Weighed down with dense reading material, a stack of assignments a mile high and a sense of foreboding, I take a little extra time gathering up my belongings before leaving the classroom. Rather, I stall until Haymitch has collected his papers and stalked out of the room because I can't bring myself to walk by his podium and feel his judgmental beady eyes on me. Avoidance is much easier.

"Shit," I exclaim as I emerge from the classroom into the hall, finding none other than Peeta Mellark leaning against the wall adjacent to the door. Whatever I was holding in my hands falls out of my hands and drops with a thud on the ground, and my singular-sheeted syllabus floats back and forth on a light breeze until it rests delicately atop my textbooks. Heart still beating wildly from the scare, I go into fight-or-flight mode and stoop to snatch up my stuff as quickly and gracefully as possible so I can make my exit. But Peeta's there first, kneeling to the ground before I can even reach down to retrieve my things.

"Here you go," he says as he rises to his feet, handing me my books. I chance a quick glance at him, see that his eyes are lit up with amusement. It only makes me flush a deeper shade of pink. I think he mistakes my frustration for genuine shyness. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare the hell out of you." He grins.

"It's fine, thanks," I mutter. Apathy is the best defense I know, so I wield it accordingly. Head down and pride slightly damaged, I start down the hallway towards the exit.

I've just pushed the creaky side door open, closed my eyes and breathed in a lungful of fresh air, when I hear him approaching from behind. I turn to look at him over my shoulder, narrow my eyes at his easy smile. "So," he says, obviously trying to resuscitate a conversation that never actually began. "Crazy class, huh?"

I stare at him for a few moments in confused silence. He's never made an effort to approach me before. We're not friends, never have been, but maybe nostalgia for high school and bygone days has him reaching out to the unlikeliest of people. But no, he's too eager, too desperate to strike up a conversation with me of all people, for it to be something so casual. He was obviously waiting for me to leave the classroom so he could talk to me. What's his angle?

So I force a polite, thin-lipped smile. "Yup."

This is where he should nod in reply, take his cue and awkwardly tell me that he'll see me in class. But Peeta Mellark, master of subtlety that he is, doesn't take the hint.

Even as I'm hurrying down the stone steps in a thinly veiled attempt to extricate myself from this uncomfortable exchange, Peeta is oddly willing to follow. "Look, I'm really sorry about what Haymitch said to you, in front of the entire class. That was…unbelievable," he says as we round the corner. I shoot him a skeptical side glance, half-expecting him to break into a huge teasing grin, but his brow is furrowed and I'm confused again. Peeta Mellark, expressing sympathy for my humiliation?

This day is getting too weird, too fast.

"Thanks," I tell him with a shrug. His eyes light up, seemingly encouraged by my response. Meanwhile, I'm wracking my brain for a viable excuse to slip away, but nothing is good enough to get him out of my hair. Studying in the library? Grabbing something to eat in the dining hall? Sitting by the lake to clear my mind? They all sound like invitations, not evasive maneuvers.

"You said you're English A, right?" His question breaks me out of my reverie. Without really meaning to, I scowl in response.

"Are you joking right now?" I shoot back at him, hitching my bag up over my shoulder even higher. Peeta's eyebrows lift, and it's like I can see him internally waving a white flag in surrender. "Thanks, but I've had enough of the mockery for today."

He raises his hands, the universal sign for backing off now. "Wasn't trying to mock you," he says, but the slight curvature of his lips suggests otherwise. "Just…making conversation."

"Oh," is all I can say back. My cheeks burn, and I decide that it's easier if I just shut up now, to spare myself further embarrassment. But Peeta grins at me gamely. I know he's waiting for me to ask him about his double major just so he can gloat and feign humility, but I don't feel like engaging him.

"We're basically a minority around here," he says with a laugh. I stare at him until he elaborates with a grin. "If what Haymitch said has any truth to it, I guess choosing English A is kind of like a late-onset act of teenage rebellion." Peeta shrugs. "Oddly, I'm okay with that."

This whole exchange is so unbelievably awkward. Not that he seems to notice. Truth is, I'm not great at making friends, because any attempts that people make at getting to know me better usually end up fizzling out. They'll try to strike up a conversation, I'll make some excuse to put an end to it before it gets too real, and then that's it. But every time I've tried to shut this particular conversation down, Peeta keeps coming back with full force. It's unprecedented, but it doesn't make me any more willing to engage him.

I stop short, and, feigning frustration, I let out a huge sigh. Peeta stops beside me, and I can feel his eyes on me, questioning and full of concern. Somehow, that makes me more desperate to escape. "I think I left something back in the classroom," I lie, avoiding his eyes so that he can't see right through me. "I should go back and check. You can go ahead without me." I turn away before he can say anything, before giving him the chance to say anything about the bread and my unforgivable rudeness.

Once I've made it into the cluster of buildings, I stop and look over my shoulder to see if he's still standing there on the path, watching me run away. But he's already gone. I breathe a sigh of relief and change my direction.

I sit in the grass and stare out across the shimmering lake until my skin is nearly boiling and I'm positive that Peeta Mellark isn't waiting somewhere for me again.

…

After scarfing down a dry ham and cheese sandwich in the dining hall for dinner, I head back to the dorm at long last. It's a bit of a trek from the center of campus to Carlisle Hall, but I can appreciate the fact that the dorm is basically on the outskirts of campus, and home to only a handful of freshmen in the honors program. The secluded location and the diminutive size are just the barriers I need to keep certain people at bay.

I exchange nods with some of the people on my floor, who are congregating in loud clusters in the hallway. I recognize a few of the girls from the communal bathroom, girls who drunkenly stumble around and slur words of apology to anyone they bump into accidentally after a long night of binging. Perhaps it's a petty pre-judgment, but I've already decided that these are not girls I want to be friends with, assuming that their friendship comes with an unspoken agreement to take turns holding each other's hair while we purge after a night of drinking. I can almost imagine Prim scolding me over the phone for passing up 'opportunities' to bond with relative strangers, but this is one of the few times that I'm able to dismiss her advice without feeling guilty about it.

My phone, buried somewhere in the depths of my backpack, vibrates while I fight to fit my room key into the lock. It's definitely competing for my attention, but I make myself focus on the task at hand and spend the next few moments jiggling the key back and forth in the rusty lock before I can swing the door open.

Madge is sitting at her desk—rather, her vanity—carefully applying a heavy layer of makeup. She glances over at me as I close the door behind me and smiles faintly, clearly distracted by the arduous task of powdering her nose. "Hey, Katniss," she breathes, turning her attention back to her tabletop mirror.

"Hey," I say with a shrug, just as my phone descends into still silence. I set my bag down beside my desk, but overcome with a sudden wave of exhaustion, I clamber up on my narrow twin bed and watch Madge sculpt her features with makeup from my perch instead of hitting the books. "You're dressed up," I say lamely, but Madge just laughs and turns her head over her shoulder to look at me.

"It's Tuesday night," she offers, as if that were enough of an explanation. When I stare at her blankly, she adds, "No class on Wednesdays. Remember?"

I raise my eyebrows and nod assent. As if Madge doesn't have enough opportunity to drink. "Big party on campus somewhere?" I ask. I wonder if she can hear the hint of venom lacing my tone. But she's turned back to her makeup station and doesn't seem to notice.

"No, it's on frat row," she says simply, her lips slightly parted as she waves the mascara wand over her lashes repeatedly. It's a coating so thick that I can't imagine she'll be able to blink without getting them all stuck together. Then, a pause so long and uncomfortable that I know she's trying to come up with something to fill the void in the room. "You going?"

I almost have to choke back laughter. Madge doesn't turn to look at me, but I can see her pitiful expression in the tiny circular mirror and know that a small part of her must feel bad for me. She has to know that this frat party is not my scene, but the very notion that I wasn't invited or able to find friends with connections appears to bother her all the same. "No, I have a lot of reading to do." Her lips curl up sympathetically in her reflection, and I feel the urge to say with a bitter laugh, "The life of an English major, right?"

"I wouldn't know," Madge says, now switching to sweeping coal-black eye shadow across her lids. She makes no attempt to invite me along. I'm not offended, but that vacant, sad look in her eyes does piss me off. Somehow, I get the sense that she thinks I'm naïve or stupid because I'm a little young to be a freshman in college, or because I'm a little standoffish in public, or because I couldn't conceal my look of distaste when she half-jokingly invited me to do shots with her in her friend's room the other night. But I have to swallow that anger and cope, because we've got eight months left in this place and I'm not in the habit of making enemies.

Now that she's sufficiently absorbed in beautifying herself, I take the opportunity to root around my bag for my phone. I find it in a tiny side pocket, fish it out and glance at the screen. A missed call from a few minutes ago, but not from Prim as I'd expected.

A stupid grin crosses my face, and before I can stop myself, I punch the redial button and hold the phone up to my ear, counting the number of rings and impatiently waiting for them to stop. Then I hear a click, and then the best two words I've heard in what feels like forever: "Hey, Catnip."

"Hey, yourself, Gale," I say back, still grinning as I flop back onto my pillow. "What's going on?"

"I was about to ask you the same question," he says, and I swear I can hear a smile in his voice. "I meant to call a few days ago, see how the move-in went, but time just got away from me, and…"

"No, don't worry about that. I promise I'm not too offended." Gale laughs, his voice a little metallic and crackly through the earpiece, but altogether warm and familiar. "So, you've been getting longer shifts, huh?"

He clears his throat. "Yeah. But let's not talk about me right now, okay? I want you to tell me everything. And be as detailed as possible."

"You sound like Prim," I snort.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

I roll my eyes, even though he can't see, and tuck an arm behind my head. If I can just forget that I'm lying on my back on a stiff mattress in a sweaty, cramped dorm room, or that when I look out my window, I see rows of brick buildings and tree-lined sidewalks instead of Gale's townhouse just across the street…. If I could forget all of these things, this conversation would seem natural.

Gale's my best friend in the world next to Prim, the only person I can really trust with my anxieties and worries and insecurities without thinking that my words will be met with harsh judgment. We grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools, regarded each other in the cautious, timid way that kids always do until they're certain of each other. It wasn't until after my father died when I was eleven that we even struck up a conversation, because I think in some way, he felt some sort of obligation to shelter me from the harsh realities of the world now that my father could not. Though he was barely two years older than me, tall and lanky and aloof and distant, he seemed to take a liking to me, seemed to be able to relate to my own personal tragedies because he was in the same boat. The eldest child of a fatherless family, just desperate and determined enough to fight to keep his family going.

We bonded in the woods. That's where I met him, at least formally, in the middle of the woods on a cool October afternoon.

I'd been practicing my shooting, aiming at tree trunks and readjusting, readjusting constantly when this tall figure emerged from the brush. Instinctively, I let an arrow fly, and as my fingers released the taut bowstring, I realized that I was aiming straight at Gale Hawthorne's skull. My neighbor, my tentative acquaintance. Not a very neighborly thing to do.

He ducked just in time, so that the arrow whizzed over his head and stuck in the tree trunk behind him. Then he straightened up, raised a thick, dark eyebrow at me, and deadpanned, "You have killer aim."

I stared at this boy in startled silence, my mouth hanging open of its own accord. I knew that I should apologize for nearly skewering him, but I just couldn't find the words. Instead, I blurted out, "What are you doing here?"

"Last I checked, these woods are public property. You're just lucky that I wasn't some park ranger waiting to arrest you for hunting without a license on government land." The side of his mouth crooked up. "That is what you're doing, isn't it?"

I glared at him, held up my bow in defiance. "I wasn't hunting," I scowled, and when his eyebrows quirked up in obvious disbelief, I muttered, "Just practicing my aim."

"Oh. Well, in that case, you need all the practice that you can get." Gale's dark eyes seared into mine, and even though my cheeks were burning like a wildfire, I couldn't look away. He leaned up against the tree, crossed his arms over his chest. "You're my neighbor, right?" When I nodded to confirm, suddenly voiceless and timid, he narrowed his eyes at me. "I thought I recognized you. What's your name, anyway?"

"Katniss Everdeen," I mumbled under my breath, partially hoping that he wouldn't hear me correctly in case he decided to turn me over to the authorities for trespassing. But something about him set me at ease; I wasn't entirely convinced that he was out for blood. Maybe it was because I knew that his father had died a few years back in a horrific mining accident, because he had to be the family breadwinner and care for his mother and siblings, just like I did. He wouldn't turn me in.

"Catnip?" he repeated incredulously, a grin working its way across his face. "That's your name?"

"Katniss," I enunciated sharply, now that I was more confident that I could trust him. If not trust him, then find common ground with him. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to practice shooting."

He looked curious, drew closer to me. "You can hunt?"

"A little."

It actually seemed like he was impressed. "Do you think you could…teach me?"

I stared at him, wondering if this was all some sort of elaborate joke. But he was dead serious, judging by the way that he was toeing the ground with the tip of his hiking boot and sort of avoiding my eyes. I guess that the understanding that we shared a common history forced me to say what came next. "Maybe," I told him lightly, pulling another arrow from my quiver and loading it as I prepared for my next shot. "I've been told that I have killer aim."

He grinned at that. And that was the moment that I knew we could be friends.

We've been close ever since.

"Let's see. Two days of freshman orientation: uncomfortable, forced bonding. I had my first day of classes today," I tell Gale.

"What's the verdict?"

"My math class was boring as hell. English was a disaster," I sigh. "The professor's a pompous ass. And a drunk, to boot."

He sighs. "That sucks, Catnip. Sorry to hear that."

"I've made my peace with it," I tell him sarcastically, and he laughs. "The best thing that I can do is show him up. Prove to him that I can handle his freaking class, even when he's making it practically impossible for anyone to pass."

"That's exactly what I was gonna tell you," Gale says.

"Well, you know me pretty well."

"That I do." He pauses. "Hey, what are you up to tonight?"

I glance at the bulging backpack on the floor beside my desk. "Tonight? I'm studying in my room." But the trickle of sweat on my forehead makes me rethink my decision. "Check that. I'm studying in the library."

"It's the first night of the semester," Gale says, sounding skeptical. "And you're studying."

"I'm sorry, I thought that we just established that you know me pretty well," I retort. "Obviously, I have to study. There's a lot at stake here."

He chuckles. "I get it. Talk to you later, then."

"Bye, Gale." I hang up the phone and with a groan, I force myself up off the bed and scoop up my bag. Otherwise, I'd be lounging around the room all night, biting my nails and accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Madge rises from her chair just as I'm about to leave the room, sweeping her flowing blond hair over one shoulder. "Mind if I walk out with you?"

I eye her suspiciously. Doesn't she have friends waiting for her somewhere? But Prim's voice pops into my head, and I force myself to smile at her, albeit tentatively. "Not at all."

As we walk down three flights of stairs in a stairwell that reeks of stale cigarette smoke and bleach, she turns to me with a shy smile. "I don't mean to pry. But was that your boyfriend on the phone?"

I actually choke on my laughter at her question. "Uh, no. Gale's not my boyfriend. We've been friends for years," I explain. She nods, but doesn't seem all that convinced. "He's practically family."

"Oh." She looks almost confused. Maybe she assumes that I'm resistant to going out and partying because I have a boyfriend back home. But now she knows—I'm just a straight-edged girl who lives life by following the rules. Well, only when it seems fit.

We walk out the front door, and the night air is considerably cooler than the air in the building. I close my eyes briefly, breathing it in. When I open my eyes, I notice that Madge has stopped short. She's gaping at something in front of us. Or rather, someone.

He's leaning up against a beat-up pickup truck that's parked in the gravel loop before my building. When my eyes land on his face, the look of bored impassivity changes into a smile that I can see in the dark. "Gale?" I call out incredulously. "What are you doing here?"

Madge nudges me. "Are you sure you're not dating him?" she asks in a hushed voice. I turn to her, see that familiar starry-eyed look on her face that girls often wear whenever they see Gale. "Because if you're not, then I'd be happy to take him off your hands."

He's walking up to us, that easy smile spread across his face like butter on toast, and I can feel Madge stiffening beside me. "I don't know. Felt like coming out to see you," he says as he draws near. When he's close enough, he wraps me in a hug. My arms slide around him automatically. "Surprised?" he murmurs in my ear.

I pull away from him, grinning. "You're crazy, you know that?" I tease him, playfully punching him in the arm. Then I remember that Madge is still standing beside me in awe of Gale, and I blink back to reality. "Sorry. Madge, this is my friend, Gale. He's a junior here, but he lives off-campus. Gale, this is my roommate, Madge."

"Nice to meet you, Madge," Gale says cordially. If I didn't know him better, I'd assume that he was being genuine. But I know him, and I can see the way his mouth twists like he's tasted something sour just by looking at Madge. He's got this prejudice against people from the Capitol, who can afford to go to school anywhere they want, who can drink and carry on and generally skate through life without facing repercussions because of their bank statements, and while I can't argue with him about that, it's embarrassing that he makes those feelings obvious. But Madge probably can't tell because she's still sort of gaping at him, unable to respond in kind.

"I should get going. My ride's waiting in the front lot," Madge says to me, while keeping her eyes fixed on Gale. "See you later, Katniss. Don't bother waiting up."

"Okay, have fun." The words feel foreign coming out of my mouth. I don't have friends that can afford to spend Tuesday nights getting drunk off their asses.

"You, too," she mutters to me before she walks away, ridiculous high heels clacking all the way down the sidewalk.