"When being lovers meant a stolen kiss and holding hands when nobody else around Charlie said he wanted to get married but we were only ten so we had to wait"- Miranda Lambert, Me and Charlie Talking


We slowly develop a friendship. It's more on his end than mine. I don't seek him out he finds me and reaches out. He'll often leave his group of friends to have lunch with me. I don't think they like me very much, I know I wouldn't like the girl Cedar was leaving me to hang out with especially if she was some odd, quiet, mousey girl that spent too much time buried in a book.

Yet oddly enough they seem to find ways of including me on the few occasions Cedar has managed to convince me to join them. Maybe they aren't that mad at me after all Cedar doesn't seem like the kind to do something he doesn't want to.

I genuinely like his friends they seem like a kind and silly group, not very focused but not many are at our age. I'm one of the few. My parents rarely see eye to eye but one thing they both hold in high regard is diligent study habits on behalf of their children. Thanks to this once Mathis finishes up his last year and if, I cringe at that if, he survives his last reaping he'll have a nice, cushy, decent paying job at the Justice Building. While the pressure will be on during the final stretch pretty soon they'll be on me like stain on a freshly built chest. That's the main reason I don't spend more time with Cedar's friends.

Cedar as it turns out is a pretty good study partner he's quick yet patent, attentive and doesn't mind it once it becomes tedious. He manages to thrive or maybe it just makes him want to push through it even more.

Over the next couple of months our pattern continues, Cedar will find me and ask me if I want to have lunch with his friends or if I need to study. If I say sure we'll spend the next half hour eating and jabbering and a few minutes outside being kids before we part ways.

If I say study we'll spend a few minutes goofing off before we get down to business. He'll give me something he made out of his old homework assignments, a paper heart or box and I'll give him a doodle. We'll study while eating our meager lunches.

He waits for me outside of school underneath the large oak tree. We walk together in a comfortable silence or trading bad jokes, occasionally asking about one another's day. One day his hand sneaks down to hold mine. He looks at me from the corner of his eye, his cheeks turning pink his body stiff. I gnaw at the side of my bottom lip, blushing I'm sure. When he sees that I don't plan on running away he relaxes and grins. Soon my blush subsides and is replaced with a twin to his grin.

We part, he heads straight ahead to the Merchant Square with the rest of the luxury shops and I continue left to the edge of town to the hard labor district.

Handholding soon is added to our walks home and often during lunch with and without his friends.

One day when it came time to part on our walk home he asked me to meet his family, have dinner with them. I say yes and suggest Friday reasoning my father will be out cold by the time I get home. Cedar grins, bends down and kisses my cheek he turns and gets to the florist shop as soon as he can stopping once to turn and wave with his grin still in place, and I, still standing shocked in place.

As I walk home with my hand on my cheek where he kissed me I realize we're a thing. I'm in a thing with Cedar Rose!

Does that count as my first kiss?

I spend the next few days anxious and excited about Friday. Cedar has yet to acknowledge the kiss. If this is what I have to look forward to from guys I don't know if it's worth it. Our routine continues, just handholding no kisses, he doesn't acknowledge the kiss he gave me, and I almost start to wonder if I made that up in my mind.

By the time Friday comes around I'm gotten myself so confused I'm a nervous wreck.

On Friday instead of holding my hand Cedar locks his arm around mine. It's more of a bold gesture. We walk arms locked, laughing just enough to get a few looks from a few people walking down the stone paved streets; most dodging into the first shop they can, not wanting to falling snow to melt and mess up their hair no doubt.

Cedar's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Rose are closing up when we come by, I imagine in the winter they don't make much money and on snowy days foot traffic must be non-existent.

The smell of flowers hits me as soon as we open the door. Cedar opens the door and lets me pass in front of him. It's a relatively narrow space, though not necessarily small. On the right side is a long counter which holds a register, I can only assume the rest is work space. The wall filled with shelving holding spools of ribbon, baskets, vases, and such. On the left wall are glass encased refrigerators, most of the center space is filled with a neat arrangement of flowers in metal buckets and wooden crates.

"Mom, dad, this is Iris. Iris these are my parents."

Mrs. Rose a slim, short woman with a delicate nose, stubborn chin, almond shaped eyes, and a bright, warm smile. "Hi sweetie; nice to meet you dear." She welcomes once she's out from behind the register. Instead of shaking my hand she envelopes me in a hug.

"Okay honey let the poor girl go or you're going to break a rib and puncture a lung." Mr. Rose says pulling his wife from me. He's a tall man easily half a foot taller than his wife. He has a broad forehead, mildly deep set eyes, high cheekbones, a head of thick ash blond hair, strong chin, but a weak jawline. While he's not classically handsome there is something about his face that's interesting, captivating even. Mr. Rose takes my hand and shakes it. "Nice to finally meet my son's girlfriend."

And quicker than I could imagine "Dad I can't believe you just said that! Sorry, sometimes parents shouldn't be allowed to speak…" Cedar says trying to apologize for his dad or to take back his words I don't know. Once they're done closing up we walk over to their home; it's relatively small but warm I instantly feel at ease. Cedar lets his parents know that we'll be doing our homework in his room and his mother would call us down when dinner was ready. Cedar quizzes me for my history test that's on Monday and I help him with his science project. I'm drawing a tree when he looks over my shoulder. "That's really good."

"Thanks." One of the many things I'm learning to do is draw, my mother insist it'll help make me a 'proper lady'. I grow quiet at the thought of my mother. "You've seen my doodles before."

"Yeah but you don't really spend more than a few minutes on them, you never get any details on them at least none like this. I can only imagine that if you keep this up you'll be a really good artist. It's pretty, not all that realistic but its good."

"You should see my painting it's a mess. Are you done reading that chapter?" I say quickly hoping to draw attention away from myself. Luckily it works. We spend the rest of our afternoon with our faces buried in our work till dinner.

Cedar gets called down to set the table and I stay upstairs for a few minutes straightening out his room separating his homework assignments from mine. By the time I come down there is another person an older girl who bares a striking resemblance to Mrs. Rose with the same almond eyes, forehead, and high cheekbones. Her nose is rounded rather than pointed giving her face a more graceful appearance, her chin also rounded and less prominent both with relatively thin lips. This must be her younger sister. There's something about her face that reminds me of a fairy. It's impish and a little mischievous. She has a sweet, wide smile. "I'm Willow." She stands, all long and graceful limbs she's tall must be at least my brother's height, maybe taller by an inch or two. Willow is an oddly appropriate name for her. I shake her hand and smile politely. "Iris, nice to meet you." I automatically act how my mother expects when she introduces me to one of her friends: smile, introduce yourself, be seen not heard, and fade away.

Dinner is simple, yet it's very different from the rare occasions that my family sits down for dinner, there is laughter and smiles. It's even a little rowdy. Apparently Willow comes over once a week to have dinner and they have dinner every other Sunday alternating between Mr. and Mrs. Rose's parents. Mrs. Rose says it's a little wilder with Mr. Rose's parents because his sister's family is there and Cedar and Rye are a handful whenever they're together.

Mr. Rose walks me home as he is going to walk Willow home anyway. The air is cold and crisp in my lungs, cool winter air kisses my nose the snow compacts under the weight of our steps. It's dark by the time dinner is over the sky is littered with stars and on the way back from Willow's home Cedar points out a shooting star we both close our eyes and make a wish. By the time I open my eyes, I find Cedar looking at me with a look I don't know how to describe. He just looks at me for a moment longer "I'm going to marry you one day Iris."

"I hope that wasn't your wish. Now it won't come true." I really don't know how to take his declaration, I'm sure if my mother heard it she would remind him the day after my last reaping and hold him at gun point to make him marry me if he ever backed out of his word. I think it might be endearing though I do know I'm glad that she's not here. He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek then runs off to his waiting father when they drop me off at my front door.

I'm right my father is passed out drunk on the living room floor. It looks like he fell off the loveseat. I go upstairs and find a dim light coming from underneath my bedroom door. I open it to find Mathis sitting at my desk reading a book. "Hey."

"Hey. Where were you?"

"I had dinner at a friend's house."

"You have a friend? I didn't mean for that to come out like it did."

"I know it's weird. Why my room?"

"I was looking for you and your room is closer to the stairs so if need be I could hide and run. Dad's got heavy feet so I'd be able to hear him coming thanks to the squeaky step and he'd probably go to my room first anyway." Our father has a tendency of trying to beat Mathis when he's drunk not just smacking him around. Mathis is roughly the same size as our father only an inch shorter and puts up a fight when he tries but it's a case by case thing if he wins or loses but he'd rather not have to in the first place. My father tends to ignore me, I don't know if he over looks me in these instances or if he feels that he doesn't need to hit a little girl or maybe I just know how to sneak around him. My mother will usually get at least hit or two if she's home when he's like this.

"Mother home?"

"Is she ever?"

"Good point. Are you hungry? I have left overs."

"Yeah, I am. We need to go to the grocers tomorrow. We're running low on everything."

Mathis goes downstairs and grabs a fork. "This is good." It's a rarity for us to have a meal we didn't have to cook ourselves.

"I'll ask if I can bring you along if they invite me again.

"That'd be nice. I got a few books from the library if you want to take a look. You can read on once you've done your homework."

"It's done. If you want you can look over it yourself." I dig around my backpack and give him my work. I look through the stack of books on my desk as he eats his cold dinner and looks over it for me.


Authors Notes: I hope you liked this chapter. Now I know it might seem that things might be moving fast for Cedar and Iris but at they've known each other for a few months at this time. They met in early September and it's mid-December.

There will be time jumps since this will cover Iris's life from the age of 10 till the 75th games. Time jumps will be anywhere from a few weeks to a few years in order not to add unnecessary bulk to the story. I do plan on there being a companion series that takes place at the same time with pieces that while aren't relevant to the central story do help build relationships and some that explain other characters actions as well as on occasion filling in the blanks during time jumps.

Cedar is such a teenager sometimes, I hope he didn't come off bratty with his parents.

I tried to create a close relationship between Iris and Mathis, while he is her brother he is about seven-eight years older than she is so he kind of a surrogate father figure in many ways. While they are close, there is distance between them I - hope that you keep that in mind for future chapters.

Again thanks for reading and please review.