• Up here, everything’s brighter. Green is twice as green, because it’s her favorite color. Leaves and rubbery blades shoot up around us, and sway to the melody of wind chimes.

    Katniss bites into a red apple, holding it with both hands. The juice dribbles from her mouth to her chin, fragrant and sweet.

    “What?” she asks, when she realizes I’m staring at her.

    “Nothing,” I say.

    Behind her, there’s nothing but sky and clouds, suspended. There’s another world beneath our garden on the roof, on the other side of that invisible force field. We know this, but don’t acknowledge it.

    I lean in for a kiss, and she accepts it. The apple core falls from her hands and she rests back on her elbows. I’m about to kiss her again, but she says, “Look” and points behind me. I follow her arm and see the image in the sky. I see Rue’s young face, rippling high above us.

    I’m staring into her memory of the arena. Rue’s flowers fall from the image, disappearing before they reach us.

    “I shouldn’t dream these things,” she says, “yet I always do.”

    I lay beside her for a while, and we watch as the faces of the dead tributes appear and disappear for a while.

    “Where do you suppose we are?” I say.

    She laughs. “We’re on the roof.”

    “Really,” I say. “Where are we, really?”

    She shakes her head. “I don’t want to think about that. Neither do you. Look!” She points to the sky again, and this time there are fireworks. A myriad of crackling colors. She laughs again. I’ve never seen her this happy, and I know that I’m dreaming but I want to hold onto it a little while longer.

    Beyond the force field, beyond the sky, I know there are cruel sounds. There’s pain. But here beside her, there are beaming yellow dandelions. There’s her dark, endless hair in my hands.

    It’s silent for a while. I hold her head in my lap and listen to her breathe.

    “It’s not going to be easy, waking up,” she says.

    We were in the Quell when we saw each other last. We were in the ticking of the clock, and I watched her run off into the jungle, knowing I might not ever see her again. And then, not much after, I saw her limp body being reeled towards the hovercraft. She dangled from the crane with her arms and legs sprawled. I listened desperately for the sound of the cannon, but it didn’t come. It didn’t come, so I screamed her name but she didn’t answer me.

    And now we are here. Inexplicably here, in the garden on the roof.

    “I won’t wake up,” I say. “If you aren’t with me, I won’t wake up.”

    She opens her mouth to speak, but the crack of the whip startles her to silence. There’s pain, and I see the blood beginning to pool from a wound in my arm.

    Another crack and my mouth fills with the bitter coppery taste.

    “You have to wake up, they’re hurting you. They’re hurting you and it’s all my fault.”

    I focus on the clouds, which have taken on the shape of katniss roots. And the windchimes, which are singing Rue’s song. And the pain subsides. The blood recedes.

    “Not yet,” I say, drawing her to me.

    “I just want to stay here a while longer.”

    She settles her head on my chest. I can feel her heart beating in my fingertips wherever I touch her.

    “Okay,” she says.

    Just a little longer, we’ll stay in the garden on the roof.