue. The fire in her belly is stomped out, leaving only searing ashes behind. It will come back, it always does, but for now, it seems unimportant.
For all her rage, for all her anger, for all of her failure to protect herself, she will always put the needs of other people before her own. This all started because she wanted to keep Prim safe. Who is she if she fails in doing that?
She swallows once. "I'm sorry." The words are barely louder than a whisper, but they manage to reach Haymitch's ears anyway.
He shrugs. "Do you want to go back, or do you want to blow it off and go home?"
Katniss blinks. "I didn't know that was an option."
"It is today."
Their gazes meet in the space between them. Katniss thinks for a moment that there might be tears lurking in Haymitch's eyes, but they vanish with a blink.
"Home seems like a good idea."
Haymitch nods, and together, they set off down the street, returning to a place where they might be allowed to tend to their wounds in private.