The shuddering breaths eventually slow down after a few long moments, lying there still as a rag doll, or a corpse except for the sharp rise and fall of her chest. Katniss isn't a pretty crier. She has no idea how other girls do it. With her, it's all clogged up throats, mucus and sore, red eyes. And an itchy nose. Vaguely, she can hear his heart thumping against the shell of her ear, curled up there with Buttercup watching with confused golden eyes mere paces away. He sticks his nose up and trots away after a moment, but Katniss doesn't notice. Jason's words have caught her by surprise, and it's almost enough to cut through the vague haze of tears. She says nothing and the silence stretches until she can't take it anymore.

"I -- if I say it, you'll die," she manages to rasp through a throat that feels like thistles. After all, she had loved Prim and look at what had happened. She'd loved Finnick too, in her own way. Peeta as well, and back home he was broken enough that it hurt her chest to look at him here. "That's what happens."

She has issues with the word love, too. Even if she's sure Jason doesn't mean it in that way, but almost in the grudging way that she supposed Haymitch loved her as well. Too many arguments with Peeta, and Gale, and the things they wanted, the things they expected from her, that she couldn't give. It had warped her. It's scary. Terrifying, actually.