What are you doing here?
That's the question that Peeta Mellark has printed across the top of his notebook paper in a careful hand.
Only 1,995 words to go. He just doesn't know what to say next.
He picks his pencil up and jiggles it between his thumb and index finger, distracting himself with its movement. He wonders absently how people managed to get pencils stuck in the ceiling. He watches the clock tick by, but it's just not fast enough.
What are you doing here?
I'm here because I
Peeta sighs and scrubs furiously at the page with his eraser.
I don't know what I'm doing here.
Now, that's more accurate.
Satisfied with the amount of work he's managed to complete, he leans back in the unforgiving wooden chair and cranes his neck to look at his fellow cell-mates.
Finnick Odair, seated on his right, is chewing on the end of his pencil while staring off into space. Some mousy-looking girl with wild red curls, set a few tables back behind him, might actually be writing her essay. Peeta watches her scribbling on her paper, muttering to herself under her breath, with a hint of admiration and more than a little disgust. And then there's Johanna Mason, sitting directly behind him. When he glances at her over his shoulder, she shoots him a glare so sharp that he thinks she might be trying to kill him.
He shifts in his seat so that he can peek at the girl sitting at the table all the way in the back corner. The quiet girl with the black braid and the vacant silver eyes.
His heart clenches when he studies her, sitting there. Looking all small and self-contained.
And then, the impossible happens.
She looks directly at him.
It all comes rushing back. The cacophony of the hallways between classes. The cruel laughter. The pinch of pain in his chest at her blooming cheeks. And then, after…
After, the way she looked at him. The same way she's looking at him now.
He hears Johanna snort. When he cuts his eyes over to her, it's impossible to miss the smirk playing on her lips. Peeta narrows his eyes at Johanna, but all the same, he drops Katniss' steady, accusing gaze.
What am I doing here?
Burning.