Chapter Text
Home is in your skin.
Dad used to say it all the time.
He got it from this goofy book we had when we were kids about a dog who gets lost and can’t find his way home. I don’t remember most of what happens next- it’s been so long, and there’s so much pain wrapped up in those memories that I don’t dare try- but eventually, the dog finds a new family, and learns that home is in your skin. I’m not sure that it's true, but I’m not sure that it's not.
What I am sure of is this. Home is where you make it.
So you might as well find a way to be at home in your own skin because for better or worse, you’ll be living in it for a while.
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Peeta and I drive until we can’t.
I had never seen the ocean until he showed me. It rolled and lapped the white sand like grey tongue, and I was half drunk on it’s size and the salted air until Peeta started kissing me, and then I was totally gone. I am barefoot in the cool sand, water up to my calves, shivering between his palms and unsure of whether it’s because Peeta’s skin is on mine or because that feeling is back in full force. The one only Peeta has ever awoken in me, which I had only ever felt before as a kid playing with my family’s quilts.
For a moment, I am puzzled and breathless.
Part of that is the kissing- Peeta’s hands are cupping my face like I am something precious and breakable and I feel hot and weak all over- but the other part is because I have realized I have been wrong about something all along. That feeling- I called it ‘safe’, but that’s wrong, isn’t it? Safe doesn’t feel like this . Safe doesn’t make your heart thump heavy and slow, like you’ve been jerked out of sleep too soon. No. This is different.
I struggle to gather my thoughts to try to identify what this thing is that’s making me feel like that world could end many times over and I’d survive it just fine, but Peeta beats me to it. He pulls back, his eye bouncing between mine, his face serious and strange.
“I love you, Katniss Everdeen.”
And then there are two things I am sure of.
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That’s where we stay. Right there by the ocean.
I learn that Finnick is right. If you know where the water is, it’s so much harder to get lost, and that’s how I start to find my footing. Things I can be sure of. Peeta. The ocean. And then, gradually, I learn to be sure about other things. Like the green sofa I buy- just big enough for the two of us. And the coffee table Peeta finds and sands down from black paint to light blue underneath. I’m sure about the electric tea kettle he buys. I’m sure about the queen size mattress I buy for both of us. I am sure about the books we buy. The stereo and our tapes stacked neatly on the bookshelf he builds himself out of driftwood he finds at the beach.
I’m sure about the food he cooks.
I’m sure about the walks we take.
I’m sure about what we’re doing. Making a home. Together.
And I do tell him. Gradually. Piece by piece. And then, like a damn breaking, all at once.
One day, maybe soon, I’ll go home and face the lawyers with Peeta by my side. Annelise tells me there’s a check waiting for me from the lawsuit, and I could use it to go to school and get a degree. We could make more money that way. Afford to buy a house like the one Peeta grew up in. And maybe Peeta and I could visit my family’s graves, and I’d tell Dad and Prim everything they’ve missed so far. I’d tell Mom I remember who she used to be. Maybe I won’t forgive her, I don’t think I’m ready for that. But I’d tell her that I’m doing my best to understand.
But I don’t know.
I’m happy here, I think.
For now.
The boy I often confuse as the sky has made it his personal mission to teach me how to dance, real slow . And I have half a mind to let him.
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