Peeta and you had been friends forever- well, 13 years exactly, but when you’re 17 that’s the equivalent of forever.

Ever since that little boy came up to you, who was sniffling away tears outside your aunt’s shop in the merchant section, and held out his hand, asking if you were ok, you became best friends. In school you had your own cliques, he was popular, you were… pretty lonely; but whenever you could, the two of you would sneak out of work, meeting on the back porch of an abandoned shop, and talk about your days, your dreams, your fears.

You’d never had many friends, not true ones anyway. But Peeta Mellark? You could always count on him.

Perhaps that’s why it hurt so bad when he was reaped for the hunger games, why it hurt even worse when he confessed his undying love for the other district 12 tribute, Katniss Everdeen, and when he proceeded to spend the hunger games acting undeniably in love with her.

Ever since his return, you’ve been avoiding him, too angry and confused and conflicted to face him.

It’d been working, until it hadn’t, of course. Because right now he was in your house, standing in the hallway with a determined look on his face and a small box wrapped in one of your handkerchiefs- filled with, from you can smell, cinnamon rolls.