“I wonder what Gale made of the incident for a moment and then I push the whole thing out of my mind becouse for some reason Gale and Peeta do not coexist well together in my thoughts.”

“Gale and I were thrown together by a mutual need to survive. Peeta and I know the other's survival means our own death. How do you side step that?”

“Thus I steer my bark, and sail
On even keel, with gentle gale.”

“We could do it, you know," Gale says quietly.

"What?" I ask.

"Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it," says Gale.

I don't know how to respond. This idea is so preposterous.”

“I go back to my room and lie under the covers, trying not to think of Gale and thinking of nothing else.”

“Sweet Memory! wafted by thy gentle gale,
Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail.”

“I wonder how she'll make up her mind."
"Oh, that I do know." I can just catch Gale's last words through the layer of fur. "Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without.”

“Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable.”

“An eminent man challenged me to explain what sailing in a schooner could do for international education. In reply, I said we had at that moment the application before us for a future king of an Arab country to enter Gordonstoun. I happened to have at the school some Jews… If the Arab and one of these Jews were to go out sailing on our schooner, perhaps in a Northeasterly gale, and if they were become thoroughly seasick together, I would have done something for international education.”

“Katniss," Gale says softly. I recognize that voice. It's the same one he uses to approach wounded animals before he delivers a deathblow. I instinctively raise my hand to block his words but he catches it and holds on tightly. "Don't," I whisper. But Gale is not one to keep secrets from me. "Katniss, there is no District Twelve.”