ourshinycity | → the bridges keep on burning

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→ the bridges keep on burning

It had seemed so real.

His heart was racing. He was panting slightly, eyes still fixed on some imaginary spot. It had been real, he was certain of it. They were out of that cloud, out of that nightmare but what he had seen could not be unseen.

District 12 was gone. It was nothing but ash and wreckage. He could smell the burning, hear the bombs as they fell. He was going to be sick. His stomach was turning and if he could move he certainly would be. For now he was just in shock.

"How..." The first word he had managed to say in minutes. Turning to look at Katniss, there was a mix of emotions plain on his face. "What...Katniss, it can't be real, right? It was just like everything else, wasn't it?"

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It's a recurring dream, one that I'm all too familiar with. The taste of ash in my mouth. The burst of my eardrums caused by the explosions. I didn't see the bombings but I can imagine what they might have been like - and I can't imagine the dreams Gale might have.

My secret's been found out. And I don't have the right to keep it from him any more, though the words are difficult to spit out.

"It's real." My voice seems so small, and I don't want to look at him. I can't look at him, because I know that I'll see disgust and it'll remind me of the Peeta I knew. "It's all real."

No.

No.

He didn't want to believe it. He couldn't believe it. This meant that there had been so much more to the story than simply Prim and Finnick dying. This meant that everything that he had left at home, those he loved and those he tolerated were just gone.

"No," he said voice cracking and shaking his head. "You...Katniss, you lied to me."

"I-" But he's right. I lied to him, and I don't have a defense. And even trying to excuse myself would be despicable in its own right. Somewhere along the line I had made the decision - a rash, impulsive decision that I now regret. It was selfish, and I know it, but Peeta was stable in a place where nothing else was and I-

Apologizing doesn't seem like it would be enough. What could I possibly say? There isn't anything. So I confirm his suspicions and wait for the inevitable backlash. "Yes."

He had survived the arena, not once but twice. He had lived through heartbreak and agony and put on a brave face for the crowds. He had done this for her and how did she repay him?

Lies. Running a hand through his hair making it stand on end, he let out a grunt of frustration. There were a million things running through his head and for the first time, Peeta gave them a voice.

"How could you do this me?" He gasped, agitation seeping into his tone. "It wasn't your secret to protect, Katniss. It affected me too."

He's asking for an explanation. The problem is that I don't know what to tell him. "I wasn't thinking -" my original thought had included more words, but it's only now that I realize that this is enough. Because I hadn't been thinking. It wasn't rational. It could have been the effects of morphling leaving my body, paving ways to madness and a pain I wasn't used to. But that doesn't absolve me either.

"It was wrong."

"Of course it was wrong, Katniss." He took a step closer to her and then took another two back. His hands clenched and relaxed. He was more than made, he was furious. It was a betrayal and he didn't quite know how to reconcile the girl he loved with the one who had betrayed him.

"Lying to me, as good as your reasons might have been was still a lie. That's all they did to us back home and now you've done it for them here."

Peeta shook his head, still completely floored by the whole thing.

I haven't known Peeta for very long - or at least, not compared to Gale. In fact, I was hardly even aware of him until last year. But it feels like whole lifetimes. I know his face. I've seen him in situations that weren't pretty and events that brought him on the brink of lunacy because of what the Capitol did to him.

There's another thing I've neglected to share. He's enraged - I can see it in the tenseness of his body and the lines in his face. The least I can do is give him someone to be angry at. And in the worst-case scenario, someone to hate. If that could ever happen with this Peeta.

"I'm sorry." despite it being quiet, I'm sure he heard it.

He didn't hate her. He couldn't. He was hurt, betrayed and a million other things but he couldn't hate her. Oh he could hate the fact that she didn't tell him this, that she let him live in ignorance for a month without knowing he couldn't hate her.

Rubbing his face with his hands, Peeta took a deep breath exhaling roughly.

He opened his mouth to say that it was okay, but he stopped himself. It wasn't okay. There was no use in pretending. "Everyone I know is gone. I had the right to know that," he said a moment later, shaking slightly but his voice was calmer than it had been before. "It was my home too."

"I didn't know how to tell you. On top of everything else." On top of Prim, and Finnick and the horrors of the war along with Peeta himself. Selfishly, I hadn't known if my mind could handle recounting what happened to 12 too. I feel my eyes sting but I am not going to cry, because Peeta's the victim here and I don't want any sympathy from him when he's the one who deserves it. In all fairness. I turn my head away slightly.

"The bombings were my fault." He deserves to know that, too.

Another deep breath, clenching his hands together as he made himself keep it together. It was a lot to take in, on top of everything else. He had stupid had he been to think that he could just settle in here? Nothing in his life had ever been stable and whole.

This was just another missing piece. Peeta turned his head, catching what she said. Part of him wanted to hit her, but that thought was fleeting with guilt at thinking it following after. "No. They weren't. They just blamed you."

He didn't need to see the aftermath to understand that that was the logic behind it. She was a scapegoat, plain and simple.

"They didn't make me fire the arrow." I know the truth, even if Peeta doesn't accept it. People died as a direct result of my actions, with every pull of the bowstring. Yet it seemed that this was the truth about everything I did back in 13. If I didn't perform well enough, the rebels would suffer. If I helped the rebels, they would hurt Peeta.

He doesn't know the things I wanted to do to protect him. I failed in Panem, and I couldn't fail again.

"No. I didn't. But if you hadn't blown the arena up, they'd have found some other way to get things started."

It was cool and it was logical. It was the truth. That was just how those things were. People like Snow, people in power didn't need people like Katniss and himself to get what they wanted. They were going to have it no matter what, but the less it looked like they were moving the pieces the better.

That was the part that Peeta hated. The fact that once more, they were just pieces in a game.

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