The first day of school is inevitably one of the more awkward times in high school. No matter if you're a wide-eyed freshman wandering the halls with a paper schedule clutched in sweaty palms or a laid-back senior sleeping through homeroom, it's awkward. New students, new teachers, new classes, and the merry-go-round of "getting to know" people you had gone to school with since kindergarten.
Johanna had the same routine every morning since first grade. She would wake up, put on music, take a shower, eat, and leave her house. She'd wait on the corner of Fourth Street for Finnick and Annie and the three of them would amble the several blocks toward Panem High School. Their grammar school was only a block or two behind that so the walk was always the same, every day.
It was a blustery summer-turned-fall day; hot in the sun, but brisk in the shadows. Johanna had her three-quarter-length green flannel shirt on over a pair of black skinny jeans. A few bracelets jangled on her wrist but she couldn't hear it over her iPod blasting in her ears. Even though she always walked with Finnick and Annie, she rarely spoke to them out of a combination of not being a morning person and wanting to listen to her music.
But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past... there must have been some moment of truth.
Johanna hadn't told Finnick about what had happened Saturday night. It didn't seem necessary and she wasn't sure his advice would be any good. Finnick didn't have any experience in love; he'd been in love with the same girl his entire life. However, she harbored a lot of trepidation about confronting Katniss about the events that had transpired. Not only because of her dalliance in the upstairs bedroom but also because of their dancing and Katniss's immediate agreement to hook up. Never had Johanna experienced such an immediate magnetism to someone. And if by some stroke of absolute shit luck Katniss had heard her in the bedroom, she had fucked it.
Johanna settled in her homeroom, keeping her earbuds in her ears as the rest of the class trickled in a few at a time. She had yet to see Katniss but she knew the girl was present because the whispers of the "new girl" that had already infiltrated the hallway within seconds of her entry. People didn't move to Panem very often so Johanna couldn't blame them for being curious but the ass-backward way everyone went about talking about her was bothersome. She wasn't a rare zoo animal, she was just a girl. A very attractive girl, but just a girl.
Just a girl that made Johanna feel like heaven blew in when she was in her presence. Just a girl that had stolen her breath like a thief in the night. Just a girl she had known for less than a week and already missed.
For here you are, standing there, loving me. Whether or not you should.
Their first class together was pottery. Johanna had switched a bit of her schedule so they wouldn't have the same study hall, but instead the same pottery class. Their teacher droned on for half the class about proper procedures for molding clay or something to that effect. Johanna hadn't been paying attention because she was actively trying not to stare at Katniss and inevitably ended up staring at Katniss. She looked particularly pretty today in a light cardigan with the sleeves rolled up and a flower-print skirt that revealed tanned calves that Johanna found herself lingering on.
Katniss thought she had been doing an excellent job of pretending not to notice a lot of things on her first day. She pretended not to notice the gawks and stares as she fumbled with her locker's combination lock or walked the hallway. She pretended not to notice the way Peeta stared at her when he walked by with his friend Delly. She pretended not to notice that she had found Johanna several times in the hall before their class together. She pretended not to notice how Johanna's green shirt had brought out the hazel flecks in her eyes.
And now she was sitting in the art room pretending not to notice Johanna's heated gaze on her. Over and over in her mind she replayed that night, like a kid at a carnival riding a rollercoaster all day. The anticipation of getting ready, the warmth of the alcohol, the thrill of seeing Johanna, the extempore desire that had crept up inside her as their bodies touched, the frustrating stall as Peeta monopolized her time and she lost Johanna's attention, and the dreadful fall to reality when she heard someone else breathlessly call Johanna's name.
The class broke off into partners and Johanna knew what she had to do. She crossed the classroom as casually as possible until she was in front of Katniss, who was sitting on a stool in front of one of the clay spinners. "Hey stranger." Katniss looked up at the dark-haired girl, mentally cursing herself for not being able to stop the smile that burst on to her face when Johanna got close. "Wanna be partners?"
Did she want to be partners? No, she wanted to find out who was in that room with her, possibly maim that girl, then shove Johanna in a closet and kiss her until she could barely stand. Unfortunately none of those things were going to happen so Katniss nodded in agreement and Johanna pulled up another stool. Katniss watched as Johanna began pressing the pedal to spin the machine. "Have you done this before?"
Johanna nodded and flashed a quick smile. Katniss felt her heart beat a little faster and she wanted to punch herself in the chest for it. "Yeah. My mom is really crafty so she's taken me to some pottery things. One time we went on this cabin retreat over the summer that my mom had no idea was full of lesbians. Like a league of middle-aged lesbians trying to rekindle their bed death marriages via pottery classes." Johanna smiled at Katniss. "If my mom was gay or I was into MILFs we would have made out like bandits that weekend."
Katniss chuckled softly as Johanna threw the clay in the center of the plate. She slid off her bracelets and tucked them in her pocket. She flicked water on it and placed her hands around the gray ball. The small gray putty began to take shape as bits of it flaked on to Johanna's hands. Katniss unfortunately found herself mesmerized by the small, firm movements of Johanna's fingers around the clay. Of course she was good with her hands. Katniss nearly scoffed out loud at the thought. Of course she couldn't sit through this one class without wanting the other girl again.
Johanna couldn't help the smirk that picked up one corner of her mouth as she watched Katniss watch her out of her peripheral vision. Maybe she hadn't fucked up as much as she thought. She stopped pushing the pedal and removed her hands, revealing a small but relatively even circular bowl. "You try." Katniss looked very wary of the machine in front of them and the brown-eyed girl rolled her eyes. "It's okay to get your hands dirty, princess. I'll control the speed, you just have to move your hands."
They paused for a moment to reflect on the double-entendre of Johanna's comment. Katniss blushed and Johanna took her tongue between her teeth and grinned. The brunette got her hands wet and placed them around the bowl. Johanna slowly started the spinner as Katniss tried to work the clay into a wider bowl. It began to warp as Johanna watched over her carefully. "No brainless, it's not a bow and arrow, okay? You've got to be gentle, but firm."
Exasperated and not wanting their bowl to look like a Chinese take-out container, Johanna placed her hands over Katniss's. Her slightly slimy fingers glided over Katniss's as she guided her through the motions of making a bowl. Slowly the material began to look smoother under Johanna's watchful touch. Katniss's own eyes were firmly glued to Johanna's face, where she could see the girl biting her lip in pure concentration.
When Johanna's gaze flickered over to Katniss she felt the immediate heat between them like the swung open door of an oven. Katniss's lips had no gloss or lipstick on them. They were an untainted pale pink, the bottom slightly fuller than the top. It was only ten a.m. and Johanna was already worked into a hormonal frenzy. There was beginning to be too much tensity between them and Johanna felt she had to do something, say something to break it. "This moment would be perfect if 'Unchained Melody' was playing, right?" Johanna joked lightly, removing her hands from Katniss's.
Katniss frowned at the loss of contact before looking up at Johanna in puzzlement. "What?"
"Unchained Melody? The movie Ghost?" Katniss's blank expression made Johanna scoff. "You've never seen the movie Ghost? Hunky Patrick Swayze and weird hair-cut Demi Moore?" Katniss shook her head. "Oh my God you're missing out. What an eighties phenomena! Demi Moore is sitting at a pottery thing like this and the Righteous Brothers song 'Unchained Melody' comes on. Suddenly Swayze's ghost comes up behind her, wraps his arms around hers and guides them as they make some weird thing. It's hilarious but back then it was erotic."
Katniss snickered, ignoring the clay her hands were around until she saw Johanna's wide-eyed stare down at it. She had stopped moving the pedal and Katniss's hand had made a big indent in one side of their bowl. "Aw come on. I ruined it." Katniss pouted and withdrew her hands from the clay and placed them on the side of the basin.
"Not necessarily." Johanna pressed her fingers around the edges of the clay and somehow curved the bowl into a somewhat symmetrical heart. "Perfect. Now it's a little heart-shaped bowl that will fill nothing and serve no purpose." Their teacher passed by and collected their heart to place in the large kiln in the side of the room. The girls moved to the sink to wash off the clay residue, attempting to sneak glances at each other without being noticed.
The bell rang above their heads obtrusively and both girls collected their backpacks and exited the room in tandem. Johanna remembered Katniss's next class as her Music Appreciation with Mr. Abernathy, but she didn't want to seem like a total creep. Instead she conversationally asked, "So what's next for you?"
"Music Appreciation with Abernathy I think," Katniss replied, confirming Johanna's internal hypothesis. Johanna led the brunette down into a different wing of the school where the music room was. Johanna finally got to see firsthand the bizarre looks that Katniss was receiving. "You know what makes me feel totally normal?"
"Being stared at?"
"Bingo." Johanna stood outside the door, giving a wave for the blonde teacher inside. She liked Mr. Abernathy, even though he was kind of cantankerous most of the time. He had a deep knowledge of music and could play practically any instrument put in front of him with near prodigious skill. He was also the only person in the entire school who was aware that Johanna could sing, even Finnick didn't know, and it was a secret that he guarded safely and she appreciated his discretion. "Any advice before I go in?"
Johanna smiled. "Don't be late. Don't disparage other people's taste, he hates that. And keep your mind and ears open. He's gonna play a lot of weird shit but he knows his stuff." Johanna placed her hand on Katniss's shoulder and gave her a wink. "Have fun, Everdeen."
Johanna's study hall was Katniss's gym class now so she ditched the library in favor of the large gymnasium. The mixed grade class was well underway when she arrived, in the middle of a dodgeball game. Johanna waved to the gym instructor Mrs. York, and sat herself on the bleachers to the side of the room. York made her way around to Johanna was she kept a watchful eye on the game. "What are you doing here, Mason?"
"Enjoying the view," Johanna murmured under her breath, her eyes trained on Katniss, who had yet to see her. Her gym t-shirt was just a bit too small for her, hugging her sides and chest. And those shorts... Johanna thought she was going to break into a sweat just looking at her legs. She tore her attention away and focused on the teacher. "Just minding my business. I have study hall and the library is a bore."
York sighed and placed her clipboard-holding hand on her hip. "Fine, you can stay. But make yourself useful and go grab some of the pinnies from the locker room." Johanna rolled her eyes but availed herself anyway and scurried off toward the locker room. She rummaged around in the closet for the smelly pile of blue and red pinnies in the bin. She placed them in a large sack and made her way out back into the gym. Katniss was still very focused on her dodgeball game and had yet still to notice Johanna's presence.
It was Katniss on one side with only one other girl against at least five people on the other side. Johanna removed one of the blue pinnies and lined up behind Cashmere on the opposite team, snapping the pinny directly on the other girl's behind.
Cashmere shrieked and turned around, rubbing her buttcheeks as she stared down Johanna. "Ow! Johanna!" she squealed angrily.
Katniss's attention was piqued but not just because of the name. The way she said it. Her voice. Katniss was positive she had heard that high-pitched squeal before. Muffled through a doorway. Her eyes locked with Johanna's from across the gym floor as anger began to rise inside her chest like a swelling wave. The look of utter panic in Johanna's eyes confirmed what Katniss had already thought. This was the girl from behind the door. Cashmere, the beautiful blonde Senior who had just two days ago done shots with Katniss had also apparently been pinned against a door being fucked by Johanna.
A ball was thrown in Katniss's direction but she caught it to the dismay of the thrower. She took a few quick steps forward and launched the ball at Cashmere, who had just turned around. The ball smacked Cashmere directly in the chest, just above her breasts, hard enough to knock her backward into the padded wall behind her. "Ow what the fuck, new girl? What the fuck is your problem?"
Katniss narrowed her gray eyes dangerously. "Maybe pay more attention next time." She gave Cashmere a false smile and brought her attention back to the game. "And my name is Katniss." She was worked into a frenzy now, determined to take out her anger on the other poor fools on the opposite team. With a ferocious tenacity too extreme for gym class dodgeball, Katniss methodically picked each one of them off. When they were all cleared off the gym floor Katniss stood there, alone, panting in the middle of the gym.
"Great job, Everdeen!" Mrs. York called from across the gym, clapping her hand against her clipboard. "Well done. Okay everyone go change, class is over in about ten minutes." The other students cleared the gym floor quickly, filing into the locker rooms on each side of the room. Johanna stood near the door to the girls' locker room, stepping in front of it before Katniss could go in.
"Hey, um, I don't want you to think I'm a dick."
Katniss tilted her head to the side in a phony questioning expression. "And why would I think that? Because you've been flirting with me since the second I got here and at a party you invited me to, you had sex with some other girl?" Anger had somehow metamorphosed into confidence and Katniss was practically dripping with it.
Johanna's throat moved as she swallowed down saliva. Last time she was measured, she stood at around five feet, five inches. Today, though, anyone with a ruler could measure her and she'd be around two inches tall. "That's mostly it, yeah."
Katniss bristled and shrugged her shoulders. "You can do whatever you want, Johanna. But I don't let anyone make me feel small." Johanna's eyes dropped to the floor in apparent shame. "I thought you were different."
Johanna's eyes snapped back up to Katniss's hurt gaze. When did Katniss get so tall? "I am different. Look, um, will you at least let me get you a coffee after school and explain myself? Please?"
Katniss rolled her eyes and looked off to the side. She didn't want Johanna to see the immediate forgiveness in her eyes. The innocent, desperate way Johanna was looking at her had struck her in the heart like an ax to the chest. In such short time this girl had crawled beneath Katniss's skin and alighted her nerves and fumbled her good sense. "Fine," Katniss acquiesced, still not looking at Johanna. "Where should I meet you?"
Johanna tried hard to suppress the look of unabashed hope on her face when Katniss agreed to talk to her. "Oh, um, well just come to the store. I'll make you the best coffee you've ever had and we can talk in my mom's workshop in the back." Katniss nodded and soundlessly walked away from Johanna and into the noisy locker room.
As Katniss walked down the Boulevard toward the general store, she tried to reason with herself. She hadn't ever had feelings for another girl before. In fact, she couldn't remember having feelings for anyone before. The age when teenagers begin evolving their sexual taste Katniss had just lost her father. It stunted her development like a nuclear bomb. Having romantic feelings for anyone seemed trivial and frivolous, even. Life was so precious but also so damned fleeting that what was the purpose? Even two people as in love as her parents could be severed at any time by the unpredictable and needlessly cruel hand of fate.
Many had tried to tell Katniss that it was God's intervention. That there was always a reason behind senseless crimes and accidents and diseases. "God works in mysterious ways" many had told her. But Katniss's religious convictions were dashed the moment that drunk driver had smashed into her father's car. No faith or grace or magical mystery machine in the sky was going to tell her that her father's death was necessary or logical. It was hard and cruel and unfair. Little kids dying of cancer, brides being murdered on their wedding day, people killing other people because of their sexual orientation or skin color or religion - none of that was explainable to Katniss.
So thinking along those lines Katniss became an atheistic fatalist. There was no room in that tiny shell for notions of romance or teenage crushes. Instead there was the monotony of schoolwork in a plodding, beige reel of life since that day. A few bright spots shone in her life - Primrose's growing up, hunting with Gale during the summer, participating in her archery tournaments - but the only lasting sunlight she had felt was within her attraction to Johanna.
She didn't really care that she might be gay or bisexual. The finality and inevitability of death made worrying about your sexual orientation seem silly. Who cares what other people thought? As Katniss had learned, other people shared their opinion whether you wanted it or not. It wasn't bravery or courage, either. It was simple pragmatism. If you could find someone to make you happy, why waste time worrying what set of genitalia they had? Life was too short. She had never thought of it that way before meeting Johanna.
That was why, partly at least, she had reacted so strongly to Johanna having sex with someone else. For whatever reason she had invested so much of her potential happiness in Johanna in a short time and she saw it all dashed. She stepped inside the shop, the familiar bell ringing above her head. Music played softly inside the wood-paneled store, not nearly as loudly as when Katniss had encountered Johanna the first time.
Last night I had a dream we were inseparably entwined. Like a piece of rope made out of two pieces of vine.
A dark-haired woman behind the counter appeared before Katniss. She looked remarkably like Johanna except Johanna's deep brown eyes were replaced with a soft hazel color and there were no red streaks in her hair. Johanna's typical darkness that shrouded her was not present, either. This woman exuded a friendly disposition that seemed infectious.
"Hello! Can I help you?" the woman greeted cheerfully, brushing her hands on her jeans. She was in remarkably good shape for a woman her age, Katniss noticed. A little round in the middle from age but otherwise she had strong, athletic limbs and a slim face.
"I'm looking for Jo? I was supposed to meet her here after school," Katniss explained timidly. The woman leaned on the counter in front of her, eyeing Katniss up and down.
"Oh. You must be Katniss." A weird silence dropped between them as the woman seemed to be appraising Katniss like she was a car on a showroom floor. A smile stretched on the woman's face and she extended her hand over the counter. "I'm Polly, Johanna's mother. Johanna's in the back there."
Katniss shook the woman's hand which was like a vice grip. She hid a wince as the woman let her hand go and nodded toward the back of the store. "Thank you. It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Mason."
Polly laughed, a hearty laugh unlike Johanna's. "Oh please. Call me Polly." Katniss nodded politely and went deeper into the store in search of the back room. She passed the bizarre things the Masons had for sale: plungers, plastic pool toys, cordless home phones, stained glass windchimes.
So now I look at love like being stabbed in the heart. You torture each other from day to day and then one day you part.
Johanna was sat atop a wooden workman's bench, her feet crossed Indian-style beneath her knees. Two steaming cups of coffee were in front of her, filling the room with the earthy and sweet scent. Katniss entered the room and slowly took the whole room in. It was clearly Polly's workshop; tools were everywhere, hung with methodic care by size and type along the pegs on the walls. Unfinished pieces of furniture and other knick-knacks were strewn about the other workbenches that lined the room. The underlying scent of varnish and sawdust reminded Katniss of Johanna herself. Rustic, sweet, with just a hint of heady toxicity.
Katniss hopped up on the table across from Johanna, mirroring her sitting position and placing her hands on either side of her mug of coffee. She took a sip from the dark liquid and smiled as it went down her throat. It was a little sweeter than she normally took her coffee, but it was delicious. "Thanks for meeting me here," Johanna said, not looking up from her cup of coffee. "I'm sorry that I'm kind of a fuck up."
Katniss let out a short laugh as she took another sip of Johanna's amazing coffee. Somewhere in her mind, she was traveling to a faraway place. A place where she woke up with Johanna and the smell of this coffee. Smelling the sharp scent of newsprint as she leafed through the Sunday paper, Johanna across from her plucking leisurely at a guitar. They'd share a loving look over the steam of their coffees. Johanna, in her typical impatience, would put her instrument down and sit crossways on Katniss's lap and kiss her, sharing the taste of coffee and cherry pastries on her tongue.
The reverie disappeared into the air like the wisps of sawdust around them as Katniss focused back on Johanna. "I don't think you're a fuck up."
Johanna quirked the corner of her mouth into a lopsided smile. "You don't know me very well yet." The raven-haired girl let out a very long sigh and ran her fingers through her bangs and the rest of her hair, mussing it up into a messy pile. "I don't like to beat around the bush so I'll just come out with it." Johanna pressed her lips together tightly. "I got jealous and stupid when you talked to Peeta. I got like fourth-wheeled and didn't know what to do. So I got very, very drunk."
"I was drunk too."
Johanna inclined her head to the left. "Yeah not as drunk as I was. And when I'm drunk I make really, truly awful decisions. Like Cashmere." Katniss tensed, her hands still wrapped around her mug. The image of Johanna giving that blonde bimbo pleasure made Katniss want to set the older girl on fire. She imagined putting her on a medieval breaking wheel and shooting arrows into her. That probably wasn't normal. "She and I have a little history and I just kind of lost my head."
"I didn't know Cashmere was gay. She doesn't ...seem the type? If that's appropriate?"
Johanna let out a very severe laugh and shook her pile of black hair. "Cashmere's not gay. She's a certified fucking pin-straight, daughter-of-Republicans, trust fund baby. I'm the only girl she's ever slept with. It started out as a drunk hook-up when I was a freshman and she was a sophomore at some stupid party. Then it became this regular thing, us getting wasted and having sex. We've been doing it off and on since that night. Whenever one of us gets the itch, we just go for it. We don't even like each other."
"Sounds convenient," Katniss replied derisively, glaring down into her cup of coffee. She sipped the liquid again, trying to process that information. These two very disparate people using each other for something that Katniss saw as an act of love, not some vulgar way to pass the time in a small town.
Johanna sighed. "It is, I guess. I stopped asking her to meet me a while ago, now she just calls me. But Saturday night, that was all on me." Johanna bit the inside of her cheek and looked over at Katniss. "I really like you. I've never really liked anyone before so I don't exactly know how to handle myself. Clearly my decision-making skills need some work because getting drunk was not exactly my finest moment. But two things I don't do well are ...romantic feelings and jealousy. Both of them turn me into a raging idiot evidently."
Katniss's mind had stuck on Johanna's confession. She really liked her. What did that mean? She knew Johanna "really liked" her by the way she had held her and danced with her. Katniss thought maybe Johanna would chalk that all up to inebriated lust. But the strange undercurrent of tenderness Katniss saw in Johanna's eyes that night had indicated that mustn't be true.
"In any case I apologize. Deeply. I want to have a fresh start with you, if you'll let me. I do make good coffee, right?"
Katniss laughed and nodded her head at the other girl. She decided that Johanna was utterly adorable when she was embarrassed. It was such a far cry from her usual facade of indifference and confidence and wholly endearing. "Your one redeeming quality so far. Other than good taste in music. Revolver is amazing."
Katniss adored the way Johanna's eyes lit up when she made her comment about the record. Johanna was so genuinely pleased that Katniss liked her recommendation and that they were on a topic she was much more comfortable with. "I'm so glad you liked it. It's kind of a litmus test to see if we could even be acquaintances. I can't even begin to fathom a friendship with someone who can't appreciate the underrated Beatles tunes."
"Oh is that right? Was that your test? How charming," Katniss teased tightly, pinching Johanna's calf through her jeans. "I just figured that was your socially awkward way of flirting."
Johanna's cheeks reddened as she ran her tongue along her lips. "Not fair. I'm not a bad flirt. Only with you," she murmured that last sentence, darting her eyes to the dust-covered cement floor beneath them.
Katniss couldn't help the teasing smile on her lips. "Why's that? 'Cos you really like me?"
Johanna's eyes flared. "You're treading on thin ice now, Everdeen."
But Katniss didn't back down. Not when she finally had Johanna against the ropes. Ever since they met Katniss felt like she was always swinging second. But not today. Today Johanna was trying to impress her. Stripped of her layer of bullet-proof confidence she had to fend for herself against Katniss's teasing. "Oh am I? And what do you plan on doing about that, Mason?"
As Katniss raised her mug to her lips Johanna gently took it from her, placing it to their right. She moved her own mug to the right as well. She leaned forward on her knees, coating her jeans in the debris on the table. She rested her palms directly in front of Katniss's knees, her face just an inch from Katniss's. She could smell, almost taste, the sweet coffee on Katniss's breath. Being so near her was like sitting on the edge of the ocean, letting the strong undercurrent pull at your legs.
Her lips met Katniss's so tentatively they barely touched. The lightest of touches, like a drop of dew on a flower petal sent an absolute pure electric shock through Johanna's body. Never in all her kisses had her body reacted so strongly to something so gentle. She pressed on further, flicking her tongue out quickly to taste the residual coffee on Katniss's bottom lip. Katniss's hand wrapped around the back of Johanna's neck, deepening their kiss with an unexpected intensity that Katniss was unaware she held in reserve for such occasions.
There had never been such an occasion before. This was her first kiss ever. She wasn't one of those girls that dreamed about their first kiss, like Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries. If she had, she never would have guessed that kissing another girl in a pulpy-smelling workshop on top of a table would be how it wold go. Or that it would make her entire body buzz and her breath shaky.
They pulled away from their kiss slowly, each of them with their eyes closed. Katniss opened her eyes first, resisting the urge to kiss Johanna again since her eyes were closed and she couldn't stop her. The amount of pure necessity she felt inside Johanna's kiss was frightening. The sensation had possessed her body and soul, tightening her chest and setting her nerves ablaze.
Johanna blinked very slowly, incapable of moving her eyes from the mouth of the girl across from her. Human beings are funny in that way. Big emotions like sadness and anger are felt everywhere - you feel it in your brain, in the swelling of your throat, in the restriction of your chest, the adrenaline or fatigue in your muscles. But passion... passion consumed your very soul. It wasn't just a physical tingling, it was an emotional mouse trap that caught your every thought.
Johanna felt her entire world begin to get colored by Katniss. Her bed would now feel empty without Katniss, her wardrobe would be full of things Katniss liked or didn't, her music would now be a library for her to enchant Katniss with, her thoughts would be divided between what she would tell Katniss and what she would keep to herself. Plans for the future would now have to be widened and envelope Katniss within them. Because in that kiss she felt her entire life get swallowed whole.
Funny how one moment can change your entire life. How funny and how absolutely terrifying. Both girls sat there, Johanna back on her heels, Katniss still cross-legged, simultaneously feeling petrified and exalted. If they didn't go slowly, Johanna was sure they would both drown.
Author's Note: Thank you all muchly for the feedback! Look how consistent I've been in updating! I'll be using this as a mulligan when I inevitably forget to update for a bit.
Also sorry about that pottery thing. I seriously had to watch a youtube video on how you make clay bowls because I have no fucking clue. So I apologize if the words and the actions are not exactly right but like what is that spinning wheel thing even called?!
Music: "Something Good" from The Sound of Music and "2 Atoms in a Molecule" by Noah and the Whale. And the previous chapter was "Stay the Night" by Zedd featuring Hayley Williams.