She walks slowly over to where Cato's laying on the ground, one arm wrapped protectively round Glimmer and for some reason she feels the need to spit at them.
Or throw a knife straight into Glimmers face.
The twigs snap under her feet and she almost gags at the smell of dried blood and dead people drifting through the arena.
It smells of moss and wet dog too. And Clove is suddenly wishing for the clean District 2.
She's missing the smell of fresh people and warm bread wafting through the streets, busy people bustling about and the meadows with the grass that comes up to her knees with the birds chirping as she lays her bruised and battered back onto the ground, she's missing the smell of new school books and chalk scratching the chalkboard and people watching in the large cafeteria while she watches Cato laughing and flirting, interacting with everyone but her, as if nothing ever happened, as she never meant anything.
Until his eyes will flash a look at her and she holds it, his beautiful blue eyes twinkling and a guilty look on his face, and Clove pushes all emotions except off her face and replaces them with disgust, sneering and turning her head to where the next most loved boy in the school stands, pushing her way through the crowd to get to him and smiling sweetly at him. Flashing perfect white teeth and running a hand through long black hair and batting her eyelashes and he'll fall for it. Smirking as if he's the cat that got the milk, even though Clove isn't that great, she knows how to get a guy.
And she'll look once more at Cato and for a second he's full of anger and hatred and she can almost see him shaking while he's looking over.
But it's gone and maybe she just imagined it.
Oh, but Cato's always been able to top her, and he does, he gets one up. Pulling the closest pretty little read head onto his lap and pulling her face to his until their faces meet and their lips are pressed together.
The cafeterias roars and people are cheering and clapping Cato on the back while some girls look on wistfully and Clove feels like she might just cry.
But obviously she can't do that, so she just sucks it up and pushes her way out of the cafeteria with the blank expression of nothing but annoyance that she wears so well and as she's pushing the heavy door open she's so sure she can see a pair or twinkling blue eyes watching her, a rough voice calling her name and a pretty little read head being pushed out of the way but she's gone.
And she's not going back for Cato now.
Clove sighs letting the memory float about in her head. She didn't think it would be possible to miss District 2 but somehow she's missing it.
She's missing her brothers, but her throat clogs up and tears well in her eyes and Clove can't even bring herself to think about that.
But she thinks maybe she's thinking too much of the good things and if she focuses on the bad, she won't miss it at all.
What she knows she won't miss is training, dog shit on the ground that nobody bothers to pick and her somehow managing to get lost in between all the beautiful people of District 2, buses crashing over puddles beside the pavement and splashing her with horrible rain water, walking in the rain so nobody can tell she's crying and that bitch Aldora constantly pushing her buttons.
She won't miss her dad or the times she's come in 2 minutes after the time he said to be home for to be welcomed by the smell of stale beer and the weed scattered all over the table.
He'll smash his bottle against the table and scream at her about the importance of punctuality in the games, edging closer and closer to her with the sharp bottle edges and her little brothers yelling out for her.
And she calmly tells them to go to their room, that she'll deal with him.
But she knows she can't and she wonders how much it'll hurt this time, or if it'll scar. Or what the apology present will be.
She puts up a fight as always and as his bottle slashes over chest she holds in the scream and kicks him in the shins, running for the kitchen, and he knows if she gets a knife she'll kill him so he runs after her and drags her to the floor, and Clove's quick and cute and dangerous, but she learned from the best, and right now he's sitting on top of her and punching her until she can't breathe, and he undoes his belt and pulls off his pants slipping into her so roughly that Clove is sure her earth shattering scream has killed a few puppies and she blacks out while his face laughs above her, thrusting so roughly her whole body has gone numb with disgust and humiliation.
Clove shakes her head at the thought, resting her head against the bark of a tree she's found herself sitting at.
The memory comes back to her before she can even stop it.
"I'm volunteering for the Games."
It's all it took for her heart to stop and for once Clove didn't even stop the emotions flooding from her.
"You, you can't-" she chokes "y-YOU CAN'T" her voice is getting louder and louder and she fights against his strong arms trying to pull her in for a hug by battering his chest and screaming at him while hot tears run down her face, but something in her pangs and if for a second she believed she actually had a heart, she thinks it might be aching.
So she gives up, because it's Cato and this could be the last time she sees him, not on a TV screen and she settles in his arms, still gasping for air and shaking, hoping he's playing a cruel joke on her to see her get all worked up.
His body's warm and Clove finds herself pressing her wet face against his warm chest for comfort, maybe?
And instead of doing the Cato thing and playing off her emotions with a shallow remark about her wetting her t-shirt with her pansy tears he lets her just stay there, rubbing patterns across her back and whispering songs to her right up until the sky turns dark blue and her eyes are heavy, she's almost asleep.
"Everywhere hurts" she croaks out. "You hurt everything, I hate you I hate you I hate you."
She doesn't mean it and he knows her so well, "I know Clove, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know I do Clove, I know."
And quite some time after she opens her eyes slowly, sleep blurring her view. And she realizes her head is lying against something hard but soft, cool but warm. Cato.
He asks her if she's ok and she blurts out a sorry about saying she hated him.
She does something only 3 people have ever heard, her 2 brothers and her mother.
She tells him she loves him.
And he smiles softly.
And she wonders why her heart jumps in her chest and flips about when he says it back.
He says it lazily as if he's just saying it so she'll shut up but his eyes flash a little bit and he grins she can't breathe.
She can't believe what she's about to do but she does it, because he's going to the Hunger Games and chances of living are slim.
She wants one last kiss.
So she pushes her body off his and sits up next to him, she moves forward a bit and she can feel his breath on her lips, looking at him he stares straight back, smirking a little bit, she brushes her lips against his so softly she barely felt him and sighs happily.
Her body jerks with surprise when he puts a hand around her neck and pulls her in close to him erasing the gap between their lips.
Its soft at first with the perfect mixture of sadness and lust and maybe a tad too much lust when clove traces her teeth along his bottom lip and smirks at his inward groan.
And then its all Cloves small hands running through short blonde hair and rough hands running through Cloves long loose black curls, lips against cool skin and teeth clashing, tongues fighting.
"Clove"
Cato's voice brings her fresh out of that memory and she glances up and finds his blue eyes.
Disaster was probably her middle name.
Because no memory in her life has ever been perfect and if she thought it was she had probably made most of it up.
The closest thing she has to perfect is Cato.
And in this cruel arena she couldn't let her guard down.
So she puts her hand to her forehead waggling her ring finger which was a sign they'd made up to say many things that neither one wanted to say outloud.
It meant allot of things but mostly I love you, I'm scared, I need you, I miss you.
Soppy things like that they don't care for saying.
She hopes he understands because the entire Capitol is watching and she doesn't want to give them the satisfaction.
He must feel the same because he copies her motion and they nod at eachother.
Clove looks at him for a long time and settles her back against the tree bark again laying her legs out and studying his sad expression.
"Fuck it Cato, come here."
She sick of being nursed all the time and when she was so sad her world felt like crashing down he'd held her all night.
So she lets him rest his head in her lap and he lets her play with his hair and run her hand across his forehead.
The whole of Capitol is probably getting off on this whole thing.
Or probably not, Loverboy and Firegirl were probably snogging somewhere but Clove didn't care.
They weren't real. Not like her and Cato.
And this was almost perfect.
ok lol so i'm aware i said district 1 at first cos i'm an idiot and i forgot and i was like o district one oh yea hell yea but i was actuallly wrong and i KNOW its district 2 theyre from so honestly idk why i said that but i did and i didnt even think about it but yea i changed that now sorry for that my bad.