Author's Note: The *updated* version of Chapter 2, thanks Orange Pudding for catching my mistake! I wrote the chapter and then wrote the last two pages a few hours later so I sort of forgot what I'd written earlier (:

Thank you all so much for all the favorites/reviews/etc! It honestly means so much to me and after swim practice today (I also swim, just like Cato!) I sprinted home and started writing more. Sorry this chapter is so short though, I have some good ideas for the next few chapters that I think you guys will really, really like!

Like always, FAVIEW FAVIEW FAVIEW. Woo! Also shout out to everyone who loves Eric Church (:

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You take a deep breath and you walk through the doors,

It's the morning of your very first day.

You say hi to your friends you ain't seen in a while,

Try and stay out of everybody's way.

Katniss woke up to the blaring of a car horn in the driveway just outside of her room, and sat straight up in her queen-sized bed. 7:33, her bedside alarm clock read. Crap, Katniss thought to herself. Cato was supposed to pick her up at 7:30.

Katniss dashed to the window, still dressed in a plain grey cami and pajama shorts from Victoria's Secret, and saw Cato standing next to his huge Jeep truck in the Everdeens' driveway.

"Hey, princess!" Cato called mockingly. "You might want your beauty sleep but school starts in half an hour and I kinda want to graduate!"

Katniss rolled her eyes at the boy's use of one of her most hated pet names she gave him. Princess. Cupcake. Catnip. Nerd. She quickly darted to the bathroom, brushed her teeth and washed her face and arranged her hair in her signature Dutch side braid. She didn't bother applying any makeup—her face was pretty clear and she had always preferred a clean face—and changed into the khaki-colored shorts, sandals, and blue lace tank top she had set aside the day before. She grabbed a banana from the kitchen counter as she darted out the door and into the passenger seat Cato's Jeep.

Cato hummed the tune to Eric Church's Springsteen as he climbed in his own driver's seat and closed the car door behind him. Turning the engine on and blaring country music through the windows, he began to drive to Panem High School, where him and Katniss would begin their senior years.

"You excited, nerd?" he asked, putting on his Aviator sunglasses and pulling into the school parking lot.

Katniss fiddled with her fingers and looked at the massive, looming school with hundreds of students filing into it. "Sure?"

"Well, it's high school. Sometimes it's the fucking shit and sometimes it just blows."

"Good to know."

Cato parked his Jeep into one of the most coveted spots in the parking lot, the spot usually reserved for the star quarterback on the football team. This year, he would be king of the school, instead of the lame football kids or the try-hard baseball tools. He climbed out of the Jeep and checked his hair in the side mirror. Perfect. His sandy hair was gelled perfectly, not completely flat but not a faux-hawk, either. His blue eyes were piercing, and his khaki shorts and navy slightly-fitted "Speedo Junior Nationals" shirt toned down the dark-brown leather Sperrys his feet donned. He had to admit it—he looked good.

"Yo, Evans!" a familiar voice called. It was Marvel Furst, Cato's best friend at the school and captain of the lacrosse team. Though Cato usually hated the lacrosse players and their stupid mid-calf socks/sandal combination, Marvel had proved to be a loyal friend, wingman, and confidant.

The familiar smirk appeared on Cato's face as he waved hello to Marvel and the other teens next to him. "Hey, Furst! Still dressing like a douchebag, I see?"

Marvel pointed at his lacrosse penny, shorts, and mid-calf socks and Sperrys. "What, these? Nah, it's the latest trend! You wouldn't know anything about that, being half-naked all the time!"

Cato and Katniss crossed over to the other group as they all subconsciously formed a sort of circle.

"Who's the chick, Evans?"

"This is Katniss—the homeschooled one from my neighborhood, she's spending her senior year here now."

Katniss managed a weak smile, still nervous about her first day in a public school and meeting so many people that she'd heard Cato talk about at the pool. "Hi."

Marvel chuckled. "I'm Marvel. I'm on the lacrosse team. This is Finnick Odair, Gale Hawthorne, Rue Sandstone, and Caroline Ward. I think you already know Gale, he swims with you guys, right?"

Katniss nodded. "Hey, Gale!"

The tall, dark-haired boy grinned. "Hey, Kat."

"ANYWAYS," Marvel interrupted. "We've got our first lacrosse scrimmage after school, so if you wanna come—there's gonna be a party at my house afterwards, too. There's gonna be a lot of food and people and—"

"Katniss doesn't drink," Cato interjected. "Plus, she'll be up all night studying so she can get into Yale."

Marvel winked at Katniss. "Hmm, the studious type. I dig that."

A mixture of anger, jealousy, and frustration flashed in Cato's eyes, which were now turning a slight grey. "Back off, Marvel."

Marvel lifted his hands in defeat. "Hey, man, just a joke."

The bell signaling the start of first period began to ring, and Katniss became increasingly more nervous as more and more kids started to file past them and into the school. As she walked inside the school building (which had been renovated quite recently), she became anxious as she realized that every hallway practically looked the same. Katniss fiddled around in her backpack until she found the schedule that she had printed out the night before.

Name: Katniss Maria Everdeen Grade: 12

AP Language/Composition Trinket

AP Calculus BC Abernathy

AP Physics Harrison

AP Government Zack

AP Psychology Mason

DNA 1/DNA 2 Copper

AP French Fanet

"Where ya headed off to, nerd?" Katniss heard a familiar voice ask. She looked up, her stormy grey eyes meeting Cato's piercing blue ones.

"AP Language and Composition?" Katniss answered, still looking down at her schedule. How was she supposed to find the classes if it didn't even tell her what room or wing of the school they were all in?

Cato snatched the piece of paper from her hand. "Lemme see that," he said as he scanned the paper. "Damn, nerd. All APs and one post-AP—you should join the Mathletes or something. Except we don't have a weird rapping Indian guy at our school, sorry."

Katniss raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

Cato looked down at Katniss' small frame. "Um, Mean Girls reference?"

"I never watched it."

Cato laughed. "Of course you haven't. Anyways, I'm headed down to AP Lit with McConnaughey and her room's right next to Trinket's, so I can walk you down if you want."

Katniss nodded, following Cato down one of the hallways. As she looked at the white-and-blue painted walls and trophy cases and lockers that lined them, she couldn't help but be awestruck. The huge building was exponentially larger than the tiny room where her dad had taught her and Prim since they were little kids.

"Alright, well, here we are," Cato said as he walked Katniss to Room 213, the AP Lang class taught by Effie Trinket. The teacher was a total freak and had a different hair style and hair color every week, but was nice enough if you got over her crazy, high-pitched antics.

Katniss peered into the room, in which about three-quarters of the seats were full. The teacher had magenta-pink hair, pale white skin (Katniss couldn't tell if it was makeup or if the teacher was actually that fair), and magenta lips. This was going to be nothing like school with her father.

Cato tapped Katniss on the shoulder. "Alright, I've gotta go. If you need anything, text me, alright?"

Katniss nodded in agreement, making her way to the vacant seat in the middle of the classroom as Cato disappeared from the doorway. It was far away from the front of the class to not be picked on constantly, but it wasn't too far to the point where she couldn't see the whiteboard attached to the front wall.

As she began to take her notebooks and pencils out for class from her backpack, a voice came from behind her.

"Is that Cato Evans I saw you with?"

Katniss turned around and came face-to-face with a girl who resembled the models in the magazines that Katniss would see all the time at Barnes & Noble. The girl's shiny, smooth golden blonde locks fell down her back in a perfect arrangement of waves and braids, while her emerald green eyes sparkled and matched the emerald green charm around her neck. Katniss nodded, not sure what to make of this girl who had approached her, the new girl in school.

"What's your name?"

"Katniss Everdeen. I'm new here."

The girl giggled. "I know. I guessed so. Cato's a hottie, isn't he? We dated on-and-off and hook up every so often. He's a dreamboat."

Katniss tried to hide the disgust she immediately felt towards the girl at those words. She was sitting in front of a real-life Barbie doll who thought Cato was like a piece of meat. "Uh, yeah."

Barbie tossed part of her hair over her shoulder, and tapped her new French-manicured nails on her phone keyboard. "I'm Glimmer Duke, by the way. My dad is the CEO of Duke Enterprises, he's like the 13th richest person in the world right now."

Glimmer. Katniss had to muster every ounce of good manners she had in her body in order to restrain herself from tearing the girl's head off. She had heard about Glimmer since her and Cato were in the seventh grade—Glimmer was the girl that all the boys had a crush on, the girl that put herself out for all the guys, the girl who was richer than the princess of Jordan and was more spoiled than the Kardashians. Katniss knew Glimmer and Cato had dated last year, and Cato would often admit to her that he didn't really feel that much for Glimmer, and it was more as if they were friends with benefits. The thought of Cato hooking up with this skinny, real-life Barbie doll who reeked of perfume had Katniss' stomach churning.

"Anyways," Glimmer said. "It seems like you and Cato are friends, so I'm guessing you're coming to Marvel's party tonight? Kinda like a beginning of the school year party."

Katniss shrugged. "I don't know, I guess it depends—"

"I'll definitely be there, in case you were wondering. But I'll probably be too busy with Cato, or that hottie Gale," Glimmer winked, sitting back into her seat as Ms. Trinket walked in front of the class to talk. "Or maybe both!"

Katniss restrained the urge to barf. She'd definitely be there, alright. Not to get mind-blowingly wasted or whore herself out like Glimmer. But to protect Cato. Because they were like siblings. They were like brother and sister.

Right?