A Peeta Mellark Love Story

The hot water had quickly turned to ice water. It showered over me. My legs brought up, so I was hugging them, my forehead on my knees.
There was a knock at the door. "Apple?" It was Peeta, the boy I was staying with. "You alright?"
"Yeah," I lifted my head slightly, then set it back down again, the crick rejecting movement.
The door opened and closed again. The curtain separating us was moved to the side slowly.
"Here." I looked up to see him holding a silky blue robe out to me. I shook my head and lowered it again. "Mom's not going to be happy if she finds out you weren't covered."
"I don't care."
He stepped inside and sat next to me, his clothes getting soaked. A button was pressed and the ice shower turned shockingly hot. Within seconds, my skin turned red.
"You've been in here for more than two hours, you know."
"Oh, so that's why the water was ice. I was wondering," I responded sarcastically.
He let out a small laugh, shook his head and looked down. He sighed, "Seriously, though, what's wrong?"
"Seriously, though, nothing." I mocked him.
"Liar." He stood up quickly and pressed another button. Jets hit my back and neck.
I screamed and jumped out, grabbing his shirt for balance. I ended up hitting my head on the counter.
"Ow." I hurriedly stood up and slipped into the robe.
"Peeta!" His mother swung open the door. "What's going on?" She is way to over protective. Didn't she know her son had lived through two Hunger Games? Sure, he had a prosthetic leg, but he'd lived. That was the amazing part.
"She fell, hit her head and I thought since I was right outside the door, I'd see what was wrong." Peeta was amazing with words, so it was easy to believe. And a red bump was forming on my head where I had hit my head.
"And the jets?" His mother pointed to the jets, spraying water everywhere.
Peeta turned them off in one swift motion. "She fell back, pressed the button and was startled so she jumped out and slipped, thus hitting her head."
And that's the strategy that kept him alive in the arena. Lying.
Both times.
Well, that and the fact that his mentor, Haymitch, and friend, Katniss, had made a deal to keep him alive.
I had been there for both Games, although unbeknownst to them. I was a Capitol resident for a few weeks out of the year and the rest I was scrounging around in the ruins of District 13 with my two best friends Antler and Ivy.
"Right. Well, you better cover up, Apple," she turned and left, walking down the hall back to the kitchen.
The water was turned off, a few towels were grabbed and Peeta and I were in his room, drying off and dressing. I had no problem being naked in front of anyone. Having only a few pieces of clothes back in the ruins, I was used to being naked. It was usually only around Antler and Ivy, and we were all girls, so it didn't matter. It didn't really matter to me about Peeta either, but his mom was crazy about stuff like being stark nude in front of anyone who wasn't a doctor, someone you weren't related to, or someone who was 'married' to someone who had lost the baby.
Yep, that was another strategy in the Games. In his second Games competing, the Seventy-fifth Games; the Quarter Quell. The year the two victors from each of the 12 Districts would be chosen and forced to fight against each other to the death. That was also the year most of the Uprisings had started, the year the tributes had united as one, and the year both Peeta and Katniss had gotten perfect scores in their training, a first in the 75 years of the Hunger Games. The year both Peeta and Katniss had been victors again. For the second consecutive year, they had upset the Capitol and the Gamemakers.
Peeta had told the crowd about how Katniss and he had had a secret marriage and how Katniss was pregnant with their child. It was more of a survival strategy than any, but it had started uprisings all over Panhem. None of the Capitol residents wanted a pregnant girl to fight to the death.
Oh, yeah. It was also the year the residents of Panhem had decided the Hunger Games were more than Games, they were murderous rendezvous that children had to fight for their lives. It was bad enough that they had to fight at all, but a pregnant girl nonetheless. The Capitol was pretty upset about that. The uprisings, I mean. Not about Katniss being pregnant.
Which, of course, wasn't true. There was no wedding, no toast (of any kind), and no compensation.
Peeta quickly dressed in a plain green shirt and black pants. He pulled on socks and boots.
I stayed silent and slipped into a light grey shirt and black shorts, boots and gloves. I looked more like I would be hunting illegally than staying at a house in Victor's Village. And I had done that, just not recently. I'd mostly been staying alive with Peeta's cheesy bread, colourful cakes and cookies and the beef.
"You are such a liar." Peeta walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder. I was much shorter than him so he had leaned over quite about bit.
"Yeah, and your so hopelessly romantic, it's no wonder you captured the hearts of millions, you had enough love to cover for you and Katniss."
"Yep, that's me. Peeta: the-boy-with-the-bread, the-boy-on-fire, the-hopeless-romantic, the-boy-with-the-prosthetic-leg-that-everyone-feels-sorry-for-because-the-girl-he-fell-in-love-with-when-he-was-five-turned-out-to-never-love-him-back."
"Peeta: the-boy-who-filled-my-life-with-happiness-since-the-moment-I-first-laid-eyes-on-him."
"Yeah, that's me. I like that one better."
I looked around his room while he hummed slightly and swayed back and forth. I looked found a few pictures of his life in the arena. The 74th Hunger Games: a sight of mutated dogs with odd colour coats and weird collars with a number, ranging from 1 to 11; a glimpse of the outside world from a dark cave; a pair of hands digging at the ground; the same pair of hands picking odd-looking berries, staining the hands a deep blood red; a splash of colour where the sun rays rained down on a mutilated body in the woods. Then there were the happier pictures: a brown haired girl laughing, she looked a lot like me; a sleeping girl's face surrounded by flowers woven into her hair; a small red and black beetle on a leaf, nibbling at a seed; a mockingjay swooping here and there for insects. On his bed side table, sun glistened off a gold bracelet with fire wrapping it; a glass of untouched water; and a framed scrap of paper that read "I would rather have eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear, and lips that cannot speak than a heart that cannot love." My name was signed in the left corner. I had forgotten all about that. It was when we had been at Haymitch's house and were goofing around.
Hazelle, Gale's mother, had found a stack of old books and asked Haymitch if he wanted any. He replied no and set them on the table. He set a burning match on the paper back books, but I snagged the bottom one and wrote Peeta that message on the blank page in the beginning. It was a book called "Romeo and Juliet" by W. Shakespeare. The pages were yellow and the bounding was coming loose in the hard leather. The sixth line caught my attention: "A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life…"
That's exactly what Peeta and Katniss were. Star-crossed lovers. I kept the book and concealed it in Peeta's nightstand drawer, occasionally reading it late at night.
My eyes started drifting, Peeta's humming had gotten lullaby-ish and I had grown tired. We must've been standing there for at least half an hour.
I collapsed in half-sleep a few seconds later.
Peeta laughed and carried me to the bed, taking my boots and gloves off, tossing them in a corner. He stripped his shirt and pants, socks and boots and crawled in bed next to me, wrapping his arms around me.
I turned to face him, "I love you, Peeta Mellark."
He kissed my nose, "I love you, Apple Pie."
"Don't call me that!" I sounded like a little kid whining for sweets.
He chuckled, "Good night, Apple."
He drifted off to sleep.
Sleep threatened to fully take me over, but it didn't come. I lay there for a few minutes drowsily but never succumbed to it. I started thinking about reading and it finally came; Sleep welcomed me into its arms.