Chapter 1: In which we learn why Katniss hates Peeta
She despises him from the tips of his curly, blonde hair to the double knots on his black sneakers.
At present he's reading out the part of Romeo from the play Romeo and Juliet that they're studying at the moment.
"Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."
Some of the girls in the class, actually the majority of the girls in the class are staring at him in unabashed adoration, watching his plump, pink lips shape the words of Romeo and pretending that it's them personally that he's speaking the words to.
She taps her pencil against the edge of her desk in exasperation; and glances down at her phone to check the time. It's twenty past 3 and she needs to be at work for 4 – it's usually a 20 minute drive but with the snow it could easily take 40 minutes. Bollocks. She glances back up and finds Peeta's startling blue eyes on her.
He smirks at her as though he knows what she's thinking and then continues to read but lengthening his words and exaggerating every syllable. Her eyes shoot towards the clock at the same time as his do and then his cerulean blue eyes are back on her. She frowns angrily and as her frown deepens, his smirk widens, his lip curling. Damn it, she's definitely going to be late now. She wants to punch that smirk clean off his smug face.
When the bell goes, she's the first to dash out of the classroom and is in her old, dilapidated red truck before the rest of the student body has even realised that the bell's gone. She turns the heating on as high as it will go and is just pulling out of her parking spot when a new, shiny, dark green truck pulls in front of her, effectively blocking her in.
She growls and smacks the steering wheel with the palms of her hands. A girl with long, curly blonde hair and wearing a tight jumper and high-heeled boots that are dangerous in this snow struts to the driver's seat of the truck.
"Oh for fuck's sake Glimmer!" Katniss thinks and then the window rolls down and she discovers who the driver is. She should have fucking known.
Peeta Mellark rests his arm on the edge of the window as he leans out of the truck to talk to Glimmer. Katniss can't hear what they're saying and she couldn't really care less. She just needs this asshole to move out of her way. She slams her fist down hard on the horn. To Katniss' amusement, Glimmer jumps and is turning around to glare at Katniss when Peeta grasps her face in his hands and pulls her towards him. The next moment his tongue is in her mouth and Katniss watches in horror as Peeta Mellark pretty much sucks the face off Glimmer Lopez. Or at least that's what it looks like anyway. Katniss doesn't have much experience in that department, not apart from a failed date with Gale and a few drunken snogs with Darius.
The minute hand on the clock is inching towards half past 3 and Katniss is furious. There is no way she's getting fired just because Peeta fucking Mellark can't keep it in his pants. She presses her horn again and the couple in front of her breaks apart. Glimmer presses another kiss to Peeta's lips before walking away, with a glare directed towards Katniss. Katniss rolls her eyes and snorts, like she gives a fuck what Glimmer Lopez thinks.
Her eyes lock with Peeta's and she narrows them, wondering whether she could just press down on the accelerator and ram his truck out of her way. They stare at each other for a few achingly long seconds before he has the audacity to wink at her and then shifts his truck into gear and drives off.
Even though the snow is coming down thicker now, she makes it to work just as the clock is striking four. Alma Coin calls her into her office in the back of the diner just after Katniss has clocked in.
"You get lucky today, Miss Everdeen. And you of all people should know that I have no patience for tardiness. One more mistake and you're out!"
Katniss balls hers fists by her sides and tries not to retort. She may hate this job but she needs it and she's not going to give Alma Coin the satisfaction of firing her.
It's about 10pm by the time the diner starts to quieten down and as Katniss is wiping the tables of her section, she thinks again of her hatred for Peeta Mellark. He was an asshole all the time but that stunt he'd pulled today was unforgivable. How dare he try and make her late for work!
Her hatred towards him isn't unjustified; Mellark has been rude, cocky and annoying towards her for the best part of a decade now. It all started in primary school when they were playing 'Pin the tail on the donkey' and he decided to cut off the bottom half of her braid to use as the tail. She, a tender five-year-old at the time, had promptly turned round and punched him straight on the nose, with enough force to break it. Since then they'd been sworn enemies.
He was arrogant, he was crude and he was a man slag. And it would seem he had nothing better to do with his time than pick on her. It didn't make sense to her: she was practically a loner with only a small group of close friends, she didn't socialise, preferring instead to work long hours at the diner to make sure she could pay the bills, she kept herself to herself and didn't bother anyone. He was the complete opposite and was one of the popular kids: he was on the wrestling team, had tons of girls hanging off his arm and could down a beer keg like nobody's business. Why did he bother with annoying her?
Her fingers scraped against the tabletop and she stopped what she was doing, realising that she'd been scrubbing so hard the table practically shone.
Eugh, why was she even wasting time thinking about Peeta Mellark? She had too much else to focus on right now, she wasn't going to let Peeta Mellark bother her anymore.
Can't decide whether to do only Katniss' point of view or whether to have both her's and Peeta's. What do you think? Would you prefer to know both sides of the story? x
