KATNISS POV
"Mornin' Catnip!" Gale says with a sheepish grin as he clambers into the passenger seat. I raise an eyebrow at him and his insistence of my re-occurring nickname.
"Hey." I say, rolling my eyes at him.
"Last first day back, huh! Feels weird. Thanks for the ride, by the way. Of all the mornings for my car to shit itself, it had to be today." He says with a slight laugh "Old heap of junk."
"No wonder it died when you talk about it like that." I laugh, pulling out of his driveway.
"Oh well. I'll just have to work on it on the weekend again; try resurrect it."
"Yeah, good luck with that Gale." I laugh "Are you right to get home tonight?"
"Mhm, gonna go catch a movie with Madge after school." He says with an unmistakable smile. "Why, what are you up to tonight?"
"Peeta's coming over to meet Mum and Prim." I tell gale with a smile that resembled his own.
"Oh ok. You met his folks yet?" he raises an eyebrow as we find ourselves getting closer and closer to school.
"Uh, yeah, a couple weeks ago now." I tell him, trying to manoeuvre my way through the traffic from the local primary school.
"What are they like?"
"Yeah, his brothers are nice, so is his dad. His mum is, uhh ... she's a little hostile." I say, trying to find the right words to describe out first encounter.
Gale lets out a low whistle and shakes his head a little. "That's rough."
"Yeah, well, could be worse I guess." I reason with a shrug.
"He makes you happy though, right?"
I let out a small, timid smile and nod my head slightly. "He does."
"So what's on your mind then? You seem …" He pauses while he looks for the right words "Pre-occupied?"
"I'm just worried about school, y'know I don't feel like I've done enough to get where I wanna go."
"Don't talk like that, Katniss. You've worked harder than anyone I know; you're gonna be just fine." He says with a sense of finality and assurance. Gale looks to me as I pull into a car park, shutting the engine off and gives me a warm smile.
"I hope you're right." I sigh, closing the front door behind me/
"Always am. See ya at lunch Catnip." Gale says taking his bag from the back seat and heading off toward the other side of the building.
I pull my bag over my shoulder and push my hair from my face, following the pathway toward the main building, trying to push the thought of school pressure toward the back of my mind. But it was a futile effort, at best. Who knew who this last term of school would turn out? For all I knew, I might end up failing my next subjects and put all my hard work to waste. I shuddered at the thought; I knew I couldn't afford to think like that, but I couldn't deny that that thought was continuously on my mind.
Absentmindedly, I find my way to my locker and fiddle with the lock before pulling it open. I pull out the timetable that I had mostly forgotten about for the past two months and find that double history was first up; I couldn't argue because this meant that I was with Peeta for the next few hours, hopefully we would do something in the way of calming my arguably irrational nerves. Scanning over the time table, I pull the necessary books from the back of my locker and force them all into my bag with slight difficulty. I reach to the back of my locker to reach the calculator I had rejected over the summer and go to slide it into my bag, only for it to slip from my fingers and hit the floor with a light thud. I turn to find Peeta standing beside me with a warm smile and my calculator in his hand.
"Morning." He smiles, handing me the calculator.
"Hi." I smile as he places a quick kiss on my lips.
"How're you?"
"Oh, I'm fantastic." I say sarcastically, rolling my eyes with a slight frown. "You?"
He laughs a little at my reaction to his question before answering with a shrug. "I'm ok, not really sure if I'm 100% awake as of yet, but I'll get there."
"Well I don't think double history is gonna help you with that one." I laugh, pushing my locker closed. I look up to Peeta as he casually brushes his unruly blonde hair away from his eyes and lets out a bit of a sigh.
Together we make our way toward our History classroom. I couldn't help but notice the curious looks we got from passers-by every now and then. Peeta seems to notice it too as he looks down to me every couple minutes and smiles, shaking his head. As much as I want to laugh it off with him it only brings back the thought of school, and how desperately I needed to focus more than ever this last term. The short walk to the classroom is over is quickly and I become quietly thankful until Peeta takes my hand and pulls me aside before we enter.
"Is everything ok?" he raises an eyebrow, his voice full of concern. I internally shun myself for being so easy to read.
"Yeah." I nod my head in attempt to spare Peeta from my unnecessary thoughts.
"Katniss?" the look on his face tell me that he thinks otherwise.
I sigh in defeat. "I'm just … Worried about all of this." I motion to the school around us as a small frowns works its way onto my features.
"You don't need to be." He says quietly with an intense look in his eyes.
"Yes, I do! What if I don't do enough? What if I haven't done enough already? Peeta, I can't just try and push this to the back of my mind, believe me, I've tried. I just can't shake the feeling that I'm not good enough to finish school with a high enough mark to get me where I wanna go." I say quickly as the urgency rises in my voice. Subconsciously, my hand finds its way to the end of my hair, pulling on it distractedly. Peeta takes my hand in his own and gently tucks my hair behind my ear.
"Hey, don't. Don't even talk like that. Don't ever say that you're not good enough, don't even think it, okay? You've done more than enough; your grades are as high as they can be, no college in their right minds would be able to ignore you." He says with a slight smile but a serious tone in his voice. "I know it's easier said than done, but you gotta try and stay positive about this Katniss."
"I know, you're right but I can't help it sometimes." I shrug, looking down at our intertwined hands.
"Sometimes?" he questions with raised eyebrows.
"Ok, a lot of the time."
"Well here, think about this; I'm coming home with you tonight to meet your family, so I think that kinda gives us both an excuse to be freaking out a bit, right?" he smiles, his attempt to lighten my mood working instantly.
"Why're you freaking out? You'll charm them both within seconds." I laugh as Peeta takes my hand and leads the way toward our usual seats at the back of our history classroom, ignoring the odd looks from a few curious eyes.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah, you have this way with words." I smile, pulling out my books and settling in for a long lesson.
"Finnick you do realise that we've been back at school for four hours and you're already trying to avoid falling asleep in class!" Thom rolls his eyes at Finnick who sits behind him.
"Let him be, Thom, the kids needs his beauty sleep." Gale laughs.
"Sleep doesn't help perfection." Finnick flashes a beaming smile around the table, stopping at Annie where she sits beside him and giving her a slight wink.
"Sure it doesn't Finn." Annie ruffles his golden hair with a mocking smile before turning toward Madge and I with a laugh.
I can't help but let out a sigh of relief while looking around the table of friends who had been a calming factor over the past few years. Contained within a school of people the rest of us had never really connected with, it was nice to have the stability of the eight people around me. I sit on the end of the table with Peeta by my side who, every now and then, would flash me a reassuring smile. Opposite me is Madge who was next Gale. Beside him was Thom, Johanna and Delly. Next to Peeta sat Finnick and Annie. For someone who never imagined having many friends, it was safe to say that I had outdone my little expectations.
It was nice to see that Madge and Gale and Finnick and Annie had stayed together over the summer. Everyone could see that they made each other happy, even a few of the freshmen girls who'd undeniably been crushing on Finnick from day one.
"So, I hear you're meeting Katniss' family tonight, eh Peet?" Gale says with quick look between Peeta and I.
"Yeah, any last words of advice?" he laughs.
"Dude, you'll be fine. First time I met Katniss' Mum, I walked in there and managed to almost break half their living room. My advice; whether or not you think it's a good idea to try play baseball inside, it's really not. I mean, we were like ten, so I guess that kinda makes it ok, but anything would be an improvement on that." Gale laughs bring back a flood of memories of my childhood with him.
"Yeah, he wasn't allowed inside after that." I laugh, rolling my eyes.
"Ok, so no ball sports inside the house." Peeta nods his head.
I place my hand over Peeta's and look up to him "You'll be fine, you'll see."
Hey guys! here's chapter 4, it's really just a bit of a fill-in chapter between Katniss and Peeta meeting each others families. Hopefully you like it, and maybe let me know what you think about the way katniss is freaking out about school? have a good week and please R&R!