I do not own Susan Collins The Hunger Games Characters.

Chapter 2:

Finnick

No matter how hard I try, I can't fully focus on what Professor Latier is saying with the new girl beside me. Her constantly fidgeting with things distracts me from what he is saying and her bouncing knee shakes the entire table. I catch him saying something about presentations and partner meetings twice a week, but that's about it. She starts to click her pen top back and forth and I am about to go off at her when the bell rings.

I get out of my chair and rush out of the room as quickly as I can, booking it to my next class, math. Somehow, the class is almost full when I get there, so I sit in a seat far in the back. I take out my math notebook a smile to myself. Surprisingly, math is my best subject and I actually really enjoy it. Not that I could ever say that to most of my friends. Gale and Marvel are awesome and all, but they aren't really that interested in school. Gale and Marvel are relying on football and baseball scholarships respectively, and they think that I am relying on swimming for college. I actually applied for an academic scholarship once I got back my SAT and ACT scores back.

I bend over to grab a pencil from my backpack and when I look up, I see the new girl standing in the doorway. She twirls her brown hair around her finger as she scans the room. I look around too and see that the only empty seat is right next to me. I roll my eyes. God, I can't escape this girl. She walks slowly and reluctantly towards me sitting down in her chair extremely delicately and quietly.

"Welcome to Statistics," Professor Abernathy says, slurring his words. He is the only teacher who teaches Stats and 75% of his class fails. He sucks as a teacher. The only reason that I took the class was that I knew that I would be able to pass.

"Here is your itinerary for the year." Professor Abernathy begins to pass the sheets of paper. When I get mine, I have barely read the first few lines when the pen clicking begins again. I roll my eyes and finish reading the sheet, hoping that it would stop. It doesn't.

A blonde-haired kid in the front, I think his name is Peeta, raises his hand in question.

"What?" Professor Abernathy asks.

"What are we supposed to do for the rest of the class?" Peeta says.

"Whatever you want." Professor Abernathy says before promptly sitting down at his desk and taking a large swig from an insulated bottle on his desk.

Everyone in the class turns to their friends and starts talking. Except for the new girl and me; I finish reading the sheet, but she won't stop clicking her pen.

"Will you stop!" I snap, turning towards her.

"What?" She asks. For the first time, I really look at her. Her eyes are a pale but soulful blue and her brown hair falls delicately around her face. Light freckles run across her nose and cheeks and her lips are...I shake my head slightly.

"The pen clicking. Can you stop with the pen clicking?"

"Is...is it annoying?" She asks.

Oh my god! The innocence thing is so irritable. I'm not usually peevish but for some reason, this girl is getting on my nerves.

"Yes. It's annoying," I say.

"Oh." She hangs her head. For a moment I think that she is crying, but then I see her pull out her phone. She starts to scroll through her Instagram, looking at pictures of, whales, I think.

The next few periods come and go quicker than I expect. To my relief, the new girl isn't in any of my classes. I walk through the indoor lunchroom and out to the tables in the shade of the apple trees. Gale and Marvel are already sitting there, and Glimmer, Marvel's twin sister, struts to our table just as I sit.

"Oh my god!" Glimmer says in her over-exaggerated popular girl voice. "Did you hear about the new girl?"

"Yeah," says Gale. "This guy has two classes with her." He points at me.

"Really?" Glimmer asks as though she has just found out something extremely shocking. I just nod my head and begin to eat my ham sandwich.

Glimmer gets like this every time a new kid transfers to our school, which has happened now nine times since our freshman year. By now I have learned to stay out of the conversation unless I am ready to give my full-fledged, and usually very critical, analysis of the new kid. Which usually I don't.

"What's she like?" Glimmer says staring intently at me.

"Annoying," I say before taking another bite of my sandwich. My answer seems to satisfy Glimmer enough to leave me alone for the rest of the lunch, at which the majority of the conversation focuses on the new girl. It is only as I am leaving lunch that I realized that I am going to have to deal with the stuttery, annoying new girl for an entire year. I consider going to Professor Latier to ask for a partner change, but then I decide against it. I don't want to make a problem.

Sorry, this was a shorter chapter. I just wanted to give Finnick a little introduction before diving in to the rest of the story.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe.

-Jewel