For all of you who have horrible powers of observation, I changed my username from PatnissEverlark to BooksBeforeLife.
Katniss's POV
"So, Katniss, considering you were the one who just came in muttering profanities about your date, how about you go first," Finnick suggests.
"Fine," I say. "Whatever." I launch into my story. "So, this idiot guy I somehow agreed to go out with brings me to this sleazy diner in the heart of the ghetto. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the ghetto, I grew up there, but this diner had, like, recently released criminals. No one would want to be there. Anyway, these cops come in and the bartender takes off running. The cops chase after him, and someone tells us to stay where we are. In about a minute, the cops bring out the bartender who's in handcuffs. One of them drags the guy into their car and the other one stays to ask us questions. Apparently, they thought that he had an accomplice to whatever it was he was doing. He didn't, by the way. So, I've spent the past three hours with a cop interrogating me as if I was the criminal as opposed to the victim! Can you believe that?"
"Who was your date?" Peets asks, eyebrows raised.
"Just some stupid guy," I reply. I know it will upset him if I tell him that it was his boss, so I don't.
"Well, that sucks," Gale says. "But my story is still worse."
"Mine too," Johanna tells.
"Mine's a little worse," Peeta admits.
"Katniss, I hate to break it to you, but yours isn't all that bad," Finnick says. "Who wants to go next?"
Peeta's POV
"I'll go," I say. "Mine isn't too bad anyway."
"Let's hear it," Annie says.
"Well, I was on a date with this girl, Wanda Miller. I'd been going out with her for about three weeks. She seemed nice enough and I invited her to a picnic in the park. We were having a really great time, when this guy comes up to her and says, 'Oh my God, Ashley! I haven't seen you in forever!' I was super confused and Wanda looked panicked. She stuttered for a minute before she got up and ran away. The next day I found out that her name was actually Ashley Weeks, and she'd stolen the identity of Wanda Miller, her high school friend, who'd died in a car accident."
"You were dating an identity thief?" Gale asks. I nod.
"Nice," Johanna says, laughing.
"Yeah," I mutter.
Annie, who's also laughing at me, says, "Okay, I'll go next."
Annie's POV
"It was a couple years ago, in my junior year of college," I begin. "I had been dating this guy for a while, and we decided to take a late night walk on the beach. We were kissing and we heard this thump from behind us. We whirled around and saw this middle-aged man who was covered in blood and smelled like drugs. He had his hand over his chest and blood pooling through his fingers. We called an ambulance who came and picked up the guy. Needless to say, that was our last date. I wonder whatever happened to that guy."
"The dying one or your ex?" Johanna asks jokingly.
"The dying one, obviously!" I glance at Finnick, expecting him to be smiling and laughing, but instead I find him staring at the clock on the wall with a distraught look. It's midnight. "Finnick, what's wrong?"
He answers without even looking at me, "They didn't call."
"Who didn't call?" I ask, moving closer to him.
"My parents. They always call on my birthday." He puts his head in his hands. "And now my birthday is over, and they didn't call. They must hate me now."
"Oh, Finnick." I wrap my arms around his shoulders. "I'm so sorry."
Gale's POV
"How do they not see it?" Johanna whispers in my ear, eyeing Finnick and Annie. "It's so fucking obvious."
That it is. Annie rubs Finnick's back, her head resting on his shoulder. Finnick's head is laying softly on hers. They're whispering to each other in the way couple's have a tendency to do. They look more like a couple than any actual couple I've ever seen.
Finnick sits up, his bad mode instantly disappearing. "Who's next?"
"I'll go," I say. "I went to a bar to get over this one breakup, and this super hot woman comes and sits next to me. We start flirting and then we go back to my apartment. Keep in mind that I was very drunk. So, we're making out at my place and we fall into bed and right before we start doing it, she says, 'How much are you willing to pay?' It was then that I realized that she was a hooker."
Johanna's jaw drops open. "She was a hooker!? Oh my God, Gale, that's pathetic! How did you not know that she was a goddamn prostitute!?"
"It was not my best moment."
Finnick's POV
"That's a lot like my story actually," I say, pretending my mini meltdown never happened. "I was at a bar because I was in desperate need of a one-night-stand. I might have been a little bit too frank. I wound up going home with this one woman and, on the brightside, I did get the one night stand I needed. When we woke up the next morning she asked me how much this would cost her. She thought I was a freaking prostitute. I was so mortified, I just grabbed my stuff and ran out of there."
Everyone is silent for a moment, but Johanna breaks the ice by saying, "You do kind of resemble a prostitute."
"I do not!"
"Just a little bit," Johanna says.
"You should've made her pay," Gale muses. "She never would've known that you weren't a prostitute."
"That's just what I want, some random woman thinking I'm a manwhore," I say sarcastically.
"You never know," Annie says sleepily, her head still resting on my shoulder, "it might come in handy some day."
Johanna's POV
"Jo, you're the last one," Finnick tells me.
"As much as I hate to beat Katniss's, Peeta's, and Annie's lives of crime and Gale's and Finnick's prostitutional stories, my story beats all of yours," I announce. "My story is also the story of how I lost my virginity. It was my freshman year of college and I'd been dating this guy for a couple of months. He was about four years older than me. Remember that I was completely head-over-heels for him. I thought he was the one.
"Anyway, we went up to this lake house his family owned over the summer. We were, you know, doing it, and all of a sudden, there's this woman yelling profanities at the pair of us. We're just lying there, completely naked, when I figure out that this is his wife. I was his fucking mistress!"
"That sounds traumatic," Katniss says after a minute.
"It was."
"I think we can all agree that Jo wins this competition," Gale says. Everyone nods in agreement, except for Annie, who has fallen asleep on Finnick's shoulder.
"I'm going to bring her upstairs," Finnick whispers, trying not to wake Annie. He picks her up bridal-style and walks up the stairs with her in his arms.
"So fucking obvious," I mutter.
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