Chapter Ten
I run my finger along the spines of the books that sit tightly against one another in the school library. It's strange how I haven't noticed how many actual, well, books there are in our school library. I always knew there were books here, obviously. I just never noticed that there was so many classic novels. I thought it was just a bunch of cheap books that Snow purchased in a possible back alley just to fill the shelves and make us look educated.
Pride and Prejudice; The Great Gatsby; Sense and Sensibility. I think I remember trying to read something similar to these and I couldn't get through it because the writing was too incomprehensible. For my primitive brain anyway. I wonder if Peeta knows what some of this means? Maybe if we ever have some spare time he could give me a hand understanding it.
I pull Pride and Prejudice off the book shelf and wedge it under my arm. I hop to the table Peeta and I study at and wait for him to show up. I wonder if Snow realizes that he hasn't really punished me. It's no secret that he's well aware of the food chain idea that the people at the top created. I don't understand the teachers' desperation to be 'in' with the popular kids but they give them more attention to the middle and the lower dwellers. That's why he thought making me-someone who has spent most of her life at the top-spend my lunch with Peeta-someone who has been said to be at the bottom ever since he started school-was a horrible enough punishment for fighting with Clove. It benefitted me greatly but looking at that system in a subjective point of view, it is completely extortionate. It really hurts me to think that this is a system I have spent my life believing was good and fair.
"Sorry I'm late, Katniss." Peeta swerves around the tables in his way and falls into the seat across from me. His hands disappear into his bag to pull his books out and I capture a splash of blue disappearing into the satchel.
"Is everything alright?" I ask. He's been late to our school sessions more than usual. It's made me worried that me now knowing that he's anorexic is putting him off coming to see me.
"Yeah, I just had to go to the hospital," Peeta says.
My heart lifts. "What for?"
Peeta lifts his hand out of satchel and my heart sinks. "Oh my god, what happened?"
His fore and middle fingers are wrapped together in blue bandage and there's a splint inside the wrapping. "Gale broke it. He said I don't have the right to turn Cato down. He said since all the girls obviously aren't into me I should be grateful that anyone likes me."
I throw my face into my hands. "Oh my God I'm so sorry," I say. "That was my fault. Glimmer has been spreading lies about me and Clove and when we confronted her a lot of things got blurted out. It wasn't me, I promise. Clove knew you had been given a jacket and said it on a whim. If she'd known that Gale was going to . . . to . . ." I've taken his hand into my own and am anxiously stroking the blue bandage. "Be Gale she wouldn't have . . ."
"Hey, Katniss, it's fine," says Peeta. "Katniss, look at me." I'm staring at his fingers, unable to tear my eyes away from the horrifying truth of what has been done to him. A warm hand suddenly touches my face and I inhale sharply at the way my heart stops completely at the sudden touch. Peeta makes me look at him. Not forcefully. He'd never use force. He simply guides my face up so my eyes meet his. "Listen to me, Katniss. None of this is your fault, okay? None of it. I can look after myself. I've handled Gale long before Cato handed me the lettermen jacket and I will probably be handling him long after Cato has moved on to another student he wants to manipulate."
"That doesn't mean breaking your finger is right," I contradict. My hand is still on top of his injured one. I can't believe Gale did that. Well, I can believe it, really. I just don't want to believe it.
"It's technically my fault," says Peeta. "Gale gave me a choice: Go out with Cato and give him what he wants or have my finger broken. I just wasn't prepared to give into to something like that. Who I go out with is my choice, you know? That and I didn't believe Gale would actually break my finger."
"It's not your fault," I say firmly. "The fact that they even have you convinced that it is your fault is sick, you shouldn't think that. Gale is the one at fault. So is Cato and the rest of the damn football team!"
Peeta shakes his head and smiles. "Never thought I'd hear Katniss Everdeen say that," he says.
"Shut up," I chuckle.
Peeta looks at the book I picked off the shelf and removes his hand from my face to pick it up. I'm shocked by how cold my face feels without his hand there. "Pride and Prejudice?" he says. "Doesn't seem like your taste. I thought you'd like . . . I don't know . . . something like Twilight?"
I snort in amusement. "I did at one point. More for the movies than the books, if I'm honest. I think Prim read them but she refused to see the movies for some reason. I think she does that for all book-to-movie adaptation. I just wanted to see Robert Pattinson's abs. I think Glimmer is still hooked on it even though it ended . . . ages ago, right?"
Peeta's eyes are skimming the blurb of Pride and Prejudice, a small smile on his face. I feel a tug in my chest. A need to be closer. Even if it's just sitting on the seat beside him instead of across from him. This magnetic pull he seems to have is inhuman and I don't understand how everyone else can't feel it too. Maybe they do, but in a different way. Where I want to be close to Peeta in an almost intimate way that makes me shiver to think of, Gale and the rest of the football team draw towards Peeta because they're . . . threatened by him. Yes. That's it. They're threatened by him. They're threatened by the fact that Peeta doesn't care about the food chain or his own position in it. And because of this lack of caring, he doesn't see a need to grovel at the feet of the higher positioned students, nor does he feel compelled to worship the ground they walk on.
Now that I think about it, Peeta turned down Cato. Cato. As in Cato, the inside linebacker for the football team. The geeks and the nerds are made out to be cowardly weaklings who can't defend themselves in a fight but they're not. Anyone else, if they had been asked out by a footballer, they'd have jumped on the opportunity like hyenas on meat. Peeta said no. That wasn't just brave, that was bloody undauntable. Cowards my ass.
"I was . . . I was wondering if you'd help me read it," I say. "Not that I can't read, that's ridiculous, what I mean is that it was written years and years ago and I don't think I'd be able to get through it on my own. If . . . that makes sense?"
Peeta smiles at me. "Of course I'll help you," he says.
My heart does something I've never felt it do before. It soars in my chest like a shooting star. He puts the book down and we do maths for the rest of lunch time. We work right up until the five minute warning bell. "Are you going to the talk Mrs Lyme is holding this afternoon?" I ask.
"Mandatory attendance doesn't really give much room to do otherwise," Peeta shrugs.
"Wait, is there a reason you wouldn't want to go?" I frown, following him out of the library. He holds the door open for me and I stop short. No one has held the door open for me. No guy anyway. Prim used to talk about how a boy who had a crush on her always held the door open for her in Elementary and our mum explained that it's a sign of curtesy and respect. Even as Gale claims to want to go out with me for Homecoming (simultaneously keeping up the stupid act with Glimmer) he has never shown me any respect. I think of how he spoke to me on the day of the Colour Run.
"Yes. And that night we will fuck like animals and you will cum so many times you will forget where or who you are."
That's not respectful. He sees me as a sex object, nothing else. I think about something that has never occurred to me before: life beyond homecoming. After homecoming, I probably would have started planning for Prom, but what does that mean? Was I always just going to live a little bit ahead of myself, always planning for the future instead of living in the now? What exactly did I plan to do at the end of the year, after I left High School? My life has revolved getting Gale to ask me out for so long that I don't even know what my plans for afterwards are.
"No," Peeta tells me. "Just pointing out a fact."
Well, he's right about that. Mandatory means mandatory. It's a fact. Mrs Lyme probably choose today specifically because she knew the Seniors wouldn't be missing any important classes this afternoon if they attended her mental health talk. I'm still confused as to why she choice that to be her first talk topic. Mental health. I still think it's because of my suicide rumours and the ripples it has caused. Does Mrs Lyme, as Head of Pastoral Care, know about that?
"I'll go the long way around, so no one sees you with me," Peeta says once we're outside the library.
"You don't need to do that," I tell him.
"It's fine, really," Peeta smiles. "See you."
"Yeah, see you," I reply.
We part ways and the further away we get, the more that magnetic pull makes me want to turn around and follow him. To swallow my pride and go with Peeta, not giving a damn who sees us. However, I am too weak minded to. I can't bring myself to react to his pull the way a magnetic piece of wire would. I'm not ready to.
Mrs Lyme's talk was only lightly based on mental health. Really, all she did was introduce herself to us and tell us about what she aimed to achieve for our school. She spoke about mental end more closely to the end, when she was talking about reasons for coming to speak to her. I suddenly grew uncomfortable with the talk as soon as it reached this point.
"If you, or anyone you know, is suffering in any shape or form, I urge you to do the right thing and come tell me. My door is always open and no problem is too big or too small for me," she tells us all. Clove glances at me out of the corner of her eye, her entire body inclined to face directly forward to see that she's listening. Why is she looking at me? What is going through her head?
"Master Snow has invited me to the Past to Present Ceremony tomorrow and has told me to pick one aspect of the school that I-as a new cog in your school's well-oiled machine-find impressive for him to honour." Mrs Lyme smiles knowingly. "And I think I already know what I'm going to choose."
I feel a wrench in my gut. I hope to God it's not the football team or the cheerleading squad. They really don't need the hype. Going by how this school works, I'd say she probably has chosen them.
After school, Mum drives me to Doctor Aurelius' Office, located in the Capitol. To get from here to there it takes an hour and a half (with an extra half hour added on for a detour to collect Prim from school) so I sit in the backseat of the car and let myself sleep for a bit. I know Prim won't mind, since she hasn't gotten to sit in the front of the car since I broke my leg.
For a while, I don't dream. I can remember a lot of blackness before something discernible comes to mind. Usually, I'd struggle with being able to decipher what's real and what's not whilst dreaming but it's very easy in this case because of the very simple fact that my leg isn't broken. In fact, I'm using it perfectly, like it was never broken at all. Well, I'm only able to notice this later, when I wake up. While I'm dreaming is a completely different ball game. I'm not aware of anything. If I was I would manipulate things to fit my own fantasies. But I'm not and I don't.
The dream is weird. I'm kissing someone. Pretty fiercely too. So forceful it's all lips and tongue and teeth. I'm controlling it, I can feel my palms pressed against a wall, caging the other half of this operation against me. It's clear I must have initiated it. How else would have I gained such control? I'm pressed against the full extension of this person's body. They're strong, able to balance me against them with next to no trouble, and I can feel their hands lightly touching my hips. It feels nice. Warm and comforting. So much so that I keep going, paying no heed to reason or circumstance. All I know is that I want more. I need more. More of this comfort and this warmth. I don't need to be aroused or keening for sex to enjoy a kiss I can just take the moment and enjoy it to the very best that I can.
Then it goes wrong.
I want to touch the person who makes me feel so content and at ease so I remove my hands from the wall and place them on the person's shoulders. As soon as my hands make contact with their body, they turn to dust between my fingers. My eyes open in alarm to look upon the face of my disintegrating partner, just in time to watch two blue eyes fade into blackness.
I know what the dream means.
I'm going to ruin Peeta because everything I touch turns to dust.
A/N: Since it's a bank holiday I was able to update earlier than usual today! Yay! :D
Review with your thoughts, maybe? :)