Forever [Prim/Cato]

Chapter 19 - Training Day #1

Cato:

"...and when he'd come home, he was a different kind of menace."

Willow deserves to know everything, but there's a lump in my throat as I try to explain the things that will make it all make sense to her. I don't want to relive what we've worked so hard to overcome, and I don't want to expose her to that part of me, of us. It's been years since all of this happened, but it still terrifies me as if it were yesterday. She wants to know, though, and I'd do anything for her, so I am doing my best to tell her.

Both Rose and Willow are looking at me; Willow is looking at me expectantly while Rose is watching with wide, scared eyes. I know that she's wondering how much I am willing to tell our daughter while maintaining my composure. We had been laying together, Rose holding Willow and me holding Rose, but it could only last for so long. The time was ticking for Willow to be picked up, and I wanted to give her as much as I could before she was being thrown in the trenches.

I'd started by telling her about my dad, about how things weren't bad until he'd started drinking. He had always drank, but never to the extent that he ended up at, and my mom never knew what led him to it. I told Willow about the abuse against me and my Mum, and how I'd started training for the Games as a way to get out of it and closer to him, as my way to get him to love me. After a while, I'd realized that nothing I did would change his mind, and so training for the Games had turned into my way to escape him. 

As I tried to continue the story, the lump in my throat returned. Rose scooted closer and placed her hand on my leg for comfort.

"He hurt you? He hurt you and Nonna?" Willow asks horrified.

I nod, swallowing the lump. I have to remind myself that Willow deserves to know the truth, as much of it as I can give her. Rose is staying silent, though this is also her story, but I know that she's giving me the grace to tell as little or as much as I am comfortable. She's the only person in this world that I ever told about what happened to my family and about what I did to my father. She knows how hard this is for me.

"Did he ever hurt Uncle Charlie?" she continues.

I shake my head no. "I never let him get that far. I made sure I was the object of his interest."

Willow looks down at her tangled hands, absorbing all that I've said. When she looks back up, she watches me, not with pity, but with a new sense of understanding, I'd hope. I shift uncomfortably, suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable to it all, but Rose turns to me, giving me a reassuring kiss on the cheek and bringing me out of my thoughts and back to earth. I'll never understand how she's so easily able to anchor me.

I clear my throat before continuing the story, moving onto how I'd paralyzed him when I'd had enough, how we covered it up, and meeting Rose. Telling her this part of the story makes the fear melt away, instead filling me with pride and love as I recount the best time of my life while looking into the eyes of the woman of my dreams. Rose watches me back, eyes mixed with sadness and love as well.

"So how did you actually get out of the Games?" Willow stops me to ask. I had gotten up to reuniting with Rose in the Games when I'd heard her being attacked and how I had planned to get her out.  "I know that you made the deal with President Snow, but you've never wanted to explain just how it happened. We all watched Clove kill you."

I nod. "She did kill me. None of what happened in that arena was fake."

Rose frowns at me. I never told her the whole truth about how getting out had gone down because I didn't want her to know that Snow had actually told me no.

"You told me that it was fake," Rose says quietly. I look at her regretfully as I shake my head no. "So when you died in my arms... you actually died?"