We Re-unite

I come home to the festival and I see my family.  I run to them and I hug Prim first as the Mayor says, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark home!"  Her hug is the one I need most.
She speaks loud enough for everyone to hear, but I am the only one who listens. "I knew you could make it!  I knew you could win!  I missed you so much Katniss!"  I almost started to cry.  Her voice is one of the only one's that I want to hear.  Her voice is the only one that could almost bring me to tears, after all of this time in the Games.  I swallow my tears and answer her, glad to have her in my care again.
"I told you I'd try my hardest.  A promise is a promise." I let go of her and look at how much she has changed in the so little amount of time that I have been gone.  She looks like she's grown up.  Maybe she was trying to change.  Trying to be different, more grown up without me.  A part of me knows that she wasn't expecting me to come back.  I go to hug my mom and she is silent.  She has a few tears running down her face and she looks at me with a sympathetic but loving smile as we pull away from our embrace.  I greet everyone I can, give some smiles and some waves, even kiss Peeta a couple of times...the acting for everyone else has been programmed into my memory.  Of course, i have to go to Peeta's family and say a few words.  We talk for a while, and they talk about how they can't believe how much our relationship has progressed and that they think I'm a nice girl, and we just make simple talk, until I realize that i still haven't seen one person, and he's one of the people I want to see the most...Gale.  I walk away just as Peeta tries to explain that our love was a strategy for the games...right after i broke his heart.  Great timing on my part.  I go to his family and walk up to Hazelle.  "Hey, Hazelle."  I bring her into a quick embrace and then spur out, "Where's Gale?"
"He's home with the flu.  He's been doing a lot of work lately...he wasn't really feeling up to coming."  This disappointed me because I know that he wasn't sick.  I know he just didn't want to confront me after the Games...all of the "love" with Peeta...I don't think he knows that it wasn't real.
"Okay.  Thanks."  I turn around and find my mother talking to some reporters.  "Even though I think that Peeta is a very nice boy..." She gives me and Peeta glances.  "...I don't think that Katniss is old enough for a real relationship."  She takes me in with one arm and everyone starts to laugh as my face turns red.  Maybe this could turn into a good cover story of why our relationship hasn't gone that fast.
Everything is running through my mind.  I'm just glad I'm home.  Wait...am i home/  No...I'm not.  The arena is my home now.  It's something that I'll have to live every night and that I will never be able to escape. When people say welcome home, it's almost like they're lying straight to my face. My mind is all mixed up... I don't know where I belong anymore.