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EffieTrinket101; EmberLex; MyNightmaresAreMyDaydreams; doraviolet1
Response to reviews:
MyNightmaresAreMyDaydreams:
Aw, thank you! :) I'm glad you liked the story. (Lol, I'm super obsessed with the Hunger Games fandom right now, so I'm basically just spending nanowrimo on writing HG fan fiction like this one)
EffieTrinket101:
Yeah, I couldn't picture anyone but Effie as the social worker when I wrote this story. I mean, she did spend the whole series as basically a glorified babysitter, so it just kinda works. I'm also super excited to write the Odesta element of the story, 'cause I just love shipping them together. *Fangirl squeal!* :) Hopefully I do it justice!
doraviolet1:
Glad you find it interesting ;) I present to you the next chapter. Enjoy.
Chapter 2:
Annie POV:
I didn't see Finnick in any of my morning classes. Despite that, I couldn't shake him from my mind. Every time I caught myself thinking about him, I angrily pushed the thoughts away. Thinking about some random boy wasn't going to help me get through the day-or anything else. He wasn't even that remarkable! I mean, aside from his odd sunburn, or his bronzed hair, or the way his athletic body moved...I caught myself once again and scowled.
The bell for fourth period rang, startling me so much I jumped in my seat and nearly knocked over my new math textbook. Thankfully, most of the class was too absorbed in stampeding to the door to notice, though I did hear a few snickers. I ignored them.
The hallways were flooded with students going to the cafeteria. Instead of following the crowds, I pressed myself close to the wall and went the opposite direction, following the route that would instead lead me to the school counselor's office. It was on the opposite side of the building. Once there, I took a deep breath, ran my fingers over my newest knot, and pushed open the door.
The room was an explosion of...well, everything. Three walls were painted with hopping bunnies, smiling tulips, and kittens playing with yarn, all under the twenty six letters of the alphabet, which were painted in large and blocky font. The fourth wall was occupied by a large pink and white bookshelf. From the covers of the books displayed, I could tell they were extremely fascinating: Magic Tree House, Bunnicula, and Picklemania were just a few of the wide selection of challenging reads.
Most of the floor was taken up by a large red rug with seating squares, all of which had-what a surprise-a letter of the alphabet inside it. Several plastic bins were tipped over on the ground, spilling toys onto the rug. Maybe this school was different than the other dozen I've been to, but last I checked, most high schoolers didn't enjoy playing with Thomas the Train and Company.
There was a small kitchen behind a counter on one side of the room, and behind it, a short hallway that held three doors. They were closed, but I could guess based on this room that they were either packed with string cheese and juice boxes or had small cots for nap time.
As much as I hated being transported back to my kindergarten classroom, it was one of Principal Snow's conditions that I come here for lunch each day. One hour. One hour of looking at suspiciously cheerful bunnies and singing the alphabet.
Instead of sitting on the rug and playing with Thomas, I chose to sit with my back against the wall, on the regular carpet, and start a turk's head knot. It's a fairly complicated one, and I was so absorbed in the task that nearly twenty minutes had passed before I remembered I was supposed to be meeting with the counselor. No sooner than the thought crossed my mind than one of the doors opened and a woman stepped out.
Her back was to me. It was bent over at an awkward angle, presumably because of the large and heavy box she held in her arms. I kept my back to the wall and stood up, waiting for her to notice me.
She did. When she turned around and saw me, her eyes widened in surprise and she dropped the box. It fell to the floor with a loud thunk that made the ground shake and tipped over, spilling out several thick books. I flinched at the noise and made my hands go faster. Focus on the knot, I chanted silently. The knot, the knot, the knot.
The woman was younger than I expected, maybe in her mid twenties. Her hair was dark, glossy, and perfectly straight, with several streaks of gold highlights.
I wondered how she had gotten it so straight. It was so different than my own hair, which couldn't seem to decide whether it was straight or curly. The result ended up being a dark, tangled mess that hung down my back like dead seaweed.
"Sorry!" the woman gasped. "You startled me!" She bent down and quickly gathered the books up. They were different than the ones on the shelf. Instead of 'Cinderella' and 'Smile,' there was 'Harry Potter,' 'The Fault in our Stars' and 'Vampire Diaries.'
Effie would have told me it was proper etiquette to go and help, but I stayed where I was, just watching.
The woman's hair was swinging back and forth like a curtain of black silk as she moved. I was just deciding she must have used a flat iron when she dumped the books on the bookshelf and stood up with a triumphant smile.
"Hello," she said cheerfully. "You're Annie, right? Principal Snow said you'd be stopping by."
Principal Snow had probably said a lot more, but I chose not to comment on that.
"I'm Portia," the woman continued, and then held out a hand. "Current school counselor." I just stared at her outstretched hand, unwilling to move forward and shake it like I was supposed to. Like Effie would have told me to. Instead, I hid my hands behind my back.
Portia didn't seem fazed. "Coffee?" she called over her shoulder as she crossed the room to the kitchen and pointed to a full pot of coffee.
She was offering me coffee? What kind of school counselor offered high school kids coffee in the middle of the day?
"No thanks," I said carefully.
"Thank god," she said, relief evident in her voice. "I hate smelling it when people have some. And drinking it. It's a disgusting beverage, really."
I frowned. "Then...why do you have a full pot of it?"
She looked sheepish. "All the other teachers have one. I thought it might make me seem more professional. Have you had lunch?"
I hadn't. But since I didn't like to eat in new places, I just nodded. She shrugged, then reached into the fridge and withdrew a Coke and a large baloney sandwich, which she immediately took a large bite of. With her mouth still full, she said something that sounded like "Saurhy 'ou eis."
"Um...what?" I asked.
Portia swallowed, then waved a hand at the room. "Sorry about this. I just got here a couple days ago and haven't had time to fix it." She snorted. "If I knew who the last school counselor was, I'd kick her arse for making you kids sit in a room with twirling rabbits on the walls. I've only been here two days and I'm already going crazy." She pushed herself up onto the counter and sat cross legged as she took another bite of her sandwich.
I stared at her. Most adults who read my file didn't use that word around me. They talked to me like I was a bomb ready to explode, one that was just waiting to be set off. It was as if they were walking on eggshells around me. And here this woman was, sitting on a kitchen counter and eating a sandwich while she threw out words like 'crazy.'
"Anyway," Portia said after she had swallowed an impossibly large bite of bread and meat. "Big C says you're gonna hang here at lunch. You good with that?"
"Big...C?"
"Corinolaus Snow," she said in a dramatically deep voice, then grinned. "I tried calling him that to his face, but he threw a big hissy fit. So now I can only call him that behind closed doors. Cookie?" She held out a tin filled with flower shaped sugar cookies, all frosted with the most meticulous detail I had ever seen. They were beautiful. I didn't want to touch something so pretty, though, so I shook my head.
She shrugged again and took a small pink one that was shaped like a tulip, ate it in two bites, and then downed half the Coke. I wondered how she managed to eat so much and still fit into the lime green skinny jeans she had on.
The rest of the hour was spent with me sitting on the floor and tying knots while we talked. Well, Portia talked. A lot. I mainly just nodded every few minutes so she knew I was still listening. And for once, I was.
I learned that she was twenty five, Asian American, loved food, and was obsessed with vampires. Apparently she was an expert on any and all stories, tv shows, and movies that had anything to do with one of the blood drinking creatures.
"Did you know there could be such a thing as vegan vampires?" she asked, to which I replied in the negative. "They can drink coconut water instead of blood," she explained, "but they can't use their powers without blood. Most vampires would view drinking coconut water as a last resort, because it's not really living, it's more like drifting along with no purpose. The blood is what really makes them complete."
At the end of the hour, Portia grabbed a book and pressed it into my hand. "Twilight," she explained. "It's one of my favorite books. Will you read it?"
I looked at the cover, which featured a pair of pale hands cupped around a crimson apple. "Um...maybe," I replied uneasily. I didn't like to fully commit to things. It usually made my hands start to sweat whenever I did.
She sent me off with a cookie-which she had practically forced into my hand and wouldn't let me return-and a promise that she would fix 'this cursed nursery' as fast as she could.
Once I was out of sight, I slipped the cookie into a spare ziplock bag in my backpack and tucked it carefully away for later. I never knew when I might need to start saving up food.
Flavius and Venia had seemed nice enough when I met them, but that was when Effie was hovering over us. Without her by me, I didn't know how reliant I could be on them for meals. Better to be prepared.
Flavius and Venia's apartment was almost twenty minutes away from school. I couldn't ride the bus-courtesy of, as Portia called him, 'Big C'-but I would have chosen to walk anyway. Even if it was below freezing, it was worth it to not be crammed on a bus with fifty other people. It was the end of November, and since I had forgotten my coat, the cold bit into my skin like...well, like a vampire's teeth. By the time I reached the apartment, I couldn't feel my face, hands, or feet. The only reason I was still able to hold my rope was because my hand was frozen in a grip around it.
Flavius opened the door for me when I knocked ("Do come in, darling, you look half frozen!") and ushered me into the living room, where Venia was painting her nails a vibrant gold.
"Oh, hello," she said distractedly when she saw me. "My apologies, dear, but I have a date in two hours and I'm simply rushing to make it on time." She brushed a line of gold onto her right thumb with all the speed of a snail. "Now, come sit down at tell me about your day. Did you make any new friends?"
Venia turned out to do most of the talking. After I told her what classes I had, she launched into a narrative about her own high school days, which somehow led to her going to get her hair done, and then to her saying what a big mistake it was to think purple looked good on her. ("I'm getting my hair tips dyed turquoise as soon as I can'-which I took to mean 'as soon as the check for housing and feeding you arrives.'
"Now, dear," she said, setting aside her gold nail polish after finishing a story about her first girlfriend, "tell me: are there any certain someones that have caused your heart to start pounding?" She leaned forward eagerly.
For whatever reason, an image of the boy with the sunburn-Finnick Odair-popped into my mind. It was right when he winked at me, when his bronze hair was perfectly messy and he was swinging his backpack over his shoulder, his arm muscles contracting-
"No," I said firmly. "No one."
Flavius and Venia both left before dinner. Venia was on a date with the curly haired woman who had picked her up a couple hours after I got back. Flavius had left shortly after her, promising that he would be back by ten and that I shouldn't wait up for him.
At ten, I was alone.
At eleven, I was alone.
At midnight, I brushed my teeth, picked up the book Portia had lent me, fastened my rope into a bracelet and slipped it onto my wrist like I did every night, and climbed into bed. Alone.
My fingers traced the crimson apple on the cover of 'Twilight.' It was so red. Such a deep, deep red. It was the exact color of blood. The color was so real I thought it would bleed out onto my hands.
At the thought, I quickly dropped the book and lifted my hands into the light of my bedside lamp, feeling relief when there wasn't a drop of red anywhere on my skin.
"Good," I whispered shakily to myself. "It's hard to wash out blood. Too hard."
The lamp clicked off, and I was left in darkness.
I think someone's getting a little bit of a crush...Finnick was only mentioned in this chapter, but rest assured, the next chapter will contain him in the flesh. It will also include some silly Finnick flirting, of course. It's kind of a package deal. :) BTW, I'm totally open to constructive criticism, so feel free to give advice. Thanks for reading!