A/N - My first Fanfiction. This chapter is really just an introductory chapter, I wanted to put as much backstory and introduce as many characters as I needed (more will definitely come into the story later) as I could into one chapter. VERY VERY alternate universe, very modern day, very fluffy, just for fun. Basically I'm just using the names of the characters from THG and I don't own any of them, but, everyone will probably end up similar in personality, but them not growing up in an impoverished suppressed world will result in much less heavy characters. Be gentle when judging or commenting, leave suggestions if you like. The story is actually going to be much bigger than this and is inspired by a lot of the music on the radio right now (Taylor Swift, Nick Jonas, Ariana Grande, etc., etc., etc...). I hope you enjoy.
It had started when he began to date her. It was casual, and at first she didn't really even think they were dating, just friends. He was attractive, in a way that he knew, but it didn't really come off as arrogant, just confident. They were partnered up in biology class, he found it hilarious that this girl who was normally so cold and quiet confided in him that she was petrified, terrified, immobilizing afraid of the creatures. He did all the work of dissecting while she looked the other way and took notes and recorded observations based on his descriptions. They passed with a remarkable grade on that project.
To celebrate he had taken her to the most popular pizza place in town. It was where all the high school kids went to after school, or dances, or after their teams won big games. It was where he had introduced her to all his friends, they all got along great. She wasn't a typical girl in the sense that she didn't run with one of the cliques. She liked to pretend it was because she was above that kind of "high school" stuff and didn't need to fall into a crowd, when really up until this point she had a little sister to watch out for while their mother who worked as a nurse at the local hospital during the evenings trying to provide for them. Her new found freedom was thanks to the fact that her mother had fallen in love with a handsome doctor who ran the local AA program at the hospital where she worked. He moved into their modest split level home with them the previous summer. They were engaged now and Katniss' mom managed to take a job that didn't work such long hours, that and the fact that her sister was now old enough to walk herself home from school, and attitudy enough to not want a babysitter there waiting for her allowed for a lot of free time for Katniss.
It had been a good night, they laughed, she made friends, they found her interesting enough to invite her to keep hanging out with her at school. A side effect was that she was drawing the attention of the guys enough for the girls to notice her, to want to get to know her to either become her friend, or to keep her close enough to pretend to at the very least. She knew this new popularity probably wouldn't last, but hey, she could enjoy it while she had it. High school became bearable.
He definitely hung out with her more and more, they didn't only go to the pizza place anymore, they went to movies, when he drove her home they would stay parked in her drive way for hours just talking and laughing and having a good time. She found that she actually liked him. He was one of those guys who she had watched from afar before, always with a new girl, always breaking hearts, girls would whisper around her how much they liked him, or hated him depending on if he had just dropped her the week before. She watched enough to know to be cautious, so being just friends was fine with her, she would get over this crush, that's all it was after all.
They were in her drive way after the movies one night when he changed it all. The atmosphere was different, she could feel it. She lost herself in his eyes, those deep dazzling brown doe eyes that dozens of girls before her had fallen for. Her stomach was filled with butterflies; she had fallen into it like an idiot. It was amazing. Afterward he told her all about how she was different from all of the other girls he had ever fallen for, he hadn't been prepared for her, she was the last thing he was expecting, but he knew that he had finally found his match. She ate up every word and surrendered to him.
They became an official couple. That spring she went and watched every soccer practice, went to every game, even the away games. Their school wasn't the champion of their district for soccer, but he was still the best player in their grade. Before every game she kissed him before he went into the locker room, and when he came out she was there. She was a model girlfriend, and she was a legend for locking him down. He had never been on more than a few dates with other girls, but here they were, four months later and fast approaching the end of the school year. They would start next year as seniors and basically be the "it" couple. They were happy, hardly ever fought and really did genuinely enjoy each other when they were together, alone or with their friends.
That is, until she found out about "her". They had gone to a party that the seniors were throwing, she had never been to one of these parties before. There was music, beer, and drama. She was standing with her friends when her friend Madge came up to her. Madge gave her a confused look, and glanced upstairs.
"What's up?" Katniss asked
Madge pointed upstairs, "Didn't I just see you go upstairs with Marvel?"
Katniss laughed and looked around at the circle of girls she was standing with. "No."
Madge looked awkward, "Well I definitely just saw him go upstairs with someone. It was definitely him, but I guess I didn't clearly see who he went with. I'm sorry." She was a sweet girl; there was so much dread in her eyes that Katniss actually believed her. Her circle of "friends" she was currently with were practically drooling at the idea that they were currently about to witness the fall from grace of Marvel and Katniss. She didn't know what to do in that moment, her head was spinning, she didn't know if she should rage up the stairs and confront what was surely happening, or if she should try to remain calm, save her reputation, insist Madge was mistaken and continue with her friends and ignore what was surely happening in this moment and confront him later. She looked at her friends; she found she locked eyes with Johanna. Out of all of her new friends she was the one she found Johanna had probably become the closest, most real, and the most like herself out of everyone. They were similar in that they weren't the typical popular chick you would think to find in their crowd. In Johanna's eyes she found her answer.
Katniss chose to rage.
She went marching up the stairs and ripped open every door until she found Marvel and Glimmer laid out on the bed of some stranger rounding second base and on their way to third. They both stopped immediately and looked at the door, Glimmer looked annoyed, then a bit triumphant, it made Katniss sick. Marvel had the exact opposite look, he had dread and fear and regret in his eyes. Katniss just looked at them both, still not knowing what to do, she was aware of the crowd that had followed her up here waiting for her reaction. She was in a situation she never thought she'd find herself in, complete high school drama. She looked at Marvel with every ounce of rage that she had in her body portrayed in her eyes, until she felt the hurt and betrayal. Not wanting to make a bigger scene than she had, not wanting to appear weak in front of all of these people who would surely judge her forever after this situation, she just turned on her heal and headed for the door. She made sure to hide the hurt and anger so that every person she looked at on her way out of that house didn't know what to think of what had just happened. She could hear Marvel calling after her.
The party was at least a half hour car ride from her house; she didn't know how to get home. She had no choice; she went and waited by his car. He caught up to her moments later anyway. She held her hand out to him.
"Give me your keys." She demanded.
"Why?"
"Because I wanna go home and you're not driving me home if you're drunk." Katniss stated.
"I…uh…haven't been drinking." He told her.
She looked at him dumfounded, rolled her eyes, and let out an exasperated breath. "Get in the car, we are not doing this here."
They got in, he drove away, she raged. "You had the nerve to not only embarrass me in front of everyone, but to completely and utterly betray me, and not even have the decency to have the excuse of being drunk!" She screamed at him while using her small purse to hit his arm while he drove.
He apologized the whole way home; he didn't know why he did it. He tried to down play it by pointing out that everyone's been with Glimmer, she was seducing him, he couldn't help it, and he was a guy after all. It wasn't like he had done anything with Glimmer that he hadn't done with Katniss. He said anything and everything to her to try to down play what had just happened. She was beyond talking to him. She sat silently next to him while he said all the wrong things to her and everything he said either angered her more, just didn't make sense, or just plain old wasn't enough to calm the anger within. When he dropped her off at home he at least had the common sense to realize that she was too angry for him to even attempt to kiss away the pain. The minute the car stopped she got out, slamming the door with enough fury to make him flinch, but not enough to actually damage the car. She marched inside without a backwards glance, slammed her own front door shut, and promptly fell apart. Say what you will, he was her first love, she thought she had changed him, she thought what they had was real. It wasn't, and that was hard to face. She cried herself to sleep that night, her twelve year old sister joining her in Katniss' room which was apart from the rest of the bedrooms in the house.
Their split level home had two large bedrooms in the upstairs with a generously large bathroom; those rooms belonged to her mother and Dr. Haymitch Abernathy, and her sister Prim. The main floor was the living room, kitchen, and dining room areas, and their lower level was the larger den, and off of that was Katniss' bed room and bathroom. Both were small, but she liked it down here. Her windows were higher up in her room, flush with the ground outside, she could see into the back yard into the gardens that she and her father used to tend to together before he had passed away. It was nice, a major bonus was that she was far enough away from her mom and Haymitch that she could play her music at a decent level any time she wanted, or in this case, cry without parental involvement.
Her heart hurt.
The next day she successfully avoided his calls and texts for a whole day, well half a day. Her heart hurt and she wanted him to make it better. She met with him that night, they talked for hours again. There was only a week left of school, they decided to give it another shot, he told her he was sorry, she wanted to believe him. He kissed away her tears, she let him. They decided to go back to school as friends, it was exam week anyway, they really only had to school to write one exam per day, then they would have the rest of the day off. So that was what they did, they went to school, she walked in with her head held high, but not holding his hand or with his arm around her as usual. She glared Glimmer down with a threatening look in her eye, dared her to even so much as talk to Marvel without saying a single word. Glimmer smirked at her, but walked away in the end. They finished out the school week as they had planned, as friends as they were a few months before.
That summer they were inseparable.
They went swimming, they went to the drive in movie theatre every weekend but didn't actually watch any movies, they went to the beach, and they did everything they could together. They grew closer to each other than ever before, they were happy. He said all the right things; he made all the right promises to her and sealed it with a beautiful simple ring with her birthstone in it. They were solid.
She never thought that she would be the one to destroy it.