Title: Life from There

Summary: "You don't forget the face of the person who was your last hope." Once Peeta Mellark saves Katniss Everdeen from her abusive relationship with Cato in sophomore year of high school, they avoid each other and never speak to each other. Two years later, despite Katniss's unmentionable past, they find themselves together. Modern AU. Slightly OOC.

I DO NOT OWN THE HUNGER GAMES. THE CHARACTERS ARE ALL PART OF SUZANNE COLLINS'S AMAZING IMAGINATION, AND I JUST BORROWED THEM AND THOUGHT OF A STORY LINE.

PEETA'S POV

It's the end of May, almost the end of the school year, when I see her. She's walking by herself in the rain, about a block from school, wearing a soaked teal turtleneck, jeans, and polka-dot rain boots. I drive up to her, and she quickens her pace.

"Do you need a ride?" I call to her through the open window. She doesn't turn around, instead keeps walking in the opposite direction. "You're going to catch pnemonia and die if you stay out here."

Slowly, she turns and simply shakes her head, sending silver raindrops from her damp hair into her line of vision. "No, thanks. My house isn't far."

"Katniss, your house is two miles away, and you're walking in the rain."

"No, it's not."

"We're in the industrial part of town. Unless you secretly live in Walmart or a coal mine, you don't live that close. Please, let me give you a ride."

She turns her head off into the distance, as if she's thinking about it. She walks towards the passenger side door, avoiding the tiny river that is raging parallel to the curb. Once she closes the door, the car is silent. She says nothing, her head down as she looks at her mud splattered rain boots, hair hiding her face.

I turn on the radio to cover the silence. "So. Do you play any sports? Softball? Volleyball? You look tall enough to play, that's for sure."

"I do archery."

"Archery?" I wouldn't take her as an archery gal. She's small and frail looking, and in the movies I've seen, the people who do archery always have huge arm muscles, even the ladies. I glance at her arms under the tight turtleneck. "That's with a bow and arrow, right?"

When she turns to look at me, she keeps her head down so that her hair covers her face. "No, with a soccer ball." Her voice is sarcastic and filled with bitterness.

"Sorry! I'm not that familiar with archery."

"Obviously." Katniss turns her head and looks out the window, and when she sees nothing but the downpour, back at her shoes. We reach a stoplight.

"Nice shoes. I never thought of you as a polka-dot girl."

"They're my sisters. I was in a hurry this morning." She replies coolly.

The light is still a dark red color, and it swings wildly on its wire in the wind. This one in particular is known to stay red for minutes at a time, even when no one else is there. I beat on the steering wheel to a familiar Paramore song while waiting for it to turn. "I thought you got a ride home with your boyfriend."

"He was busy." I know she is lying. Earlier, I saw her get into the car with him before she opened the door and walked away into the rain. I try to change the subject, and turn up the radio. "Do you know this song?"

"No."

"You know, you would look a lot prettier if put your hair back." I move my hand out to put her hair behind her ear, and she lets out a grumble of protest before squirming away.

I frown. There must be some reason to why she wants to keep her hair like that. "Katniss, why don't you…" My voice trails off as I pull back her hair from her face. A red-pink welt sits upon her check in the shape of a handprint.

I gasp. "Katniss… This wasn't there in Science." We both have last period Science together, and I sit in the row adjacent to her. "Who did this to you?"

"It's nothing." She looks out the window as the car starts moving. "Just let me out here. I can walk to my friend's house. It's only a block."

"I'm not letting you out until you tell me who slapped you."

"Why do you care? It's none of your business. The last time I checked, you weren't my mother."

I ignore her comment. "Well, after Science, I walked behind you, and I saw you get into Cato's car. I didn't see anyone hit you then. But- Oh my God!" I turn to look at her, searching her eyes. "Did Cato do this to you?"

She doesn't say anything.

"He did, didn't he?"

Still nothing. I raise my voice. "Katniss, he doesn't have a right to hit you, or even lay his hands on you. You know that, right? This isn't okay." I don't know why I'm so angry at the situation. She's right, it's none of my business. "Is that why you got out of his car? Did you guys break up, and he hit you?"

"We didn't break up. I walked out of his car because he told me I smelled like the cat we dissected in class, and that he didn't want me to stink up his car."

"You're a horrible liar, Katniss."

"Maybe I'm not lying. And why do you care about this? Turn left here." She tells me.

I don't turn left. Instead, I pull into a Dairy Queen that closed last month due to flooding. "Please tell me what happened."

"I can't."

"Yes, you can."

"No, I can't." She says again, clearly frustrated with me and my pestering. "He told me to never tell anyone about any of the times that he-" It's too late before she realizes what she has said.

It's quiet except for the soft pitter-patter of the rain outside. A car on the main road drives through a huge puddle, sending water flying everywhere.

"So, this has happened before?" I ask, my voice notably quieter than before.

She must realizes that she can't take back what she said, and that there isn't anything to fix it. "Yes."

My fingers gently graze the top of her turtleneck. She flinches from the contact of my cold fingers, but doesn't move away. When I pull the fabric off of her skin, I see the multiple purple colored bruises that cover her neck. They are fading, but in the unmistakable shape of fingers. It now makes sense why it always seems like she's wearing long sleeves with collars.

I try to stay calm and not get angered. "How long has this been happening?"

"Since we first got together." She says, looking down. I drop my hand from where it was on her neck, and I feel her relax a little. Cato has been with Katniss for well over a year now. It was such a big deal at school, Cato being a junior and a football star and all, dating a freshman like Katniss Everdeen, a girl who was known for her academics and not social life. Most people thought that he just wanted to use her, but after six months of them still being together, they dropped that thought and believed that they were soul mates.

She takes a shaky breath and continues talking. "When I don't… do what he wants, he hurts me."

I clench my jaw together. I can't believe she's let this go on for so long and hasn't done anything about it. "And you haven't said a word about it in the year that you two have been dating?"

She's quiet. I know that this must be hard for her. "He said he loved me." She plays with a small rip in her jeans on her thigh, making it bigger. "And I believed him at first. But then, he started wanting… more then what I was comfortable with. When I told him no, he hit me. Later, he told me he was sorry and wouldn't ever pressure me like that or hurt me again. I believed him.

"But then, it happened again. I tried to break up with him, but he-" She stops talking and I see her try to wipe away a tear before I saw it. She clears her throat and begins talking again. "He threatened me. And he told me not to break up with him because I was nothing, worthless and an ugly piece of scum, but that he would always love me. I guess I was so naïve that I believed him. But now I'm scared. If I don't make out with him every five seconds, he hits me. So what's to say that he wouldn't put me in the hospital if I broke up with him?"

I watch the raindrops drop down from the tree above us and slither down the windshield. "You should have spoken up before. Or broken up with him when he first hit you."

"I know. It's my biggest regret." I look back at her and find her staring straight at me. "Are you going to tell?" She says, her voice laced with sadness and almost inaudible. Her eyes are the color of the stormy clouds, and I can tell by the water in her eyes that she's close to tears.

I take clasp her hand in mine over the center console. "No. But you are."

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, please tell me by reviewing. If you didn't enjoy it too much, and thought it could use some changes, please give me some Constructive Criticism by reviewing. I respect all of your honest opinions. :)

Also, I've (thankfully) never been abused by a boyfriend, so I kind of just guessed on what it would be like. If it's wrong/unrealistic, please review or PM me and tell me what I could do to fix it and make it more realistic/believable.

Thanks for reading!

-OJ (orangejuicee)