far from home.— [peter/teddy]

[Deleted]

P E T E R    W E B S T E R - V Ă D U V A

The letter in my back pocket was heavy, it weighed a million pounds. It was important. It was dangerous. Communications in or out of the Training Center were closely monitored - all communication in Panem was. That’s why I wouldn’t ask Teddy to do this for me if I didn’t trust him. But I did, I trusted him with my life. That’s why he was the one I primarily asked to help with my training. But I had something else to ask him too.

I had a phone call with Sabrina a few days before the reaping. I had asked her if I could ask for Teddy to be Luca’s godfather. I was thinking about it and decided I didn’t know anyone better for the job. Of course, it was her choice too. It was equally as much her son and she had never met Teddy. Though, she agreed in the end.

I hadn’t asked him before the reaping happened.

When I did it, I wanted it to be when he had time to consider it. After the Hunger Games had ended. When he wasn’t thinking about two more dead kids from Six. I wanted him to be in a good state of mind. But now? Now it would be too late if I waited. As much as I wanted to live, so did 23 others. I couldn’t risk it. I know he needed time, but time was a luxury I could no longer afford. I wish I had time to do this in a better way. Maybe take him out to a nice dinner back in Six first.

But time was coming to a halt soon.

I knocked on his door, he probably was going to assume I wanted more advice or another talk about strategy. I had an entire notebook almost completely filled with strategies and plans and theories despite the short time I had been here. I was just starving. I was starving for life. Starving for hope. And I was desperate. I’d take anything, do anything to quench my hunger to survive. Before I could wonder how he felt about all of this, I saw the door open.

“Teddy, mind if I come in? It’s not about training.”

There’s a system people use to describe how much capacity they have for doing things or dealing with issues known as “spoons”. Each task requires a certain amount of spoons and everyone has a different total of spoons. And I was beginning to feel that Teddy was running out of spoons. And if he only had enough spoons left to help me with training, I understood that. If he didn’t have the time or energy to help with my personal life, that was okay. But he had been there for me before, even just when I had a bad day at school and needed someone to vent to. And he was the only person outside my family that knew about Luca.

Teddy Ursa cares, that’s just the kind of person he is.

[ 496 words ]
[ table by pogue ]