A/N: Hello!
With Broken Winged Birds' final chapter being posted this week, I'm taking a venture at another Everlark story! This one won't be as long and is actually planned as a three to four-chapter story if I write it right but once the idea was planted in my head, I couldn't shake it.
There are a few triggers in this story. Strong themes involve suicide; self-harm; eating disorders; and terminal illness. It's based off a book called 'By the Time You Read This, I'll be Dead' by Julie Ann Peters. I wouldn't exactly recommend the story because the protagonist isn't the most pleasant to read but, hey, if you want to check it out I won't stop you :)
I hope you enjoy. If you do let me know with a follow or a comment. Only if you want to of course ;)
Catch Your Breath
By Blueberrychills94
Part I
Tall. Skinny. Shockingly blond.
He always goes to the same spot every afternoon.
Katniss had claimed the bench, he knew it belonged to her, so he leaned against the tree trunk behind, waiting for her mum to pick her up so he can take it. Katniss didn't know what his deal was, but he came out at the same time every day. She didn't like it. Knowing that he was there put her on edge. She wished he would stop.
Her mum pulled up at the curb. Katniss hadn't walked home on her own for years. They don't trust her to do it anymore.
She closed her book and rose to her feet, shouldering her backpack as she walked to the car. The annoying boy didn't take the bench immediately, and instead stayed by the tree until she'd gotten into her mother's car. She leaned forward and peered out Katniss' window, a confused look on her face. "Who is that?" she asked.
Katniss looked away from my window but didn't answer her. She couldn't. Her neck brace squeezed her throat, as if reminding her of her own disability. Katniss scowled and glared at her mother, a clear message to drive already. Why does she always hang around like that? She knew Katniss just wanted to get home and away from this place.
Finally, she shifted the car into drive and pulled away from the curb.
"I'll be going on a business trip for a couple of days," her mother, Rose, explained, "so Greasy Sae will be coming over to watch you and Prim."
Katniss remembered a time where her mother could have left her in charge of Primrose. Now she couldn't even trust her to be in charge of herself. If their father were alive, it would have made things simpler, but now they had to call on Greasy Sae more and more often as Rose got sent away on more and more business trips.
Things would be a lot simpler if Katniss could be trusted.
Katniss learned when she was younger that trust was a special thing. So difficult to gain and so easy to lose. To be perfectly honest, Katniss did not care if her mother did not trust her to look after Primrose. In fact, it was probably better that way. For as much as Katniss loved her sister, she didn't even trust herself to be capable of caring for her anymore. Not after what happened.
"I should probably get some deodorant and toothpaste for the trip," Rose murmured as they approached the corner shop. She glanced at Katniss, dull blue eyes burning into the side of her daughter's head like a fire. She didn't hit the indicator and instead chose to drive on. "I'll get it at the airport," she decided.
Katniss would have scoffed, if she cared enough. Her mother was so easy to read; so easy to see through. It was almost embarrassing. Rose was afraid. She was afraid nearly twenty-four seven. Katniss didn't need to look at the woman twice to know that she was worried that the same thing would happen that happened the last time. The first time. Rose only saw Katniss now as a trigger. Someone who could be set off by anything.
It had been years ago, and Katniss had only been ten at the time. A kid, of course, which only made her mother's ignition all the more agitating. Rose had just left her there. Alone, in the car, with not even a cracked window to assure Katniss that she wasn't going to suffocate. Katniss had always been a paranoid child, and she'd begged her mother to take her inside the store with her.
No, her mother had said, I'll only be a few minutes.
A few minutes was all it took.
Imagine being in a coffin. A box where you knew that the air was slowly running out. Surrounded in soil; nowhere to go; trapped; alone to die without anyone to care. That's what it felt like for Katniss to be trapped in that car. Naturally, she freaked out. It was barely half a minute before she was sure that the walls were closing in on her, and she started to scream like a maniac. She pounded the doors and tried to get them open, but the child lock in the back seat wouldn't release her.
The seatbelt was getting tighter, she had been so sure of it, and her fingers couldn't find the button fast enough to get it open. She fumbled, her hands not working as if they had gone numb, and she had been helpless to anything but lash out and scream as hard as she possibly could. The air was running out, she knew it was, the walls were coming in on her and soon she'd be squashed. She was going to die at the age of ten, just because her mother didn't want her to come into the store with her.
Of course, this attracted attention. Everyone in the parking lot stopped and stared, concerned for the crazy child inside the vehicle roaring like a banshee. Eventually, Rose emerged from the crowd that had gathered and threw the door open. Katniss remembered gasping in the air that rushed in gratefully before bursting into tears.
"What is wrong?!" Rose had exclaimed, humiliation written all over her face. Not concern. Humiliation.
Katniss had been too shell shocked to answer and Rose assured the crowd that had gathered that everything was all right and that Katniss had just been playing a prank. Yeah. A prank. Of course. How funny must people find a child screaming in fear inside a car because she's convinced she's going to die?
As they had driven away from the shop, her mother had asked, "Why did you did that?"
Katniss still felt irritation rise in her chest to this day at such an ignorant question. As if she had purposefully screamed and kicked out in the car to just spite Rose and embarrass her.
Freaking out inside of the car wasn't why Rose couldn't leave Katniss alone anymore. Why she had to drop her off and pick her up from school. Why she had to get Greasy Sae to stay in the house while she went on business trips. Why Katniss' computer was constantly monitored and her room was a barren desert. Rose couldn't leave Katniss alone because she was on twenty-four-hour suicide watch.
The little girl that was trapped in the car, terrified because she thought she was going to die, was no longer afraid of death.
~CYB~
Katniss found the website by accident. It was called The Reaping and it had just appeared on the advertisement bar on her computer. Maybe it was a coincidence, or had showed up because of previous search results, although Katniss couldn't fathom how. She barely did anything on her PC anymore. It was slick, the newest model available with a touch screen and detachable keypad, but what was the use of it if Rose was monitoring her searches?
As she read the description of the site, the only way she could explain it was that it was a site for people to will themselves away. She was slightly concerned, as the realisation came upon her that it was another site about suicide, that her mother was going to burst into her bedroom and ban her from using the PC altogether. Katniss looked to her bedroom door. Nothing. How odd. Normally if any of the trigger words are in the search, her mother would get flagged . . .
The first question that popped up when Katniss clicked the link was Are you ready to be reaped?
There was a No option, which didn't really make sense if the site was all about suicide. Katniss clicked Yes. What did she have to lose? She'd been trying to kill herself for at least a year and a half now. Unsuccessfully, obviously. How many times can you really botch a suicide? Katniss touched the brace around her throat and scowled. Many times, it seemed.
A privacy policy then popped up, which Katniss agreed to despite not having read it all. It then told her to press her dominant finger against the screen. Katniss frowned and looked at her hand. What? She reached out and pressed her finger to the screen anyways, curious about what was going to happen.
Thank you, Katniss Everdeen.
Katniss would have fallen out of her seat if she wasn't completely sure that it would cause her mother to rush to her aid.
Your ID is now J_Doe080592
Katniss rolled her eyes. May 8th 1992 was her birthday. Her mother must have set up some sort of online profile for the computer and didn't bother to secure it. So, so stupid.
There were many different options on the website. They were abbreviated, so Katniss didn't know what to press. She went for the first option, which was under the initials DOD. Eight names then appeared, each of them J_Doe something. No indication towards gender or age, just those same user names with different numbers after.
Then the screen went black.
It asked for her thumb print.
Katniss pressed her thumb against the screen and realised that it was her way of accessing The Reaping. A password so nobody but herself could get onto her profile. It was actually very clever, but she briefly wondered what people who didn't have touch screen computers did.
Another question appeared.
Your Date of Death is 23 days from now, are you ready?
Katniss scowled. No. That was too far away.
Why was Katniss so determined to die? It seemed like a valid enough question; one that she had been asked so many times by her family and psychologists. One that, no matter how often she answered with brutal honesty, they never seemed to understand. They either treated the answers she gave as if they were silly and invalid or kept probing with more inquiries that pretty much had the same answer.
Katniss was tired of living the same lie over and over again. This charade that she was okay with living a life where she was miserable as hell. Ever since she was a child, her life had pushed her to the ground and had been kicking her ever since, like an ever present bully that just wouldn't move on to another victim.
Katniss was bullied for being fat from elementary to middle school.
She lost weight by starving herself.
The bullying stopped.
Her father died.
She started eating again.
She gained weight once more.
She was officially diagnosed with anorexia as she dropped the weight again in less than a month.
She was bullied for being too thin in high school.
She had no friends.
Her mother treated her like a disease.
She barely saw her sister nowadays.
She was a bomb just waiting to go off.
She couldn't speak.
Nobody cared about her.
Nobody would notice.
If only it were that easy.
Katniss sighed and rubbed her eyes tiredly. Why did the rope have to snap?
Returning her gaze to the computer screen, she tapped the answer No. It asked her to insert her own Date of Death. Katniss immediately went for tomorrow's date, already planning to use the school computers to search a method she hadn't tried yet. There had to be something she wouldn't botch . . .
The site wouldn't accept tomorrow's date, so she tried the day after. When the same thing happened, she did the day after that. The site then informed her that the minimum Date of Death for her would be 23 days from now. The earliest date came up on the screen as the 28th of April. Three weeks from now. Katniss didn't know if she could wait that long.
Katniss clicked Yes and shut her computer off, not sure if this Reaping site was all it seemed to be. All she wanted to do was die. Was that seriously so much to ask?
Katniss lay down on her bed, grunting irritably as her brace squeezed her neck again. She knew she probably sounded selfish. There were people out in the world suffering through dictatorships; wars; poverty; and she was trying to die when she had so many opportunities that those people would kill for. Katniss would gladly give any of them her life if she could, but she honestly didn't see the harm in there being one less human on this earth. Especially someone as worthless as her, who didn't contribute anything to the planet.
There's only a certain amount of times you can bear being looked at like you're a disgusting piece of filth before you snap.
"Katniss, here's your dinner." Rose entered the room with a plate of fish and chips. She and Primrose must have ordered in food. Figures. Rose couldn't cook.
Katniss rolled on the bed to face the wall, combing her fingers through her hair and ignoring the pinch in her throat.
"Promise me you'll eat," Rose said.
Katniss said nothing. She wasn't being rude, exactly, she couldn't speak. She stared at the wall until her mother sighed and left the plate by her bedside. She could feel words on the tip of her mum's tongue but predicted seconds before it happened that she would opt to say nothing. Rose left the room.
Immediately, Katniss slung herself out of bed and picked the plate up. She moved to the trash can and dumped it in, not caring that it would make her room smell. Tomorrow she would tie up the garbage bag and throw it into the outdoors' bin before her mum even got out of bed. Normally she wouldn't be so wasteful, but ever since the accident she hadn't been able to purge her food.
Katniss left the empty plate outside her room for her mum to find. Might as well give her some form of hope.
Katniss may have been ready to die, but she still wasn't ready to be fat again.
~CYB~
The blond boy had a green streak in his hair. Katniss didn't look his way as she left the school and crossed the road to the bench, but she could see a flash of green out of the corner of her eye as he looked up from his book and smiled at her. Katniss ignored him, as always.
Katniss sat down on the bench, wondering why the boy hadn't beaten her to it. She pulled her book out of her bag and balanced it on her knees, hoping without hope that the rain would hold out until she got home. She didn't want to get wet. She felt fat and gross when she got wet. Not to mention it would destroy her book.
Glimmer reached out for Marvel's hand, eyes glistening with tears. "You know I can't bear to lose you, or Gloss," she said. "I love you both equally"-
She reached the end of the page and tore it out of the book. Scrunching it up in her hand, she stuffed it into her blazer pocket. It wasn't exactly the most fascinating read, and there were smut scenes every other page, but she was captivated by the confidence of the protagonist, Glimmer, even if she was an annoying whinge most of the time.
"Please understand, I beg of you," Glimmer pleaded. "I"-
A body falling into the space beside Katniss made her lose her place. The hair stood up on the back of her neck and she nearly jumped off the other side with shock. There was a blur of yellow and green and she instantly knew who it was.
"You're out early," he said, clearly trying to start a conversation.
Katniss ignored him and continued to read.
"I see you come out here every day after school," he continued. "I know you see me too because you always have this endearing scowl on your face when you notice me."
Katniss scowled at the pages. What was this guy's deal?
He inched closer to her and Katniss' head snapped up instantly, shooting a firey glare in his direction. Too close.
"Yikes," he held his hands up in mock surrender, inching backwards again.
Katniss returned her eyes to her book.
Marvel grabbed Glimmer around the waist and kissed her passionately. "If you think I'm going to let you go then you have another thing coming," he growled as his hands tugged on her skirts. "I love you too much for that"-
"My name's Peeta," the blond boy said, holding his hand out towards Katniss.
If he touched her, she was going to scream. Or bite him, whichever came first.
"And I just want to establish right now that I am not a stalker," Peeta continued, a smile too bright for Katniss' liking burned into his features. He didn't seem to care that she didn't shake his hand, and actually made the retraction of his hand again look casual and not at all awkward.
Katniss stared at him, trying to figure out his angle. What did he want? All boys wanted the same thing, but he couldn't possibly be seeking it from her on a wet bench on a disgustingly grey Wednesday afternoon, right? If he was, then he had another fucking thing coming.
"Okay, maybe I am a stalker." Katniss could instantly tell from the way his blue eyes sparkled that he was kidding this time, however it didn't put her at ease at all. "I live in the house next door." He jerked his thumb behind him, at the house beyond the tree he usually leans again. "As I say, I see you coming out of here every day and sitting on this very bench. You always look lonely."
Katniss must have looked alarmed because Peeta immediately backtracked.
"In a totally pretty, brooding kind of a way," he added.
Katniss rolled her eyes and returned to the book, trying to make it perfectly clear that she was ignoring him and was not enjoying his company.
"I want to feel your hands on my body," Glimmer purred, "prove to me that you are the one I should choose"-
"Victor's Passion, huh?" Peeta said, looking over Katniss' shoulder at the book in her hand. "I read that for English Literature last year."
Ha ha. He was really not funny.
"You know how fun it is to write comparative essays of the authors choice of words." He steepled his hands and looked dramatically to the sky. "Please sir, I want to play you like a clarinet of love." He grinned at Katniss out of the corner of his eye and winked. He saw her unimpressed expression and cleared his throat. "Or powerful trombone of masculinity if you prefer."
Katniss looked at the book in her hands and turned her nose up.
Annoyingly perceptive, Peeta immediately said, "I'm not making fun of your reading tastes. In fact, I'm even worse. I read the entire Twilight Saga three weeks ago in the space of three days."
Where did he find time to read four books in three days? He was clearly lying.
"Team Edward, obviously," he added.
Katniss turned around on the bench so her legs hung over the side, ripping the page she was on out of the book and stuffing it into her pocket. She could feel Peeta's eyes on the back of her head and she willed Rose to show up already. What was taking her so long? Why did Peeta choose the day Katniss' mother would be late to talk to her?
"Want some bubblegum? I usually use it to freshen my breath, or make it at least smell less disgusting." Peeta stood up and walked around so he was standing in front of Katniss. She had to crane her head to look up at him. He was tall, and slender, like he could blow away in the wind. "Of course, it sticks with you for ages, but at least if you're planning to kiss anyone in the moment you won't smell of morning breath."
Katniss stared. Was he telling her that her breath smelled?
"I'm rambling aren't I?" Peeta cringed, throwing a bubblegum cube into his mouth. He waited, staring at Katniss as she stared at him. It was really uncomfortable, and Katniss briefly wondered if The Reaping would care if she threw herself in front of a truck now instead of in 22 days' time.
"Your cast looks uncomfortable," Peeta said, gesturing to her neck. "Did your mother drop you on your head as a baby and this is the outcome?"
Still not funny.
Despite the sudden urge to smile . . .
"Ahh, I get it, you went to a rock concert and headbanged too hard?" Peeta wiggled his eyebrows at Katniss. "Whip lash is a bitch. Or so I've heard. Someday I'll take you to a rock concert and you can show me what you did. Mind you, I am a pro banger myself." He frowned and opened his mouth to say something else when Katniss' mum finally pulled up in the street.
Katniss jumped off the bench and made for the car. As she left, she heard Peeta mutter to himself, "Pro banger? What the hell is wrong with you, Mellark?"
Her mother leaned forward to gaze out the window again, a confused frown glued to her features. "Do you know him?" she asked.
Katniss didn't answer. Heart pounding in her chest, she slapped the steering wheel. A clear indication to drive.
When she glanced out at the rear view mirror, Peeta stood by the bench, waving her goodbye with a stupid grin on his face.
