Authors Note: This is my very first attempt at writing fanfiction, ever! I want to thank MrsMellark74 for inspiring me to want to write and to face my fears and try writing for myself! She has been there to support me the entire way and I cannot begin to thank her enough for everything! If you have not checked out her writing, it is amazing! Especially her current WiP Guarding Daisies.
The prologue and the first chapter are kind of short, but future chapters will be considerably longer. I am very proud of this and I would really appreciate it if you would take a moment and leave me a review! Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy it!
All credit goes to Suzanne Collins. These are her characters and the world of The Hunger Games belongs to her.
My life was pretty much what I considered to be "normal" until just a few months after my twentieth birthday. I had graduated from high school the previous year and I was in the fall semester of my sophomore year at The University of Panem. My sister Prim was in her junior year of high school, and about a month shy of her seventeenth birthday.
The night of my sisters marching band competition was the night that my world came crumbling down around me. Both of my parents had gone with her to watch, and I really wanted to go as well, but it was the night before one of my major exams and I really needed to study for it. I promised Prim that I would go to the next one for sure.
As the night drew on, I was getting drowsy from hours of studying, even though I was on my third cup of coffee. Just as I felt myself nodding off again, I was jolted awake by the sound of the phone ringing in the kitchen. I wondered who would be calling that late at night on the home phone line. I got up and answered it though, and the woman on the other end of the line told me that she worked at the hospital and that there had been an accident. She refused to give me much more in the way of details, but she asked if there was anyone who could come with me to the hospital immediately.
There was only one person I could think of who lived close enough and who I would want to come with me, and that was my friend Johanna Mason. After I hung up with the lady from the hospital, I immediately grabbed my cell phone and dialed Johanna's number. I told her what had just happened, and within five minutes, she and her boyfriend Gale were at my house and told me to get into the car. I figured having them drive me was the best idea because I couldn't stop shaking. Johanna was in the backseat when I got in and she wrapped her arms around me to comfort me during the entire ride to the hospital. We had been best friends since the first day of Kindergarten and were always there for each other no matter what.
When we arrived at the hospital, Gale dropped Johanna and me off at the emergency entrance and he went to park the car. She had her arm around my shoulder for support and never once moved it. As soon as we walked in, I gave my name and the lady at the desk asked me to follow her. There was also a policewoman there waiting for us which made my stomach drop and the shaking intensify. We followed them down a long hallway and the nurse motioned for us to sit down in a nearly empty family waiting room. They sat down with us and the policewoman explained that there had been a bad accident while my family was on their way home from the competition. A drunk driver in an extended cab pickup truck had crossed the yellow line and slammed head-on into my parent's car. My parents were killed immediately and Prim was up in emergency surgery. If Johanna had not been holding onto me I probably would have collapsed. I started sobbing uncontrollably. By that time Gale had already joined us in the waiting room and he wrapped his arms around both Johanna and me and just held us as we cried. The nurse and the policewoman eventually left us alone, but Johanna and Gale didn't go anywhere.
Three hours later I was informed that Prim was out of surgery, and that they were pretty sure that she would make it. However, she was going to be in the ICU for a while and she was paralyzed from the waist down. She also had suffered a concussion, was cut up and bruised pretty badly, and her right arm was broken. They let me go in to be with her so that I would be there when she woke up.
Johanna never left my side, and to this day I am still very thankful that she didn't. I don't know that I would have made it through the next hours, days, weeks and even years without her.
The following day my sister woke up just as the sun was beginning to rise, and with the support of Johanna and Gale, I broke the news to my sister of the loss of both of our parents. I laid down in the bed with Prim and held onto her as we cried together.
I had no idea what we were going to do, but I knew I had to be strong for my sister and I had to take care of her. She was still only 16 after all, and if I didn't take responsibility, the state would take her from me. There was no way I was going to let that happen. I had already lost my mom and dad. I was not going to lose Prim too; I couldn't live with myself if I did.
Johanna didn't want me to be alone after all that had just happened, so she came to stay with me for over a month at my house. She was there when I brought Prim home from the hospital and she stayed until the day my godfather Haymitch Abernathy sold his home and came to live in our house. He was Prim's godfather as well and he immediately knew he wanted to be there for us.
I had always known Haymitch was an alcoholic, so I never expected that to change. Haymitch was a retired Marine, just like my father was. They had been best friends since they were in elementary school. The difference between my father and Haymitch was that my father had his family to support him when he retired, and Haymitch, who lived alone, turned to alcohol. However, the night of the accident changed Haymitch as well. I guess, maybe it was knowing that a drunk had been the one to cause the accident and that a drunk was the one who took my parents' lives. Haymitch put down his drink that night and never picked one up again. It was hard for him at first. He went through withdrawals for weeks, but eventually he was okay without the alcohol.
Prim had a hard time adjusting to her new life in a wheelchair. Physically, she was pretty strong in her upper body from playing lots of sports growing up. But emotionally, she was devastated. She couldn't do the things she had been doing ever since she was little, like play sports and march with the band. She could still play her flute though, and she used music as an emotional release.
We also both started seeing a grief counselor together to help us in coping with the loss of our parents. Eventually, with the help of our family and friends we began to adapt to a new way of life. Not having our parents around was extremely hard, but Prim and I had each other and we were determined to make the best out of what life had dealt us.
A little over a year and a half after the tragic accident that took our parents lives', Prim graduated Summa Cum Laude from high school with a full ride scholarship to the University of Panem. She would finally be going to the same school as Johanna, Gale and I. The house that we had grown up in was only a few miles away from the college, so I had always just lived at home while I was in school. I had scholarships just like Prim, but I didn't get a full ride so it was just easier financially for me to live at home and not in the dorms. I also liked that I was able to be at home with Prim while she was still in high school, especially after our parents died. It really helped having Haymitch there, as he was basically a second father to us, but I still needed to be close to Prim. We needed each other after the accident more than ever. Prim, however, really wanted to live in the dorms to get the whole 'college experience' as she called it. She had the full ride scholarship to cover the cost so I told her that it was okay with me if she wanted to live on campus. I knew that we would still see each other all the time and she was close enough to home that she could come home whenever she wanted to. Thankfully the college was completely handicap accessible so there wouldn't be any issues with her being in a wheelchair.
Going into my senior year of college, I knew it was going to be a crazy year. On top of the classes that I still needed to take, I also had gotten an internship at the aquarium. I had majored in marine biology and really wanted to get a job after I graduated college training the dolphins at the aquarium. Ever since my class went on a field trip there in middle school, I knew that that was what I wanted to do when I grew up. Prim was planning on going into college with her major undeclared so that she could explore her options.
During the winter break that year, Johanna and Gale, who had moved into a townhouse together the summer before our senior year, told me that they were going to host a Christmas party this year and invited both Prim and I to come. Johanna told me that they were inviting some of their other friends as well. I knew what she was up to, of course. She had been trying to find me a boyfriend for the last six months or so.
I had dated a couple of guys in high school, but none of those relationships lasted more than a few months. After dating the guys for a few months, I had just known in my heart that it wasn't meant to be, and I wasn't interested in just dating for the fun of it. Deep down, I knew that when it was the right guy, I would know that he was the one I was meant to be with.
When I started college, I wasn't really looking for a boyfriend at the time because I was so busy with college classes and being in the marching band at the college took up a lot of my time after classes. Then, after the accident, I was not in the right mind to even begin thinking about dating again. Johanna didn't push it then either. She knew that it wasn't what I needed at the time and she respected that.
Now, however, Johanna was starting to push me into the dating world a little more because I was not getting any younger and she knew I was still a virgin. It wasn't that Johanna thought I needed to lose my virginity; she just wanted to see me finally find a man that I loved and who loved me in return. Being a virgin wasn't a big issue for me, though. I was saving that part of myself for the right man. I didn't want to lose my virginity just for the sake of it. Ever since I was a teenager I had promised myself that I wouldn't lose my virginity until I had a ring on my finger and I was truly in love. I wanted to at least be engaged before taking that big step.
Johanna and Gale had planned their big party for Christmas Eve night, and of course I had told her that Prim and I would be there. I hated to leave Haymitch all alone Christmas Eve night, but he assured me that he was absolutely fine with us going and he didn't want to stay up real late anyways. Prim and I were going to be at home with him all day on Christmas though. Christmas was always a day for family at our house and Haymitch was now the only family we had. Prim and I were both very thankful to have him in our lives.
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