Chap 2

July-20-12

8:47 AM


DECEMBER CONT'D

The nurse comes to my room wheeling in a wheelchair.

"What's it do?" I ask, even though I know it's a dumb question.

The nurse, Cinna looks up at me as he turns down my bed covers.

"It's a self-operating wheelchair. You're going to learn how to wheel yourself around the round gazebo up on the fourth floor. It'll give you practice on moving smoothly," Cinna says.

"Oh," I breathe, grasping onto Cinna's fore arms as he hoists me up and out of my bed and into my new mode of transportation. Farewell to my cute jeep that I wanted for my college going away present.

I am placed in the wheelchair that has a special strap for my legs so that they don't fall out of the wheelchair since I can't control them on my own.

Cinna then hands me a pair of professional bicyclist gloves that just cover the palms of my hands and leave the tips of my fingers bare.

"They're to protect your hands from blistering when you push against your wheels to move," Cinna explains.

"I nod and give my chair a try. It's difficult, but not too bad that I can't deal with it. As a kid I've always been one to do whatever was placed in front of me. I never struggled, and this, this major setback wasn't going to affect me, no I'd adapt this wheelchair into my life.


I roll off the special school bus that they now have sent to my house to transport me to school. As I push myself into the hallway at a much lower level than all the other kids from my grade, I realize that this was going to be much more harder than I thought.

I push through the crowds and pass by so many watching faces that stare and turn away, going back to their conversations or whatever.

I move towards the stairs which I take to get to my second floor locker, when I realize that I can't go up with my wheelchair.

"Wanting to go up?" a boy's voice says from behind me.

I spin around and see a boy with short but somewhat shaggy blond hair, pale skin that's covered with freckles on his cheeks, ocean blue blond eyes and lean and muscled body under his undone uniform white shirt.

I begin to blush, embarrassed. Normally I am not one to be embarrassed or confused but now I am.

"Um, yeah, do you know where the elevator is?" I ask. Even after being at this school for four years, I have no idea where the elevator is. Technically, I'm not to be surprised. The doctor said I might forget things that were familiar since I've been in the coma for three months.

"Yeah, I'll uh take you there. So uh, I'm Peeta, and you are?" Peeta says as he walks alongside me.

"I'm Katniss. Are you new here? I've never seen you around here before," I say, trying to push the button on the elevator, but Peeta beats me to it and opens the door for me. "Thanks," I murmur.

"No problem, and nope, I've uh been here since first day of grade nine," Peeta says, chuckling and scratching the back of his neck.

"Really? Wow, amazing that we've never had a class together and we've just met under the weirdest circumstances ever," I say laughing.

Peeta laughs as well and then allows me to wheel myself in front of him as he holds the door open.

He then begins to push me down the hall and when we get close to my locker, I notice that he's stopped.

"What's wrong?" I ask, trying to turn around to look at him.

"Oh, um my girlfriend is calling me over. Sorry, I'd love to help yeah get to class. See ya around later?" Peeta says and he actually sounds disappointed.

"Nah, it's okay, I understand. Thanks for your help though. Will do," I say and watch as Peeta goes over to a popular and vicious looking girl.

How could she be his girlfriend? I see her talk harshly to him and he shies away, looking like a puppy with his tail in between his legs.

Why is he letting her treat him like that?

Then he says something and the girl nods, then they go into a full lip lock/make out session.

I turn away and continue on my path to my locker, dodging unsuspecting students.


When I finally get to my first class, I have no seat since the school seems no to have prepared for my arrival.

So I sit here in my wheelchair in the middle of the classroom, watching the teacher enter the room.

"Class, let's begin by writing in our journals about what you would do if you weren't able to walk again," the teacher says, whom I believe is Mrs. Trinket.

When I hear her say this, I feel embarrassed, because I already know the answer―I never want this to happen and deep down inside I'd probably like to hide away and become a hermit because I don't want anyone to know what happened. But that's a deep dark secret I'm not ready to come to terms with.

I clear my throat and look up at Mrs. Trinket who now realizes that I'm here.

"Oh, Katniss, you're here! We've all missed you, haven't we class?" Mrs. Trinket says, trying to get the class' attention.

Great, now all eyes are on me.

"Yeah, it's so great having you back Katniss," a girl at the back of the classroom says.

I look and see that the girl is Rue. She's a small girl, but very smart. She ended up skipping four grade levels since she's like a genius and now she's in my grade twelve class.

I've only spoken to her once, and that was the first day of school; she seems very nice.

"Katniss, why don't you take a seat beside Rue, there's a desk without a chair attached, so that should help you, I hope? Just take the books on top of it and just throw them on the ground; they're useless. Here's all your work that you missed; I have booked a lesson time for you to go to Learning Commons and you can finish your missed work for all your classes, alright?" Mrs. Trinket says.

"Yes, thank you very much Mrs. Trinket," I say, taking the stack of papers from her and wheeling myself over to my new desk.

"Hi Katniss, how are you doing?" Rue asks, quietly. That's another thing about her, she's barely noticeable and quiet as a mouse.

"Good thanks. Boy, this is a lot of work to catch up on, eh?" I say, trying to make conversation like my mom tells me to.

Rue nods and then gets back to work as I struggle to focus on our English lesson.

The who time my mind keeps drifting back to Peeta. I mean, he's hot, and he seems really kind and all, but he's taken and―wait! Why am I even thinking of dating him? I'm not in a position to date, and anyways, no one in their right mind would ever want to date the paraplegic girl.


A/N: Well? What do you think? Thanks so much for the follows and favs as well as reviews! I'm glad you like the story! :p You can all follow me on twitter: istillwantotbe and tumblr: i-still-want-to-be-me

By the way, from the dictionary, Paraplegic is when someone is paralyzed from the waist down, caused by spinal cord damage.

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