Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)

by Suzanne Collins

Some walks you have to take alone.

“It costs everything you are.”

“Fire is catching!” I am shouting now, determined that he will not miss a word. “And if we burn, you burn with us!”

“There’s no one left to hear you.”

“Better not to give in to it. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

Outside of Prim, my mother, and Gale, how many people in the world love me unconditionally? I think in my case, the answer may now be none.

I clench his hands to the point of pain. “Stay with me.” His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy. “Always,” he murmurs.

What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses.

So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.”