Chapter 1: An Awkward Proposal

I stand in line along with the other 18-year-old girls of District 12, fiddling with the hem of my blue Reaping dress. My nerves are multiplied seven times more than they usually are, as this is the seventh and final time I will ever have to stand here and wonder if I have been selected for death. Death by lottery. My possibly physical murder would come later, but if you are Reaped for District 12 for the Hunger Games, than you are going to die. Guaranteed. In 75 years, we have only ever had two Victors. And only one of them - a drunken embarrassment - is still alive.

My heart leaps into my throat as Effie Trinket, our district escort, approaches the glass ball containing all the Girls names. Thinking of my 14-year-old little sister, Primrose, I squeeze my eyes shut and plead for mercy for us both: Not me. Or Primrose. Not an Everdeen, not an Everdeen, not an Everdeen...

"Daisy Schaberg!" A Merchant girl, most likely, with that name. And younger than me, but older than Prim, as I see the blond little thing emerge from the 16-year-old Girls section.

It isn't me. The tribute isn't me. Just like that, I am free from the Hunger Games forever. The Peacekeepers cannot stop the great cheer that goes up among us 18-year-olds. All around me, I watch as many boys get down on one knee.

It is an unofficial tradition in District 12, for teenagers who have survived their last Reaping to propose to their sweethearts. With the rest of their lives suddenly open and clear - well, at least clearer than it is having the Games constantly hanging over their heads - and because time is precious, no one wants to waste any more of it before getting going with life.

No one would ever propose to me, though. I've never had a boyfriend or sweetheart, and I never will. I vowed when I was still a child that I would never get married or have children of my own. I have seen the dark side of the power of love... and it scares me.

I still stand where I was made to take my place in line earlier this morning, waiting for Primrose or Mother to come find me in the crowd. And indeed, I suddenly hear a call of my name, but it is neither one of my family members. And it certainly isn't Effie Trinket, thank Panem! This voice is distinctly... male.

"Katniss Everdeen!"

I turn at the greeting to see a handsome Merchant youth with ashy blonde hair and deep blue eyes approaching me with a nervous smile. He is in my year in school, and the little that I know about him is that he is the Baker's youngest son, and also the best wrestler in probably all of District 12. Oh, and also his name. I know his name.

"Peeta Mellark," I nod, surprised that he has addressed me at all. Though we have been classmates for years, we have never spoken at all. We only interacted once, silently, and that was a long time ago...

Peeta Mellark approaches me with a quiet earnestness. It might just be my imagination, but he seems to be shaking slightly. He really should get into the shade and quickly; folks have fainted from heatstroke during the Reaping before. And it is never a good sight to watch the Peacekeepers haul those unconscious bodies away. Haymitch Abernathy, our district's second and only living Victor, fainted from heat exhaustion right off the stage one year; the Capitol replayed it throughout that entire Hunger Games, and for several weeks after.

"I need to tell you something," Peeta informs me seriously.

I blink, a little confused. "OK. What is it? My mother and sister are waiting..."

As I watch in complete astonishment, Peeta Mellark bashfully pulls out a ring and kneels before me. "I have loved you since we were in kindergarten. And I will continue to love you your whole life if you will let me. Katniss Everdeen, will you marry me?"

I gape at him. My entire jaw hangs loose in complete and utter shock. I quickly glance from side to side all around me, as if I am the witness to Peeta committing some crime and I fear someone will misconstrue me as a willing accomplice. Thankfully, most kids our age are kneeling before everyone else, so the strange tableau of a Merchant boy proposing to a young Seam woman blends in. Though, for obvious reasons, it really shouldn't.

My cheeks burn aflame. This has to be a joke. This has to be the sickest joke that anyone has ever pulled. Perhaps the culprit is Gale Hawthorne, to congratulate me for surviving the Reaping in his own twisted way. But how would my hunting partner and best friend - happily married now himself - know to recruit Peeta Mellark, of all the boys in the whole damn district it could have been?

No, the real trickster is the young man still kneeling before me, his blue eyes dimming in slight concern as he realizes I still have yet to answer. Nevertheless, the blue orbs retain a glimmer of hope.

I awkwardly laugh, the chuckle betraying how offended I am. "Are you insane?" I hiss at him. "We don't know each other! You're Merchant; I'm Seam! You really want to throw away your good life for me? If this is some kind of practical joke, it is not funny! So, No! Absolutely not!"

And turning on my heel, I run away to find my family, not noticing the crestfallen expression on Peeta Mellark's face.

As Primrose and Mother and I walk through the thinning streets back to our home in the Seam, I let my anger stew and simmer and fester like an infected wound. Who is he? Who is he with his 'marry me'? With his ring and his 'marry me'? The nerve! The gall!

Like I said, Peeta Mellark and I hardly know each other. We had never even exchanged two words before today... and I certainly never, in my wildest dreams, would have imagined that those first two words would be one of us asking for the other's hand in marriage. If Peeta Mellark presumed to know me at all (which he doesn't), he would know my opinions on marriage.

Marriage is a silly little, pointless invention. An exercise that can only leave you vulnerable to emotions that take from you and eat away at you. I saw first-hand what marriage and romantic love can do to a person: after my father died in a mine explosion, when I was not quite yet Reaping age, Mother completely shut down. Withdrew emotionally from life. I am the one who mothered and raised Prim. At a mere eleven years old, I vowed that I would never marry anyone for any reason. I didn't want to marry and kiss and fall in love with someone who I knew death would just take away from me in the end. I never wanted to end up like Mother: a shell of my former self.

Even if Peeta Mellark knew and understood any of this, why did my first suitor have to be him, of all people? Fate is crueler than any joke Gale or anyone else could have pulled on me. I owe Peeta Mellark enough already and, oh, how I hate him for it! I hate having to owe him for the bread he tossed to me in a thick sheen of rain, when we were eleven and my father was dead and the rest of my family was starving. I was starving, and he gave me food. It is a curse I must live with, for if there is one thing that folks in the Seam take seriously, it is the concept of debt. Of obligation. Any favor you are granted, you repay the debt somehow, no matter how much time it takes. For her services as a Healer, Mother has been paid in vegetables and other goods, sometimes months after the medicinal service was rendered. Often, it is all we here in the Seam can afford.

Agonizing over things like debt and obligation, a crazy, wild thought enters my brain: Peeta Mellark literally saved my family and I from starvation. For which I never thanked him. Years later, the very least I could do to repay him would be to say Yes. Accept his proposal. Promise that I would marry him. And the opportunity to marry a Merchant... even if it would be a huge sacrifice of my principles, my marriage would ensure that Primrose and Mother have a better life. Even with their Healing business being somewhat lucrative, we are still poor. And I know of many marriages - especially in the Seam, and even a few in Town - where the couple weds based on economic dependency and alliance, not necessarily romantic love. Sometimes, romance comes after they have Toasted the bread. Sometimes not. This is what stops me from running all the way back to Town to the back door of the bakery and impulsively changing my mind, accepting Peeta's proposal. Even if I could go back on my vow of chastity, I could not do the same in my vow to never love. For Peeta and I, any marriage of ours would be a loveless one. But the poor boy is so obviously in love with me... how would agreeing to be his wife and then never allowing him to... touch me be fair to him?

Prim and Mother and I enter our simple house as I am still contemplating over what occurred today and what I intend to do about it. I sit at the kitchen table in silence, my brow furrowed with intensity, as Primrose disappears to find her ugly cat, Buttercup. Mother washes up to cook dinner at the sink. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch her glancing at me with increasing concern.

"Are you all right, dear? You look very contemplative."

It is more than I can hope for that Mother would show such concern for me, her eldest daughter. Maternal affection from her has been rare these last seven years. But all the same, I feel like I need to talk to somebody, or I'll explode. So I dare to ask:

"Mother? How did you come to marry Daddy?"

For just a fraction of a moment, a trick of the light, I see Mother smile again, remembering. "Your father worked in the garden outside the apothecary shop. Your Gampy brought him on as a hired hand - there were some Seam boys who entered contracts like that, to avoid working in the mines, in those days, It was really like indentured servitude," She pauses in slicing some wild potatoes I found on a hunt. "I didn't like your father at first. I had my family's prejudices, I am ashamed to say. Didn't really speak to him. So imagine my surprise when your father proposed to me right after my last Reaping. It was... two years after Haymitch Abernathy came home, yes, that's right!"

I gawk at her with something between amazement and horror. "What did you say?" I whisper.

"No, of course," Mother laughs. "But he still came back to work in the gardens every day. That proposal actually got us to talk a little bit, get to know one another. And then... I heard him sing..." She shrugs. "And I fell in love."

"Just like that?" I breathe.

"Just like that." There is tense silence until Mother ventures: "Why do you ask?"

I take a special interest in the tabletop, blushing beet red as I mumble, "Peeta Mellark proposed to me today."

Mother gives me a funny look, almost amused, though she appears just as shocked as I was. "He's always seemed like such a nice boy. What did you tell him?"

I let out a bark of a laugh. "What do you think I told him, Mother? No! We don't know each other! He must have some puppy-love crush on me that he's never gotten over."

Mother shrugs noncommittally as she dries her hands on a tea towel. "You know, if he hadn't Toasted the bread with the Undersee girl, I always thought that Gale would have proposed to you."

I nearly fall out of my chair. Is she serious? Gale has never been seen as anything but a brother to me. The thought of the two of us married actually makes me want to laugh.

"In any case, I hope you find the right person someday, Katniss - whether it's Peeta or someone else. You never know." And Mother flits from the room to find Prim.

Mother really shouldn't get her hopes up. Besides, Primrose is the beauty of the family and still looks like a Merchant. Boys will be lining up to ask her for a Toasting. Then again, they say history has a way of repeating itself.

And if I am anything like my mother, I think I am already doomed.