Author's Note; Hey any readers out there! I'm really enjoying writing this fic and I hope you are and will enjoy this just as much! Please review as they mean everything to me, bad or good, i will try and relpy to them all and take on board everthing you say :) just remember, the more you review, the more motivation I have to write more and faster ;)
"Dude, you need to stop this." Finnick confronts me as we are walking across the field in search for our other friends.
"You don't think I've tried Finnick? Do you think I actually enjoy the feeling of loving someone unconditionally and having them not like you back?" I nearly shout at him. He above anyone else should how much I struggle with this whole situation. I want to get over her, I really do but I just can't. I hear him take a deep breath in and I can hear the intervention talk coming on.
"Peeta, I know it's hard for you but you just need to distract yourself, practise football more, get a girlfriend just stop looking out for her and getting yourself involved in this crap.." He says, scratching his head as he tries to get the words out and I can tell he is holding back from being harsh.
"Like the last girlfriends I had? The ones who I hurt because I couldn't stay with them because of the guilt?" I counter, I'm never going to do that again.
"Then just do it for a hook up, some girls dig a one nighter." He nearly chuckles.
"And make myself feel even guiltier? I can't do that to a girl Fin, I'm not like that." He sigh, there's no way out of it, it's a game of waiting, although I would have thought three years would have been long enough to wait..
"Well dude, bad relationships and one night stands are part of life, they are nothing to be guilty about. Just don't get your hopes up again, I can't stand watching you get all depressed anymore.. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart " And I can here the sadness in his voice as he dropped his gaze from mine.
"Hey! Yo! Over here!" Both Finnick and I turn our heads to the direction of the voice and see Cato, Thresh, Clove and Johanna over on the football pitch, Cato and Thresh passing a ball between them and the girls sitting by the sideline. It was Cato that had shouted at and was calling us over for a kick about. Cato then shot the ball in our direction and I easily control it by letting it hit me in the chest and it falls down to my feet to chip it up and kick it into the goal, hard. Johanna and Clove both cheer out and I mockingly take a bow and walk over to where they are sitting.
"Hey Beckham!" Clove shouts as I take a seat opposite them. She's another one of my best friends but I feel awkward with her sometimes as she fancies me but of course I didn't want to risk going into that zone with her, especially being in the predicament I'm in at the moment.
"Hey girls, how's it going?" I ask as I readjust my bad so I can lean back on it.
"Well I've already been told off by Mr. Abernathy in PE today for telling him what a dumb ass idea it is for having to run laps to play table tennis seeing as though you don't have to move to be able to play" She laughs, which makes Clove and I laugh as well.
"What you guys laughing about?" Cato calls as he jogs over, with Thresh and Finnick bringing up the rear.
"The ridiculousness of PE." Johanna chuckles again.
"I agree with you there Jo, me and Katniss were talking about it in our lesson."
"You what?" Finnick said before I could utter a word, deliberately I'm guessing. I shot my head up to stare at Cato. No. She can't be going for Cato, one of the biggest players in the school.
"Yeah, she's a pretty cool gal, I might see if she wants to hang sometime." I feel my jaw hang open as I take in what he is planning to do. No way will she go for it. No way. I see Finnick watching me from the corner of my eye and I try my best not to show any emotion and definitely not to show any anger. I'm just going to have to bottle it up and then put it all into slide tackling him in football training tonight. Fucking douche is in for it now, you do not want to piss off a defender. Nobody carries on the conversation and I'm so grateful for it as I don't know how long I can contain this anger.
"I gotta go." I grab my bag and throw it around my head and walk away from them.
"Peeta?" I here Clove call out from behind me but I ignore her needing my space to calm down. I know Finnick won't try and chase me, he knows me too well. Katniss and Cato. Katniss and Cato. Cato and Katniss? No. That can't happen. I'd rather Gale be with her than having to see her with one of my friends. Well, he would be an ex-friend if that's what it came to, I wouldn't be able to be around them, holding hands, kissing, erggh it makes me feel sick. I don't quite know where I'm going seeing as though there is still like half an hour left of lunch, to be honest I just want to go home and I would too if I didn't have football training tonight and if you miss one training without a brilliant excuse like you're dying or something you are off the team for a match. No excuses. The only place I can think of where no one else will be is the library. I swear if I smoked, this is one of the times where I would need a fag.
I walk back into the school and climb the stairs that lead to the library which is next to the English plaza. I walk in there and head for my favourite comfortable arm chair in the corner next to the long windows looking out to the road outside of the school. I drop my bag next to it and throw myself down with a sigh. I hope Katniss isn't silly enough to fall for Cato, with his persistent charming and flirting. I reluctantly pull some of the homework from today out of my back. I think I'll start with Art, maybe it can relieve some of this stress. I flip through the pages of my sketch book to a fresh page and pull my sketching pencil out of my bag. I never know what I'm going to actually draw until lines form into something and I carry on from there but today I know what I'm drawing. I start by drawing the long stems that shoot across the page, I then draw the leaves that look like arrowheads and lastly draw the small flowers by the top, each with three petals and the pollen in the middle of the petals, which will be coloured purple.
"That's such a good drawing.." I shoot my head up in surprise and nearly ruin my drawing as my arms tense and nearly shoot across the page. Its Katniss. Crap and she just caught me drawing a Katniss Plant.
"Oh, hey." I stutter, praying she doesn't make the connection between her and the drawing.
"How did you learn to draw like that?" She asks as comes a bit closer but stops as she sees me watching her.
"Haha, a LOT of practise!" I laugh. I don't normally sketch like this, I'm more of a painter than a drawer. Painting's don't have to be as precise and can show a lot more feeling in the strokes and colours than harsh lines of pencil." I explain as I add a couple more outlines to the arrowhead leaves.
"I can't do any type of art, I'm more of a scientific mind myself, not an ounce of creativity in me." She laughs.
"I'm sure that's not true. You're pretty good in English. That counts as creativity as it's all your own perception." I say and look up to her and smile.
"I never really thought about that, some of the things I say seem blatantly obvious.." She says, uncertainty in her voice.
"Not at all, that just shows how good you are at it." I smile at her again, which she returns. This is one of those moments I was talking about. One of the moments where something will happen between us and my hopes get up thinking she may feel the same about me but each time it happens, I can't stop it happening again.
"What lessons have you got left today?" I ask her, trying to keep the conversation up.
"Ermmm.. Maths and Biology I think." She smiles. She must be the only one who can smile with the idea of having these two subjects together, but she's different, that's what makes her special. The school bell goes again signalling the end of lunch, interrupting our conversation.
"Oh, I better go, don't want to be late for Maths." She smiles and puts a book back that she was clutching to her chest. "Speak to you later,"
"Oh alright, see ya." I say. She spins around and starts walking towards the doors and I can't help but watch her hips sway slightly as she walks. I pack up my stuff, looking over my drawing before shutting the sketchbook and putting it in my bag. I get up and start heading for my next lesson.