A/N: Hello! This is Princess Clove with my first THG fanfic using this account and omg I'm way more nervous than I really should be .3. It's a pretty cliché plotline, but I wanted to write an Everlark AU and this was the result! (It's not just Everlark though, there's Gadge, Odesta, vague Galeniss and maybe a couple more pairings?) I hadn't planned on posting this (hence the lame title which is subject to change) but I ended up doing it anyway, so I hope you guys like it :) Please read & review, it encourages me to write more!
Chapter One
My hands graze over the glass frame of the photo. It is cold, having been packed in a box for the past few days. I'm surprised it didn't break or get disrupted in the process of moving – in a way, I was hoping it did.
I was eleven when the picture was taken. A day out at the beach with my parents and little sister Primrose proved to be one of the few memories I actually bothered to remember and treasure. Prim and I were wearing our swimming suits, hers a bright pink, frilly one and mine a red one with white polka dots – my dad had called me Minnie Mouse over that matter when I had chosen it.
My mom looks so strangely… happy. Her smile is alien to me, but at the same time hits me with a sense of familiarity. Her blonde hair is hidden under a wide-brimmed hat and her eyes are shaded with a pair of sunglasses, but she looks so content that I am almost jealous.
Then, of course, Dad. His face is badly sunburnt despite his olive skin, even though he had worn a copious amount of sunscreen – proved by the white streak across his nose. He doesn't wear a hat or any sunglasses, and I can't help but notice how alike we are in matters of appearance. The black hair, the grey eyes, the slightly crooked smile…
My hands tighten around the wooden frame. We played happy families back then, and to be honest, we were a happy family. No serious financial issues, no fighting, and more importantly, nothing for Prim and I to worry about. I hate that family, the family we once were before we fell apart, and I hate the fact that I can't handle it. Why can I not accept the fact that they don't exist anymore? Why can I not accept the fact that I cannot fix this family?
I have the urge to smash the picture frame against the wall, but decide against it. It wouldn't do me any good. Instead, I fling it across the floor of my bedroom until it's trapped in the space between the floor and the bottom of my dresser.
"Katniss?" I hear Prim call from behind the door. "What was that?"
I feel a little guilty about throwing the picture away now, because Prim would've loved it. She barely has any photos of us together as a whole family, and she misses the old us just as much as I do. Pushing away the thought, I stand and open the door to come face to face with my sister, Primrose.
"Nothing," I say, plastering a smile on my face. "Dropped a book, nothing important. You okay?"
"Yeah," she answers, clearly not believing my smile for a second. "Um, I was looking for something we could make dinner out of but we only have some butter and a packet of pasta."
"I was just about to head to the store to pick up some food," I tell hear. "Want to come with?"
"Sure!" Prim turns around and goes down the stairs, on the way grabbing her jacket hanging on the side of the railing, turning back to me with a slightly concerned face. She's way too mature for her age of thirteen, helping out around the place as much as she could, worrying about not only our mother but me as well. The guilt comes back as I realize how much this must be for her to take in at such a young age.
I walk up to Mom's room which is a few doors away from mine. "Mom? Prim and I are going grocery shopping," I say, opening her door a bit. Her condition has improved greatly since she decided we needed to move – for the few months before we came to California, all she ever did was lie in bed in a hopeless, pathetic heap, rarely eating, forcing us to coax some bowls of soup into her. Once we started to actually pack for the move, she'd put herself hard at work, scrubbing the floors and cleaning the house for the next owners.
She is unpacking her clothes away in a dresser when she turns to me. "Oh? For dinner?" she asks. Her face suddenly contorts into one of confusion. "Is Prim cooking?"
"Yes," I said. "And me."
"You're too young to be put with such a responsibility," my mother mumbles.
"Well, it's not like anyone else will do it." My voice comes out harsher than I'd anticipated. "I'm seventeen now, by the way."
The guilt is apparent on her face. "Alright, then. Be safe."
I close to door with my emotions fused together to form an unpleasant feeling. There's a bit of disgust, at my mother who shouldn't just stand by and watch her kids take up most of the work in the house. There's also pity, because she wants to be a good mother but she can't, not yet, not with the constant depressive moods and breakdowns. There's the ever-there guilt for being so harsh with her when she must be suffering, but the one most prominent was anger, at myself mostly, but there's also a bit towards her, and of course there's a lot towards my father, who did this to us in the first place.
As I grab my jacket from the side of the railing, I breathe deeply to calm myself down. My hands grip the soft leather of the jacket in my hands before I realize which one it was. It was the one my father had given to me when I was fourteen – back then it was far too big for me, but now it didn't fit too badly.
I stare at it. My anger starts to simmer again, and I toss it to the floor before making my way downstairs. I don't need it, I don't need him.
"Took you long enough," Prim says when I reach the living room, and despite her words she doesn't sound mad at all. I'm always like this after speaking to mom, as if a wave of her sadness had rubbed off on me, and the previous concern I'd seen on her is back.
"Sorry," I said. "Let's get out of here, hm?" I pick up my bag that was sitting on the counter, passing one or two cardboard boxes on the way. My voice is ever so slightly shaking, and so are my hands, but if Prim notices she doesn't say anything. We leave the house in mostly silence, me locking the door before we do.
It isn't much of a walk. I'd noticed the grocery store when we first drove to the house, a few blocks away but nothing we couldn't reach on foot. California really is beautiful, especially when you live in an apartment near the seaside. The beach is just across the road, where the sand is golden and the waves gently lapped against the shore. The scenery lets me clear my thoughts of anything unwelcome.
We make a few turns and reach the building with a large red and yellow Ralphs sign. A wind blows onto us as we enter the store, and Prim grabs a shopping cart near the door.
It goes by pretty quick considering we don't have many mouths to feed. On our way back to the entrance to the register counters, I spot a tall, dark-haired boy pushing a trolley with a little girl appearing to be his sister sitting on the child's seat. My eyes widen when I look closely at his face, and my mouth stretches into a large smile.
"Gale!" I call, and the boy's head whips around. It takes a few seconds for him to see me, but when he does, his solemn face brightens and he smiles.
"Catnip," he says as I approach him. It was the nickname he'd given me when we first met, when he asked for my name – Katniss – and I'd said it so quietly he thought I'd said Catnip. He's slightly taken aback at the hug I hit him with, but he just laughs and hugs me back. If I had been any other girl, he would have pushed me off, but I'm his best friend.
Gale looks up as Prim comes over. "Hey, Prim," he said, she hugs him too, maybe with a bit too much force as he stumbles in his step.
"I thought you wouldn't be here for another day," Gale says, roughing up Prim's hair. She tries to look irritated, but her grin shows through.
"Our flight was rescheduled," I say, and I can't help but give him a smile of my own. I'd missed him so much. Up until I was fourteen, we had lived on the same block and spent a vast majority of our time with each other. Gale is two years older than me and graduated high school last year, and he's starting his college life in a local university. Even though I had seen him a few months ago, it felt like I hadn't done so in years.
"How's your mother?" he asks.
"Better," I say truthfully. He doesn't know the full story, not quite, just that my mother was slightly more than a little upset after my father… disappeared. That isn't the full story, either, but thinking about what actually happened isn't number one on the list of my favourite things to do, so I push the thoughts away.
Something on my face must have changed, because Gale notices it and lays a hand on my shoulder, quickly changing the subject. He and Prim resume most of the conversation as we pay for our respective items, and even little Posy chirps in with a few words of her own. I remain silent as we carry our groceries to the parking lot, where Gale offers a ride in his car. It is pretty impressive, seeing as he'd bought it himself, and I admire the inside as I take the passenger seat.
"Nice, isn't it?" he asks, grinning as he straps himself in.
"Eh," I said, giving a nonchalant shrug, though it was.
Prim continues to talk animatedly through the ride, which isn't all that long, and by the time we arrive, she's only halfway through her rather elaborate retelling of the time Buttercup, our cat, went missing and was found inside a garbage bin, which I don't bother mentioning was partially my fault. What she doesn't know won't hurt her.
"Much as I would love to hear the rest of your tale, we'll have to be heading home now," Gale says as we exit the car, carrying our groceries.
"Why don't you stay for dinner?" Prim asks. I panic a bit, because we hadn't bought enough food to feed all of us including the five Hawthornes.
"I'm sure you guys still have plenty of unpacking to do, and we don't want to burden you," he answers. Something beeps, like a phone, and Gale proves it was his when he pulls it out from his pocket, reading a text message. "How remarkably convenient. I'd texted my mom that I ran into you guys earlier, and she wants me to ask you to come over for dinner tomorrow night. If you can make it."
The underlying message is clearly, "If your mother can make it." I suppose she can handle a few hours eating together with some close friends, so I say, "Sure, that sounds great. Does seven sound okay?"
"Seven sounds fantastic," he says, texting again, no doubt telling her the time. "See you later." Prim and I remain on the sidewalk for a few more seconds, waving back at Posy in the back seat as they drove away, before going inside.
The boxes were making me feel trapped inside the house, so after dinner, I excuse myself and leave the house intending to take a walk. I pull on a jacket, not the jacket that had been my father's, but a soft wool cardigan that gave me mediocre protection against the cold, something which I quickly regret after being met with a strong chill.
I don't bother going back inside, though, and make my way to the beach where I stroll down the boardwalk. It is peaceful, only the odd car passing by in the nearby road, the sound of the ocean hitting the shores my constant companion. My mind wanders from Gale to his family to our old home to Dad, and when the thoughts become overbearing I shake my head clear of them. Using a stairway leading to the actual beach, I take off my flip flops and walk to the water, sand tickling my feet. When I reach the edge of the shore, I let the freezing saltwater lap up at my toes, closing my eyes and feeling as if the ocean was slowly eroding me away, taking particles of me in its breeze, and I'm drifting away, away, away from all my memories, of my problems, but also all of the people I love and everything I've ever known, so I snap my eyes open again.
I step away from the water, and as I do I stumble and almost would've fallen if I hadn't bumped into a very solid, very human body. I yelp but a pair of arms catch me, steadying me as I stand again and turn around to see who it was.
Not anyone I knew. Come to think of it, I don't even know anyone in this town other than Gale's family. It's hard to make him out the barely-there light available on the beach, but I can vaguely make out blonde curls and a frame that is quite a bit taller than me. It doesn't take a hawk's vision to be able to see his blue eyes, either, which I can't help notice are very pretty.
"Oh my God, I'm sorry," he says, cerulean eyes wide as he takes a step back.
"No, don't be," I tell him. "I was the one who backed into you without looking."
"No, that's not it." A hand reaches up to scratch the back of his head and he cast his eyes down. "It- uh, I was kind of staring at you and it felt really stalker-ish. Sorry, I'll go now."
I'm about to tell him no, that it's okay, that I probably wouldn't have even begun to wonder what he was doing there in the first place until the next morning, that I want him to hang around and talk to me, but I see no reason to do so without looking like a creep so the words get trapped in my throat. Turns out, I don't have to, because just as he's backing away he sees something off to his side and curses under his breath. He looks like he is about to take off until he turns back to me, and as an idea flashes in his eyes and a hint of regret passes his face, saying something under his breath like, "I am so so so so so so so so sorry," he leans in and I think he's going to kiss me.
A/N: There you go! Not the most thrilling cliffhanger, but it'll do -3- Remember to review because your feedback will make me super happy!
~ Princess Clove