Hey y'all! Miss me?...on second thought…don't answer that question….anychiz, you know how my previous chapters have been all funny and family loving? Well this one is heart breaking. Just to warn you. By the by, the reason I haven't updated sooner was because I was reading this book I could not put down. Literally! I kept it in my hands during church and in the bathroom! It's called 'Wither' by Lauren DeStefano! And its amazing! Not better than the hunger games but still! So read it! The book came out in march of this year. I stayed up till 3:30 on Saturday reading it! On a defferent note, I wanted to answer some reviews:

Just An Ordinary Girl. Maybe: No chiz! Your awesome!

Daydreaming Viking Girl: Thanx! Your review made my…year!

The Screaming Mimi: Thanx! I know right?

Unkwown123: Thanx! You freaking rock!

EStrunk: well now that you mention it…I think that's a great idea!

sassyk100: No chiz girl! I am too! Thanx for the review!

And all of my other reviewers…THANK YOU! By the by, I know that Johanna is supposed to be somewhat older than Gale, but it would ruin the affect of the story so yeah… Okay. I'm gunna shut up now! Enjoy! Oh! And one more thing, I know this sounds like a narration, but it is a diary. It's like each chapter is what he is writing in his diary (if that makes any sense.) KK! NOW I really am gunna be quiet! Enjoy!

Diaries of District 2

Chapter nine

When I reported to work today, Johanna wasn't present. At the end of work I went to Plutarch's office.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Me Plutarch." I answered.

"Oh Gale! Well come in, come in!" he exclaimed much to brightly for my liking.

I opened the door and sat in front of his desk and him in his comfy chair that spins.

He placed his hands onto his desk in a neat folding and looked at me happily. I swear this man is insane, if he saw a kitten being eaten by a mutt, he would just laugh and walk along. It gets on my nerves but I put with him.

"Now, Gale. What can I do for you?" he asked me.

I creased my eyebrows. "I haven't seen Johanna all day; do you have any idea where she is?" I asked.

He looked almost apologetic. As he answered me, he sounded like the words that were coming from his mouth were hard to say.

"Ms. Mason had to...take off for the day. But I am sure you will find her in the Greenery though." And that was all he said before the phone rang and he took it. I left before he told me to.

What happened to Johanna? Was she alright? I had to see her.

I sprinted down the hallways and into the parking lot. But just as I opened my car door, I realized just how stupid I was. The Greenery is just across the field.

I threw my suit jacket, brief case and bags into the car ran across the fields and across the river to get there.

When I finally turned into the Greenery, I found Johanna. She was in her work clothes: black work suit (and skirt), black high heels, long hair clipped back. She even had her work binder and car parked out front. As if she was coming to work.

But she was kneeling in the soft grass, her face inaudible and full of despair. And in her hand was a little golden flower.

"It's a Cristanta. Isn't it just beautiful?" she whispered, her voice cracked. I had never seen her like this. So vulnerable.

"Johanna..." I struggled to find words.

She looked up at me, her brown eyes appeared faded. "I know your life's story. I know everything there is to know about you. Everybody in District 2 does. But you don't know Me." she said.

"Then tell me." I said, barely audible. She stood up, with flower in hand, and led us to a very large drooping willow tree. We found shelter from the sun and sat.

Johanna took a large breath before she started.

"I was born and raised in District 7. I was the kind of girl who would always help someone who needed it. Or flip a coin on the other side so someone would be lucky if they'd pick it up. I was the kind of girl everyone wanted to be around, it's even in my name; Johanna. But that all changed when I turned 7 years old." she explained.

I was rather surprised. I had not known that of this young woman who seems so tough. I though that was just her personality. I had not known that someone had made her that way.

"My father lost his job at the lumber company and our family went from wealthy and kept to poverty in a blink of an eye. He thought drinking would solve his problems. He would come home drunk every night and beat my mother and my 5 year old sister, Cristanta, and I every night. But of course what could we do?"

"Nothing. You were helpless." I shouldn't have said. She looked up, gravely. But she replied a different way than I had planned.

"Exactly."

She continued. "It became worse and worse until it came to the point that my poor mother was beaten to death. And I watched it. He delivered the final blow and..." she stopped and shut her eyes close and then open again.

"You don't have to go on Johanna." I started to say, but she cut me off.

"No. I want to. Please." she said in response.

"She was killed instantly. We kept shaking her and opening her eye lids. Kept calling 'mama, mama wake up' but she never did. She never did." she said in a grim voice, staring at the moss filled ground.

"We didn't know what to do. My small sister and I wept and wept into each others arms. My father, actually sober enough, finally realized what he had done. He had murdered the move of his life and abused his family. He looked at his two trembling daughters, and sank to the ground."

"There happened to be a Dagger near him for a reason I do not know and he picked it up and held it above his chest. Where my sister Cristanta and I use to sleep and he would read us bed time stories. He took one last look at us. And he said 'Forgive me.' but I gave him the dirtiest look I could and yelled 'we will never forgive you!'"

Johanna winces as she tells me her life's story. "Our father looked so pained, so hurt when I screamed that horrid sentence. So he plunged the knife into his heart and was dead."

I am so sorry, I really am. That is such a terrible position to be in in life, especially that early. "I'm sorry Johanna..." I started but she cut me off again. "Don't be. He deserved to die." she glared. We sat there for a moment in silence until she spoke up again.

"We didn't even wait till morning to pack a few cloths and what little money and food we had into a small burlap sack and go off. We didn't know where we were headed and we didn't know where to stay, but we were together which was all that really mattered anyways."

"But didn't you have any family to go to?" I asked, already regretting my answer. But surprisingly, she didn't growl back.

"All of my cousins, my aunts and uncles, were dead. A plague that swept through the District. My sister and I survived it though." she answered. She went on.

"For months and months at a time, we would sleep in parks and on the dirt floor. And work anywhere we could find it. Our lives were wasting by, and on the day we could not bear it much longer, that's when Melody came into our lives." she smiled at the memory and her brown eyes lit up as she focused on the blue sky above.

"She was a second mother to Cristanta and I. She was so sweet and kind and she took us in when we had nothing to offer her back. I mean, who would take in a few scrawny, dirty 10 year old and 8 year olds off the street? She did."

I chuckle some at that because for a moment there I heard some sarcasm and the old Johanna.

We were happy together, a family if you will. But soon enough, it was reaping day once again. But this time I was chosen. And you know that I won of course, but what you don't know is what Snow made me do after I did." she said with a shudder.

What could former president Cornelius snow do to make Johanna Mason shudder like that? I needed to know.

"As you know, Finnick had some duties to the Capitol in prostitution." she told me.

I nodded my head slowly. "I know."

She grimaced. "Well...we both did. I had to… do those same duties for the sake of my family's life."

I was shocked. This was why she was like she was. Snow made her into this. He killed her family. He made her give up everything.

I wanted to say something, but was focusing intently on her words.

"Finnick and I would go to the same Hotels and enter different rooms. And every night in the capitol, we would entertain men and women buy the dozens. It was Hell. But hey, what power did we have? Until the rebellion of course."

"Anyways, one night, when I was expecting the last man to come in, Snow came in my room. I was shocked and embarrassed the stupid president would want me."

Me too.

"I could smell the blood in his lips and he poison. He called me attractive and told me to get up onto the bed so we could start. I was completely horrified. So I ran in terror and I accidently bumped into Finnick heading down the hall. Snow was yelling at me full of anger and he said I would pay. And I just broke down. Sobbing uncontrollably while he held me. It's kind of embarrassing to speak of. But you deserve to know..." she trailed off.

"I came back from the train station the next day and ran home. I was afraid of what I might find; my home burnt to the ground, my sister mauled, I didn't know. Only to find Melody with a knife through her heart." she stumbles on saying.

Oh my God.

"I was struck with such sadness, such grief that even I could not bear. Even when my mother was killed, this hurt ten times as much."

"At the time I was hysterical because I could not find my sister. Nut it turned out that melody told her to hide despite all of her efforts and she gave her life for me." She recited; still in somewhat of a shock that someone loved her that much.

I knew I had to say something. "Where did you bury her?"

She looked up me, grief ridden. "Behind her former home."

I nodded and waited for her to speak.

"Now snow hadn't caught my sister at that time but he did. Eventually." she explained.

She took an enormous breathe of air in before speaking. "A few years later, I was 18 and she was 16. I just came back from another bit of Hell when I heard a scream coming from my house. I ran towards the Victor's Village as fast as I have ever run in my life and bust open the front door. And..."

She choked out. "And my beloved Cristanta, my baby sister was there, lying on the kitchen floor with a knife in her stomach and she was fighting for her life."

Tears were falling from her eyes. Never in my entire life did I think that I would see Johanna Mason, of all people, cry.

"I ran to her and dropped next to her almost lifeless body. I held her hand for dear life because I knew that there was nothing else I could do to stop her from dying. Nothing to take the pain away like I had always done in the past." she was crying now, not even bothering to wipe the tears away. I took both her hands and held them tight, though her sad eyes were transfixed on the flower that holds so much meaning.

"The last words that Cristanta said to me were 'Its okay Jo. I love you, and see you on the other side.' and she died smiling. But today, was her birthday and the day she was killed. I couldn't come to work today I just had to see her. I'm sorry...I…I..." and she completely broke down sobbing.

This was a life and death thing but I wrapped my arms around her as she cries into my chest, clinging on to me for dear life. Oh Johanna. I though she was so tough and rugged, I had no idea that all she had was a broken heart. She just needs someone to rely on.

Maybe I could be that someone.

"Johanna." I whispered as I rubbed her back. "I don't know all of the pain and the suffering that you've been through. But what I do know is that I can help you get through these days. The days where you think everything is bad and life is a pain the backside. We can do this together Johanna."

She was sobbing harder and harder to the point where she was shaking with anger and hurt and sadness. But she still managed a nodding of the head.

"Can we be friends Johanna?" I asked genuinely , because I really did.

She pulled back, sniffing at that moment. She cracked a small smile despite the situation she was in and spoke up.

"Yes, I would love that very much." She whispered.

I smiled back as my grey eyes stared intensely in her brown ones. I stroked back a strand of hair that came out of her clip and she returned back into my chest and we watched the clouds in the sky move on and on. Never ending.

This is a great beginning for our friendship, who knows what life has in store for us.

Gale

OMG. Wasn't that so shocking? It was for me and I wrote it. Tell me if ya loved it or liked it or not. Told ya it was sad. OHH! Tell me if ya cried. And this is obviously going to be a long story (about 30 chappies) because Johanna and Gale just stared their friendship. So yeah. What do they have in store? And who will try to break them up? Find out in the next chapters of "Diaries of District 2". MockingayFlying is OUT! Ttfn!