AN: Most of my author's notes won't be nearly this long, but I have a few disclaimers to make. And also, the rest of my chapters will have a bit more writing, a lot less author-noting.

This story is rated M for language, adult themes, and sexual content later on. It comes with a trigger warning, and will contain limited and brief mentions of self-injury.

It is not, in any shape or form, a pro-suicide story. I take depression and suicide extremely seriously, having seen the effects of both in my own life. They are not being used as a gimmick to maximize Peeniss feels, and I will try my best to accurately portray the reality of the topics this story covers.

My short PSA: If you are depressed or considering suicide, you should know that it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and that, at a minimum, a suicide severely affects around 25 people. Naïve as this statement may seem, whatever your situation is, it can and will get better :)

All reviews are welcome and appreciated. I'll respond to all of them, and you might get a cupcake with Peeta's face on it.

I don't own The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins or "The Shade or Poison Trees" by Dashboard Confessional, who I borrowed my title from.

XXX

I can see why they call New York the city with no eyes. The statement bleeds onto the Bohm campus, every day.

Especially tonight. People slam into me, and spill beer on my shirt, but they don't look at me.

I sit on a dirty couch next to a boy with black hair because he's the only one I recognize. We did a Bio project together two weeks ago. But he turns his head to face me, realizes I'm not his date, and snaps his attention back to the beer he's nursing without a word.

To be honest, I'm not sure why I'm here. This isn't my scene. I tried a few times during orientation week, thinking it'd be the best place to make friends, before I remembered that I'm no good at socializing. Not when I'm sober, and definitely not drunk.

A girl puts a hand on top of my head, trying to steady herself. Her fingers tangle in my braid.

Stumbling off, she slurs, "Sorry. Saw the top of your head. Thought it was the table. Both brown."

I probably would've been more welcome and useful here as that table than a person.

Suddenly, my throat itches and I have to close my eyes. I told myself I wouldn't do this tonight. I wouldn't think things like that, because there's no point. I've already made a choice; it has to happen tonight before my roommate gets back from staying with her family over the weekend. I don't need to talk myself into anything anymore.

But I don't need to wait here, either.

If I have one night left, why don't I at least spend it doing something the real me likes? Something that doesn't involve people, or alcohol, or drugs, or sex. It doesn't involve table tops or dirty couches or assholes from Biology.

If I had my choice, I'd talk to Gale. But he's off studying abroad, and his skype's broken more than it works.

I'd talk to Prim, too, but I've gotten really tired of trying to communicate with a ghost.

There's a book I haven't finished yet. Death of a Salesman. It's for English, and not really a book at all, but I'd hate to miss how it ended. I don't read much, so when I do, I hate leaving something midway.

I get to my feet, more stable than anyone around me. That might seem expected, but the rest of them are all just drunk on beer. On the other hand, I'm filled to capacity with something a lot stronger. An idea, a fear, a desire, and an emptiness.

Just before I exit through the door, it opens from the other side. There's a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes who stops in the doorway just before we collide.

Silently, I move to slip past him, and he steps back to let me through.

I trudge down the steps of the frat house, pausing when I think I hear someone calling my name. Hesitantly, I turn back and realize it's just the wind and some desperate hope I have that someone at the party noticed I was there—and that I'm leaving.

But no one even faces me, because it's too early to leave the party for anyone normal.

Rubbing a hand over my face, I begin to turn around. Just before I do, the blonde boy's head peeks out from inside the room. He looks at me, right in the eye, and I'm gone in a heartbeat.

I nearly run back to my dorm room, seized by a strange fear that I won't have time to finish my book. But of course I do.

And then, marveling in the irony that they'll find that particular novel next to me, I swallow a bottle of Aspirin.

XXX

Someone wanders into the wrong room, thinking it's theirs, and they find me. There's an ambulance. Needles. A gloved hand holds mine while another takes my pulse.

The lights are suddenly bright, so bright I can't keep my eyes open. They lull me gently to sleep, and I let it carry me away, all the while feeling sharp pain radiating for somewhere in my body.

Someone says my name again.

XXX

My mother visits me a few days later. I'm too drugged up to interact much with her, and she looks at me in a sort of daze.

I should probably tell her this isn't her fault. That she might have a degree is Psychology, and she might have moved down from New York to North Carolina to take a counseling job, and she might have left me here without anyone, but it's not her fault.

At Least, that's what I try to tell myself.

She says Hazelle forwarded an email from Gale, and he loves studying abroad in Brazil, even though he spends more time in the woods than class. Apparently he's learning how to hunt with a bow and arrow, too.

We decide not to tell him I'm in the hospital, especially since part of me resents him for leaving in the first place.

XXX

From the hospital, they transfer me to a sort of home. It's for anyone age 25 and under, and there's a doctor who helps me outline some kind of release plan. Everything's so strictly ordered they might as well tattoo the schedule on my arm.

There's a rec room with an old television set and a pool table. Couches and books. No internet or computers.

Sometimes they force me to go there socialize with the other people who either chose or were forced to come here. I meet someone named Finnick, who's impossible to miss because he looks and acts so different compared to everyone else here. I'm not sure what's landed him with the rest of us, but he has eyes that tell me I don't want to find out.

XXX

They try a new medication on me. Doctors ask a lot of questions.

I don't mention Prim once.

XXX

They release me two weeks later. I'm not deemed high-risk anymore, though I don't feel any different.

Back at school, the new quarter is in its first week.

My roommate asked for a switch, so I've been moved all the way down the hall. Apparently people didn't want to stop by our room anymore after they heard about the way I'd been discovered on the ground, even though they all knew I wasn't coming back to school for a while. Guess she figured booting me out would bring her social life back from the dead.

The campus is empty as it ever gets, which doesn't mean much, since there are 40,000 people at Bohm. But for once, I'm glad, because none of them have the slightest idea who I am, or where I've been. I'm glad there aren't any eyes to meet mine.

I go inside the student services building, where they house all the offices for guidance counselors, along with a coffee shop and a store that sells anything you could want. The rest of the rooms are ones I haven't checked.

The staircase has blue tile, a silver handrail, and a giant poster that was signed by my incoming freshman class that reads, "We are the Bohm Badgers." I never bothered getting out a sharpie to add my own name.

I head up the stairs, take two wrong turns, and finally stop outside the counseling office, which I've only visited once.

The person sitting at the front desk doesn't look up when I push the door open, too busy scribbling something down on a sheet of paper.

I stare at her, waiting, until I finally interrupt, "Katniss Everdeen. I've got an appointment at 12:00."

Her head jerks up, and she gives me a wide smile. "You can have a seat over there," she says, pointing a manicured finger at a red chair against the wall. "Mr. Witt will be with you soon."

I nod and do as she says, unable to ignore the discreet glances she shoots my way. She must've been the person my doctor spoke to when he scheduled a meeting with my counselor.

Witt calls me back a few minutes later, and I silently follow him back to his tiny office that comes with two chairs, a small desk, and a computer.

He has dark skin and wears a simple black shirt and pants. I awkwardly stand in front of him until he says I can take a seat across from him.

"Good to be back?" he asks. Unable to think of any circumstance where a student like me would be excited to return to college, I just stare at him, my lips set in a firm line.

When I don't respond, he leans back in his chair, getting comfortable. Surprisingly enough, he tells me, "I think I'm the only one on campus who likes finals week. But only because it means I get to take some vacation days right after."

He pauses, waiting for me to talk, point out that the four-day "break" has come and gone. I don't.

"Have any difficulty finding your new room?" he asks. I shake my head. "Your new roommate is a transfer student who'll be here in about a week."

"Okay."

The printer behind him whirls. He takes a paper from the tray and hands it to me. "Your schedule," he explains.

I fold it up and put it in my pocket. "Thanks."

"Is there anything else you need?"

"No."

Without any visible sign of frustration or annoyance, he stands and extends his hand. "Well, with the exception of every other Tuesday, I'll be here."

I like him much better than my other doctors and therapists. He keeps it short and to the point, and doesn't press me for details I'm unwilling to give.

So I shake his hand.

Witt opens the door for me, and I exit the office. He trails behind.

We round the corner, and I notice someone's sitting in one of the chairs, next-in-line. My eyes determinedly lock on the doorway as I make a beeline for it.

Witt's voice stops me. "Katniss, can you wait just a minute?"

Hesitantly, I turn around, expecting a lecture about using my resources or how I'm not alone. How he's always there to talk if I need him.

Instead, a boy stands next to him, palms pressed against his blue jeans as he watches me.

Planting my feet, I size him up from where I stand, fifteen feet away. His cheeks turn pink, and his head drops, diverting his eyes.

He knows. If his sudden discomfort isn't enough of a cue, his complete refusal to look at me for longer than a few seconds proves my point.

I'm suddenly aware that Witt's talking. I barely catch the tail-end of whatever he was saying: "...counselors, who are generally found in room 231 on the lower level."

Silence falls on us, and I blink, at a loss. They both seem to be waiting for me to respond, give some sign that I understand. So I shrug and say, "Okay," before I spin back around and head out the door.

Just as I reach the top of the staircase, I hear footsteps echoing across the nearly-empty hallway. My shoulders tense, and I pick up the pace, keeping my eyes on my feet to make sure I don't trip.

Another pair of shoes step into my vision, right next to me. Instantly, I stop, and they take two more steps before stalling on the steps, too.

I finally look up, and I'm surprised to find the boy from the officer earlier. Guess he had a quick meeting. Maybe that's how Witt handles all his students.

"Did you need any help?" he asks, and my eyes meet his. That's when I recognize him-the boy from the party. The last one I saw before...

Agitated, I grit my teeth, feeling my face heat up. "No."

I keep walking, childishly angling my shoulders away from him. He seems to pick up on my body language, because he hurriedly adds, "I just meant moving in. Or...changing rooms. I mean." His palms slap at his jeans again.

"I got it all."

There's another palpable break in the conversation. He lets it be until we reach the sidewalk outside, where he says, "That must've been a lot of stuff to carry by yourself."

It's an innocent statement, but irritating, nonetheless. "Not a lot of stuff, no." Not when a decent scholarship's the only reason I have a chance to attend a school like BU. And I didn't have any real desire to dress up my dorm room or turn it into something that's supposed to be pretty, anyway.

He stops trying after that. And still, he tags along, apparently unfortunate enough to be saddled with me for an extra few minutes. He must have a class over here, or it's where his dorm is.

All I really want is to hole myself up in my empty room and enjoy the fact that I'm not sharing it yet. But I'm willing to take a little detour if it means splitting up.

"I'm stopping by Bon Cafe for a drink," I say, backtracking.

He turns. "Okay. I'll..." He trails off, an odd expression crossing his face, before he gives me a cautious, lopsided smile. "Try the frosted sugar cookies," he suggests in a rush, spinning around so quickly that he trips on his right shoelace.

I watch as he kneels, takes the unruly strings in his fingers, and double knots them.

XXX

A/N AS OF 7/24: (This note appears on the last chapter too, but eh.)

Hey guys! So, or those of you I've talked with directly, you already know that I've been planning on updating forever now. And I did completely intend to do that. However, at this time, I'm going to go ahead and mark this story complete. You guys have been really amazing and encouraging to me, but the truth is that I've seen a pretty nasty side of the Hunger Games fandom and I can't bring myself to write about it anymore. But I do wish you guys all the best, and I genuinely mean it when I say your support and enthusiasm has blown me away.

-Tay ^_^