UPON RETURNING HOME, I HAD picked up a second and third bottle of beer from a convenience store in the neighborhood that had been open 24 hours and didn't check IDs.

Now, it was empty and shattered on the ground outside of the apartment building I now called home.

Inside lived dozens of rich families able to afford marble-floored penthouses and doormen. The elevator had a glass back wall, giving me a clear view of the Capitol and it's lights at night.

I stared up at the grandeur of the Capitol, its imposing silhouette bathed in the soft glow of the night. The sight always left me in awe, a reminder of the stark contrasts that existed within this city. I never imagined that one day I would be living amidst the opulence that surrounded me now.

As I made my way through the lavish lobby, I couldn't help but feel a pang of unease.

I'd have no idea what I was about to walk into.

With two feet that dragged me down against the floor, my trembling hand met the gold knob of the front door to my apartment and soon, Eliot's anxious figure came into view.

He'd been sitting with his hands clasped together between his open legs, hunched over as if he'd just been sitting there, staring at the floor, awaiting my arrival.

Once he heard the shutting of the door, he jolted up, big brown eyes of worry meeting mine. He didn't even hesitate, he just walked toward me and wrapped his arms tight around me.

He holds my small frame tight in his loving embrace and the scent of the strawberry kids' body wash he still uses consumes me. It makes me smile despite my bottom lip quivering--it's a gentle reminder of who he is.

He stands here, just holding me. He doesn't pull away, or try to kiss me, or ask me where I've been because I'm sure the scent of alcohol is pouring off of me and I walked through the door with mascara-stained cheeks.

"I'm so glad you're okay," is the first thing he says to me. There's so much relief in his voice and I can feel him exhale against me.

I want to stay here. I want to stay in his arms and let him hold me and never tell him the truth of what I've impulsively done tonight. I want him.

I don't know how long it's been but when he finally does pull away, he keeps two gentle hands on the sides of my arms. He analyzes my blood-shot eyes with his worried brown ones and I don't think I've ever seen a human being so worried in my life.

He doesn't ask me if I've been drinking because it's obvious. But despite the bottles I chugged down, the guilt overpowered any amount of alcohol I could have taken in my system.

It's then that I notice his hair—his brown hair that's usually styled in such an orderly fashion is spewing from different directions and it appears as though he's run his hands through it a million times.

"Where have you been?" He asks me, moving his hand up to cup my cheek and the feeling causes me to flinch.

The man I love is standing in front of me and he's so good and kind and gentle and everything I'm not and he cares but what I've done is unforgivable.

I avert my gaze, and open my mouth to say something but no words come out. I shake my head.

He tries to meet my gaze once more, and I can feel the anxiety pouring out from the palm of his hand onto my wet cheek. "Mari? Did something happen?"

I know what he's asking and it isn't, did you sleep with Coriolanus? It's, did someone hurt you?

I shake my head. "I just needed to blow off some steam."

He nods, slowly but surely; believing me but not quite. But he doesn't say anything else. Instead, he pulls me close to him once again and the rest of the world falls away.