I was pleasantly surprised to notice how much comments and views I got on my blog posts about The Hunger Games. I just re-read the entire trilogy over the weekend, and thought I’d write a post on my favorite Peeta quotes from Catching Fire. You can also check out my favorite Peeta quotes from The Hunger Games here and my favorite Peeta and Katniss moments from Mockingjay here.

Wounded

After a while I hear footsteps behind me. It’ll be Haymitch, coming to chew me out. It’s not like I don’t deserve it, but I still don’t want to hear it. “I’m not in the mood for a lecture,” I warn the clump of weeds by my shoes.

“I’ll try to keep it brief.” Peeta takes a seat beside me. “I thought you were Haymitch,” I say.

“No, he’s still working on that muffin.” I watch as Peeta positions his artificial leg. “Bad day, huh?” “It’s nothing,” I say.

He takes a deep breath. “Look, Katniss, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about the way I acted on the train. I mean, the last train. The one that brought us home. I knew you had something with Gale. I was jealous of him before I even officially met you. And it wasn’t fair to hold you to anything that happened in the Games. I’m sorry.”

His apology takes me by surprise. It’s true that Peeta froze me out after I confessed that my love for him during the Games was something of an act. But I don’t hold that against him. In the arena, I’d played that romance angle for all it was worth. There had been times when I didn’t honestly know how I felt about him. I still don’t, really.

“I’m sorry, too,” I say. I’m not sure for what exactly. Maybe because there’s a real chance I’m about to destroy him.

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. You were just keeping us alive. But I don’t want us to go on like this, ignoring each other in real life and falling into the snow every time there’s a camera around. So I thought if I stopped being so, you know, wounded, we could take a shot at just being friends,” he says.

Losing You

“Peeta, how come I never know when you’re having a nightmare?” I say.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I cry out or thrash around or anything. I just come to, paralyzed with terror,” he says.

“You should wake me,” I say, thinking about how I can interrupt his sleep two or three times on a bad night. About how long it can take to calm me down.

“It’s not necessary. My nightmares are usually about losing you,” he says. “I’m okay once I realize you’re here.”

Her Cousin

“He was poaching. What business is it of hers, anyway?” says the man.

“He’s her cousin.” Peeta’s got my other arm now, but gently. “And she’s my fiancé. So if you want to get to him, expect to go through both of us.”

Just Go to Bed

Someone gives my shoulder a shake and I sit up. I’ve fallen asleep with my face on the table. The white cloth has left creases on my good cheek. The other, the one that took the lash from Thread, throbs painfully. Gale’s dead to the world, but his fingers are locked around mine. I smell fresh bread and turn my stiff neck to find Peeta looking down at me with such a sad expression. I get the sense that he’s been watching us awhile.

“Go on up to bed, Katniss. I’ll look after him now,” he says.

“Peeta. About what I said yesterday, about running—” I begin.

“I know,” he says. “There’s nothing to explain.”

I see the loaves of bread on the counter in the pale, snowy morning light. The blue shadows under his eyes. I wonder if he slept at all. Couldn’t have been long. I think of his agreeing to go with me yesterday, his stepping up beside me to protect Gale, his willingness to throw his lot in with mine entirely when I give him so little in return. No matter what I do, I’m hurting someone. “Peeta—”

“Just go to bed, okay?” he says.

Formal Request

So I give up trying to make friends and go over to the archery range for some sanity. It’s wonderful there, getting to try out all the different bows and arrows. The trainer, Tax, seeing that the standing targets offer no challenge for me, begins to launch these silly fake birds high into the air for me to hit. At first it seems stupid, but it turns out to be kind of fun. Much more like hunting a moving creature. Since I’m hitting everything he throws up, he starts increasing the number of birds he sends airborne. I forget the rest of the gym and the victors and how miserable I am and lose myself in the shooting. When I manage to take down five birds in one round, I realize it’s so quiet I can hear each one hit the floor. I turn and see the majority of the victors have stopped to watch me. Their faces show everything from envy to hatred to admiration.

After training, Peeta and I hang out, waiting for Haymitch and Effie to show up for dinner. When we’re called to eat, Haymitch pounces on me immediately. “So at least half the victors have instructed their mentors to request you as an ally. I know it can’t be your sunny personality.”

“They saw her shoot,” says Peeta with a smile. “Actually, I saw her shoot, for real, for the first time. I’m about to put in a formal request myself.”

The Rest of My Life

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.

Freeze

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.

If It Weren’t for the Baby

“We’re already married,” says Peeta quietly. The crowd reacts in astonishment, and I have to bury my face in the folds of my skirt so they can’t see my confusion. Where on earth is he going with this?

“But … how can that be?” asks Caesar.

“Oh, it’s not an official marriage. We didn’t go to the Justice Building or anything. But we have this marriage ritual in District Twelve. I don’t know what it’s like in the other districts. But there’s this thing we do,” says Peeta, and he briefly describes the toasting.

“Were your families there?” asks Caesar.

“No, we didn’t tell anyone. Not even Haymitch. And Katniss’s mother would never have approved. But you see, we knew if we were married in the Capitol, there wouldn’t be a toasting. And neither of us really wanted to wait any longer. So one day, we just did it,” Peeta says. “And to us, we’re more married than any piece of paper or big party could make us.”

“So this was before the Quell?” says Caesar.

“Of course before the Quell. I’m sure we’d never have done it after we knew,” says Peeta, starting to get upset. “But who could’ve seen it coming? No one. We went through the Games, we were victors, everyone seemed so thrilled to see us together, and then out of nowhere—I mean, how could we anticipate a thing like that?”

“You couldn’t, Peeta.” Caesar puts an arm around his shoulders. “As you say, no one could’ve. But I have to confess, I’m glad you two had at least a few months of happiness together.”

Enormous applause. As if encouraged, I look up from my feathers and let the audience see my tragic smile of thanks. The residual smoke from the feathers has made my eyes teary, which adds a very nice touch.

“I’m not glad,” says Peeta. “I wish we had waited until the whole thing was done officially.”

This takes even Caesar aback. “Surely even a brief time is better than no time?”

“Maybe I’d think that, too, Caesar,” says Peeta bitterly, “if it weren’t for the baby.”

I Need You

“Katniss,” he says softly, “it’s no use pretending we don’t know what the other one is trying to do.” No, I guess there isn’t, but it’s no fun discussing it, either. Well, not for us, anyway. The Capitol viewers will be glued to their sets so they don’t miss one wretched word.

“I don’t know what kind of deal you think you’ve made with Haymitch, but you should know he made me promises as well.” Of course, I know this, too. He told Peeta they could keep me alive so that he wouldn’t be suspicious. “So I think we can assume he was lying to one of us.”

This gets my attention. A double deal. A double promise. With only Haymitch knowing which one is real. I raise my head, meet Peeta’s eyes. “Why are you saying this now?”

“Because I don’t want you forgetting how different our circumstances are. If you die, and I live, there’s no life for me at all back in District Twelve. You’re my whole life,” he says. “I would never be happy again.” I start to object but he puts a finger to my lips. “It’s different for you. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be hard. But there are other people who’d make your life worth living.”

Peeta pulls the chain with the gold disk from around his neck. He holds it in the moonlight so I can clearly see the mockingjay. Then his thumb slides along a catch I didn’t notice before and the disk pops open. It’s not solid, as I had thought, but a locket. And within the locket are photos. On the right side, my mother and Prim, laughing. And on the left, Gale. Actually smiling.

There is nothing in the world that could break me faster at this moment than these three faces. After what I heard this afternoon … it is the perfect weapon.

“Your family needs you, Katniss,” Peeta says.

My family. My mother. My sister. And my pretend cousin Gale. But Peeta’s intention is clear. That Gale really is my family, or will be one day, if I live. That I’ll marry him. So Peeta’s giving me his life and Gale at the same time. To let me know I shouldn’t ever have doubts about it.

Everything. That’s what Peeta wants me to take from him.

I wait for him to mention the baby, to play to the cameras, but he doesn’t. And that’s how I know that none of this is part of the Games. That he is telling me the truth about what he feels.

“No one really needs me,” he says, and there’s no self-pity in his voice. It’s true his family doesn’t need him. They will mourn him, as will a handful of friends. But they will get on. Even Haymitch, with the help of a lot of white liquor, will get on. I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me.

“I do,” I say. “I need you.” He looks upset, takes a deep breath as if to begin a long argument, and that’s no good, no good at all, because he’ll start going on about Prim and my mother and everything and I’ll just get confused. So before he can talk, I stop his lips with a kiss.

I feel that thing again. The thing I only felt once before. In the cave last year, when I was trying to get Haymitch to send us food. I kissed Peeta about a thousand times during those Games and after. But there was only one kiss that made me feel something stir deep inside. Only one that made me want more. But my head wound started bleeding and he made me lie down.

This time, there is nothing but us to interrupt us. And after a few attempts, Peeta gives up on talking. The sensation inside me grows warmer and spreads out from my chest, down through my body, out along my arms and legs, to the tips of my being. Instead of satisfying me, the kisses have the opposite effect, of making my need greater. I thought I was something of an expert on hunger, but this is an entirely new kind.

Nothing But Oysters

Johanna keeps watch while Finnick, Peeta, and I clean and lay out the seafood. Peeta’s just pried open an oyster when I hear him give a laugh. “Hey, look at this!” He holds up a glistening, perfect pearl about the size of a pea. “You know, if you put enough pressure on coal it turns to pearls,” he says earnestly to Finnick.

“No, it doesn’t,” says Finnick dismissively. But I crack up, remembering that’s how a clueless Effie Trinket presented us to the people of the Capitol last year, before anyone knew us. As coal pressured into pearls by our weighty existence. Beauty that arose out of pain.

Peeta rinses the pearl off in the water and hands it to me. “For you.” I hold it out on my palm and examine its iridescent surface in the sunlight. Yes, I will keep it. For the few remaining hours of my life I will keep it close. This last gift from Peeta. The only one I can really accept. Perhaps it will give me strength in the final moments.

“Thanks,” I say, closing my fist around it. I look coolly into the blue eyes of the person who is now my greatest opponent, the person who would keep me alive at his own expense. And I promise myself I will defeat his plan.

The laughter drains from those eyes, and they are staring so intensely into mine, it’s like they can read my thoughts. “The locket didn’t work, did it?” Peeta says, even though Finnick is right there. Even though everyone can hear him. “Katniss?”

“It worked,” I say.

“But not the way I wanted it to,” he says, averting his glance. After that he will look at nothing but oysters.

Initially I was worried that Mockingjay would cater too much to the fans of the love angle between Katniss and Peeta by having too many tender moments between the two. After all, there were parts in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire where I cringed a bit, because I thought Suzanne Collins was taking things too far. But the opposite thing actually happened – there were too few. Blame it on the Capitol.

Here are the very few tender moments between the two tributes from District 12, the victors of the 74th Hunger Games. You can also check out my favorite Peeta quotes from The Hunger Games here and from Catching Fire here.

He DID Love Her A Lot

I’ve just reached the door when his voice stops me. “Katniss. I remember about the bread.”

The bread. Our one moment of real connection before the Hunger Games.

“They showed you the tape of me talking about it,” I say.

“No. Is there a tape of you talking about it? Why didn’t the Capitol use it against me?” he asks.

“I made it the day you were rescued,” I answer. The pain in my chest wraps around my ribs like a vise. The dancing was a mistake. “So what do you remember?”

“You. In the rain,” he says softly. “Digging in our rubbish bins. Burning the bread. My mother hitting me. Taking the bread out for the pig but then giving it to you instead.”

‘That’s it. That’s what happened,” I say. “The next day, after school, I wanted to thank you. But I didn’t know how.”

“We were outside at the end of the day. I tried to catch your eye. You looked away. And then… for some reason, I think you picked a dandelion.” I nod. He does remember. I have never spoken about that moment aloud. “I must have loved you a lot.”

Like the Sunset

At a few minutes before four, Peeta turns to me again. “Your favourite colour… it’s green?”

“That’s right.” Then I think of something to add. “And yours is orange.”

“Orange?” He seems unconvinced.

“Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunset,” I say. “At least, that’s what you told me once.”

“Oh.” He closes his eyes briefly, maybe trying to conjure up that sunset, then nods his head. “Thank you.”

But more words tumble out. “You’re a painter. You’re a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces.”

Then I dive into my tent before I do something stupid like cry.

Lamb Stew

I poke around in the pile, about to settle on some cod chowder, when Peeta holds out a can to me. “Here.”

I take it, not knowing what to expect. The label reads LAMB STEW.

I press my lips together at the memories of rain dripping through stones, my inept attempts at flirting, and the aroma of my favourite Capitol dish in the chilly air. So some part of it must still be in his head, too. How happy, how hungry, how close we were when that picnic basket arrived outside our cave.

That’s What They Do

In the fluorescent light, the circles under his eyes look like bruises. “There’s still time. You should sleep.” Unresisting, he lies back down, but just stares at the needle on one of the dials as it twitches from side to side. Slowly, as I would with a wounded animal, my hand stretches out and brushes a wave of hair from his forehead. He freezes at my touch, but doesn’t recoil. So I continue to gently smooth back his hair. It’s the first time I voluntarily touched him since the last arena.

“You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real,” he whispers.

“Real,” I answer. It seems to require more explanation. “Because that’s what you and I do. Protect each other.”

Always

Only one figure stays huddled against the wall. “Peeta,” I say. There’s no response. Has he blacked out? I crouch in front of him, pulling his cuffed hands from his face. “Peeta?” His eyes are like black pools, the pupils dilated so that the blue irises have all but vanished. The muscles in his wrists are hard as metal.

“Leave me,” he whispers. “I can’t hang on.”

“Yes. You can!” I tell him.

Peeta shakes his head. “I’m losing it. I’ll go mad. Like them.”

Like the mutts. Like a rabid beast bent on ripping my throat out. And here, finally here in this place, in these circumstances, I will really have to kill him. And Snow will win. Hot, bitter hatred courses through me. Snow has won too much already today.

It’s a long shot, it’s suicide maybe, but I do the only thing I can think of. I lean in and kiss Peeta full on the mouth. His whole body starts shuddering, but I keep my lips pressed to his until I have to come up for air. My hands slide up his wrists to clasp his. “Don’t let him take you from me.”

Peeta’s panting hard as he fights the nightmares raging in his head. “No. I don’t want to…”

I clench his hands to the point of ain. “Stay with me.”

His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normality. “Always,” he murmurs.

So Tired

While Cressida and Pollux make fur nests for each of us, I attend to Peeta’s wrists. Gently rinsing away the blood, putting on an antiseptic, and bandaging them beneath the cuffs. “You’ve got to keep them clean, otherwise the infection could spread, and –“

“I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss,” says Peeta. “Even if my mother isn’t a healer.”

I’m jolted back in time, to another wound, another set of bandages. “You said the same thing to me in the first Hunger Games. Real or not real?”

“Real,” he says. “And you risked your life getting the medicine that saved me?”

“Real.” I shrug. “You were the reason I was alive to do it.”

“Was I?” The comment throws him into confusion. Some shiny memory must be fighting for his attention because his body tenses and his newly bandaged wrists strain against the metal cuffs. Then all the energy saps from his body. “I’m so tired, Katniss.”

Nothing Foolish

I get out the key, unlock Peeta’s cuffs and stuff them in my pocket. He rubs his wrists. Flexes them. I feel a kind of desperation rising up in me. It’s like I’m back in the Quarter Quell, with Beetee giving Johanna and me that coil of wire.

“Listen,” I say. “Don’t do anything foolish.”

“No. It’s last-resort stuff. Completely,” he says.

I wrap my arms around his neck, feel his arms hesitate before they embrace me. Not as steady as they once were, but still warm and strong. A thousand moments surge through me. All the times these arms were my only refuge from the world. Perhaps not fully appreciated then, but so sweet in my memory, and now gone for ever.

Can’t Let Go

I raise my left arm and twist my neck down to rip off the pill on my sleeve. Instead my teeth sink into flesh. I yank my head back in confusion to find myself looking into Peeta’s eyes, only now they hold my gaze. Blood runs from the teeth marks on the hand he clamped over my nightlock. “Let me go!” I snarl at him, trying to wrest my arm from his grasp.

“I can’t,” he says.

The Dandelion in the Spring

Peeta and I grow back together again. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.

So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?”

I tell him, “Real.”

Mockingjay is a more serious book compared to the first two in the trilogy (The Hunger Games and Catching Fire), so it’s understandable that there are very few funny moments. Here are my three favorites.

# 3 – Hungry Haymitch 

Haymitch in my head full-time. Horrifying. “I’ll keep the earpiece in,” I mutter.

“Excuse me?” he says.

“You sure? Because I’m equally happy with any of the three options,” he tells me.

“I’m sure,” I say. I scrunch up the earpiece wire protectively in my fist and fling the head shackle back in his face with my free hand, but he catches it easily. Probably was expecting me to throw it. “Anything else?”

Haymitch rises to go. “While I was waiting… I ate your lunch.”

# 2 – Half-Naked Finnick

She snags Gale, who’s in conversation with Plutarch, and spins him towards us. “Isn’t he handsome?”

Gale does look striking in the uniform, I guess. But the question just embarrasses us both, given our history. I’m trying to think of a witty comeback, when Boggs says brusquely, “Well, don’t expect us to be too impressed. We just saw Finnick Odair in his underwear.”

# 1 – Katniss Is Not a Mutt

Back in 13, Peeta’s rehabilitation continues. Even though I don’t ask, Plutarch gives me cheerful updates on the phone like, “Good news, Katniss! I think we’ve almost got him convinced you’re not a mutt!”

The Hunger Games is currently my favorite guilty pleasure. I read the first two books of the trilogy repeatedly for almost a week, and I can’t wait till Mockingjay comes out in August. When I first read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, I was more involved in the action – the quest to survive, the violence and all that. On my second reading, I started noticing the romance. Lately, I’ve been noticing more of the humor. For such a dark book, there are portions that made me literally laugh out loud. You have to hand it to the baker’s son to always say something funny. Here are some of my favorite Peeta Mellark quotes from the first book.

“What about you? I’ve seen you in the market. You can lift hundred pound bags of flour,” I snap at him. “Tell him that. That’s not nothing.”

“Yes, and I’m sure the arena will be full of bags of flour for me to chuck at people.”

Then we move on to camouflage. Peeta genuinely seems to enjoy this station, swirling a combination of mud and clay and berry juices around on his pale skin, weaving disguises from vines and leaves. The trainer who runs the camouflage station is full of enthusiasm at his work.

“I do the cakes,” he admits to me.

“The cakes?” I ask. I’ve been preoccupied with watching the boy from District 2 send a spear through a dummy’s heart from fifteen yards. “What cakes?”

“At home. The iced ones, for the bakery,” he says….

“It’s lovely. If only you could frost someone to death,” I say.

“Don’t be so superior. You can never tell what you’ll find in the arena. Say it’s actually a gigantic cake —” begins Peeta.

“Really, is anything less impressive than watching a person pick up a heavy ball and throw it a couple of yards. One almost landed on my foot.”

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.”

“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.

“She’s just worried about her boyfriend,” says Peeta gruffly, tossing away a bloody piece of the urn.

My cheeks burn again at the thought of Gale. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Whatever,” says Peeta. “But I bet he’s smart enough to know a bluff when he sees it. Besides you didn’t say you loved me. So what does it matter?”

My foot has just broken the surface of the water when I hear a voice.

“You here to finish me off, sweetheart?”

I whip around. It’s come from the left, so I can’t pick it up very well. And the voice was hoarse and weak. Still, it must have been Peeta. Who else in the arena would call me sweetheart?

My eyes peruse the bank, but there’s nothing. Just mud, the plants, the base of the rocks.

“Peeta?” I whisper. “Where are you?” There’s no answer. Could I just have imagined it? No, I’m certain it was real and very close at hand, too. “Peeta?” I creep along the bank.

“Well, don’t step on me.”

I jump back. His voice was right under my feet. Still there’s nothing. Then his eyes open, unmistakably blue in the brown mud and green leaves. I gasp and am rewarded with a hint of white teeth as he laughs.

It’s the final word in camouflage. Forget chucking weights around. Peeta should have gone into his private session with the Gamemakers and painted himself into a tree. Or a boulder. Or a muddy bank full of weeds.

“Close your eyes again,” I order. He does, and his mouth, too, and completely disappears. Most of what I judge to be his body is actually under a layer of mud and plants. His face and arms are so artfully disguised as to be invisible. I kneel beside him. “I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off.”

Peeta smiles. “Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying.”

Within minutes of pressing the handful of chewed-up green stuff into the wound, pus begins running down the side of his leg. I tell myself this is a good thing and bite the inside of my cheek hard because my breakfast is threatening to make a reappearance.

“Katniss?” Peeta says. I meet his eyes, knowing my face must be some shade of green. He mouths the words. “How about that kiss?”

I burst out laughing because the whole thing is so revolting I can’t stand it.

“Something wrong?” he asks a little too innocently.

“You’re such a bad liar, Katniss. I don’t know how you’ve survived this long.” He begins to mimic me. “I knew that goat would be a little gold mine. You’re a little cooler though. Of course, I’m not going. He shakes his head. “Never gamble at cards. You’ll lose your last coin,” he says.

“Tomorrow’s a hunting day,” I say.

“I won’t be much help with that,” Peeta says. “I’ve never hunted before.”

“I’ll kill and you cook,” I say. “And you can always gather.”

“I wish there was some sort of bread bush out there,” says Peeta.

“Peeta,” I say lightly. “You said at the interview you’d had a crush on me forever. When did forever start?”

“Oh, let’s see. I guess the first day of school. We were five. You had on a red plaid dress and your hair . . . it was in two braids instead of one. My father pointed you out when we were waiting to line up,” Peeta says.

“Your father? Why?” I ask.

“He said, ‘See that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner,’” Peeta says.

“What? You’re making that up!” I exclaim.

“No, true story,” Peeta says. “And I said, ‘A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner if she could’ve had you?’ And he said, ‘Because when he sings . . . even the birds stop to listen.’”

“That’s true. They do. I mean, they did,” I say. I’m stunned and surprisingly moved, thinking of the baker telling this to Peeta. It strikes me that my own reluctance to sing, my own dismissal of music might not really be that I think it’s a waste of time. It might be because it reminds me too much of my father.

“So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing it for us. And I swear, every bird outside the windows fell silent,” Peeta says.

“Oh, please,” I say, laughing.

“No, it happened. And right when your song ended, I knew — just like your mother — I was a goner,” Peeta says. “Then for the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you.”

“Without success,” I add.

“Without success. So, in a way, my name being drawn in the reaping was a real piece of luck,” says Peeta.

Peeta wriggles back inside, his face lit up like the sun. “I guess Haymitch finally got tired of watching us starve.”

A disturbing thought hits me. “But then, our only neighbor will be Haymitch!”

“Ah, that’ll be nice,” says Peeta, tightening his arms around me. “You and me and Haymitch. Very cozy. Picnics, birthdays, long winter nights around the fire retelling old Hunger Games’ tales.”

“I told you, he hates me!” I say, but I can’t help laughing at the image of Haymitch becoming my new pal.

“Only sometimes. When he’s sober, I’ve never heard him say one negative thing about you,” says Peeta.

“He’s never sober!” I protest.

“That’s right. Who am I thinking of? Oh, I know. It’s Cinna who likes you. But that’s mainly because you didn’t try to run when he set you on fire,” says Peeta. “On the other hand, Haymitch . . . well, if I were you, I’d avoid Haymitch completely. He hates you.”

“I thought you said I was his favorite,” I say.

“He hates me more,” says Peeta. “I don’t think people in general are his sort of thing.”

“So do we hunt on empty stomachs to give us an edge?”

“Not us,” I say. “We stuff ourselves to give us staying power.”

“It was all for the Games,” Peeta says. “How you acted.”

“Not all of it,” I say, tightly holding onto my flowers.

“Then how much? No, forget that. I guess the real question is what’s going to be left when we get home?” he says.

“I don’t know. The closer we get to District Twelve, the more confused I get,” I say. He waits, for further explanation, but none’s forthcoming.

“Well, let me know when you work it out,” he says, and the pain in his voice is palpable.

UPDATE: You can also check out my favorite Peeta quotes from Catching Fire here and my favorite Peeta and Katniss moments from Mockingjay here.