Ch. 1— The Train
"Your cousin's not afraid of me," she says confidently. She scoots off my bed and crosses to the door, nudging Gale's leg with her hip as she passes him. "Are you, gorgeous?" We can hear her laughter as she disappears down the hall.
"Terrified," he mouths.
Gale jolted into consciousness abruptly, urgently glancing around. He was still on the Capitol train, speeding towards District 2. He scowled, aware that he drifted into another dream, a distant memory; unfortunately, he couldn't keep her off his mind. As he had agreed to travel out to the corrupted wasteland with the rebels and rebuild a broken district, they were decent enough to provide him with a small apartment, not too far from the wreckage of the mountain, so he could assist in reconstruction. However, it was mandatory that he shared the limited space with another "soldier" to his liking— and he chose Johanna Mason.
Gale Hawthorne felt as though he needed some familiar face nearby; she was the only name on the roster that he could recall to memory. Nevertheless, he wasn't quite certain as to how it would be living with her; she had the capacity, and the tendency, to be a real pain when she wanted to be. He barely knew her, but he was hoping she'd accept him as more of an old friend than an awkward acquaintance. It was this muddled combination of eagerness and anxiety that clouded up his brain and doused his thoughts with old memories of her.
However, at the same time, he was direly grateful for this; it could pose as the perfect distraction from Katniss, and that was all he desired. No matter how much he attempted to seal out the images in his mind, her betrayal, his misery, the emptiness gnawing incessantly at his gut, it was impossible. Her face was always lurking in the recesses of his mind, but not accompanied by adoration. For no matter what the Capitol did, how many people they had played with or destroyed for entertainment's sake, he had to face the truth: he had always been a piece in Katniss's games, and she could be a vicious game maker. Gale was still haunted by a fondness for her, as that type of admiration doesn't just diminish on its own, but he was tearing apart from her, engulfed in his own agony. He had no earthly idea how to feel.
So he just left. Deep down, he knew he was wrong for abandoning his childhood best friend in such hard times, but what she did was nearly unforgivable in his eyes. And who could blame him for being such a jerk if they had dared take one step in his weathered shoes? He wasn't planning to wait on her while she sat languidly and pondered who the better kisser was, while she decided who was worth her precious time, while she used him like garbage. Although it was definite in his mind that he was being unfair, he just required an escape. And the ruins of District 2 would be that release. Katniss and him had been growing apart for a long time anyways.
The train screeched to a cacophonous yet easy stop, and Gale, along with half the passengers, wandered off, lost in a thriving, wriggling sea of unpredictable people. He was in a mindless daze as he trudged towards his new home, a twisted knot of nerves wrenching inside of him. He remembered Johanna distinctly— well, both Johannas, that is. He couldn't dispose of the image of the skeletal, wiry, abused girl he encountered in the Capitol during the rescue, porcelain and trembling, eyes wide and frantic with fear; her colorless lips were pressed into a thin silver line, as if they might burst with shrieks of the horrors she'd witnessed at any moment. However, that was also tethered to the picture of Johanna Mason he'd befriended in District 13: toughened, rambunctious, humorous, and filled with sly remarks ready to spit out at anyone in her way. He could clearly recognize that she was concealing her pain, but grew to like her; he took entertainment in her fiery jokes, returned her playful teasing and flirting— even though it tended to make Katniss quite fussy. Which he was useless to understand, considering the way she tended to act.
By the time the troubled young man reached the apartment, floating like a specter past the rubble of the mountain, which still belched obsidian smoke ceaselessly, he was absolutely exhausted. Dropping his bags limply in the doorway, he stumbled towards the couch, too lazy to drag himself off the furniture even to close the door. Nonetheless, he didn't have to. Mere minutes flowed by before the door slammed shut on its own hinges, an echoing bang that rattled his ribcage and brought him to his senses. Gale leapt from the sofa in a state of panic, blood battering the insides of his head, and swiveled only to face her.
Instead of an unexpected intruder, Johanna Mason looked him square in the eye and let her luggage collapse onto the floor as well.
All of Gale's previous neurotic thoughts ebbed away. A hint of an amused smirk presented itself on her full lips. "Hey gorgeous. Nice seeing you again."