Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.
Soft, pt 2
Madge fastens the last button on her coat before digging her cap from her bag and plopping it on her head. It slips down over her eyes, pushing her bangs in her eyes for a few seconds before she adjusts it.
Once she can see again and feels secure for the walk home, she picks up her bag and slings it over her shoulder. Gripping the strap, she pushes the through the double doors leading out into the cold evening for the long lonely walk home alone.
The sun is setting and the sky overhead is already a chilly dark gray, paler at the horizon and painted a soft, dull blue. She shivers under her many layers.
She'd stayed after school a little too late, helping the old volunteering the library reshelf books several classes had strewn about during a frantic search for material for a newly announced book report. Nothing had been put back. Fictions were mixed, authors ignored and genres forgotten, and it had put the old lady in charge of the library in a state.
"No respect. None whatsoever," she'd muttered as she haphazardly pulled the wrongly placed books from the shelves and threw them into her cart.
Madge had felt a little guilty, simply because she knew how to correctly return the books to their proper place, and so had stayed over after class. It wasn't like Mrs. Oberst would care if she missed dinner.
After several hours though, she realized it was a little later than she'd anticipated.
With a soft little goodbye to the old lady, which had received only a huffy grunt in acknowledgement, Madge had gathered her things and left.
She doesn't like to walk home in the dark. People are scary enough in the bright light, but in the dying hours of the day they get downright terrifying.
When she's taken only a few steps out, almost slipping on a patch of dark ice, she feels eyes on her. Turning she sees a boy.
At first the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and she readies herself to run. He's tall and clearly from the upper level school, so he's older and she doesn't feel like having being catcalled in the courtyard, but then she squints a bit. He looks familiar.
Gale from the library. Mr. Hawthorne's son.
Briefly she wonders what he's doing there so late, then she notices the chalk powder on his sleeves and pants. Pounding out erasers is a favorite punishment of a lot of teachers and Madge wonders what he must've done to earn it.
Her mind immediately jumps to the old volunteer complaining about the older students getting in trouble for using the library for 'filthy liaisons', and she pictures Gale getting caught kissing behind the back stacks and cockily taking his punishment. He's certainly handsome enough to have any number of girls want to kiss him. Her cheeks burn at the thought.
He's glaring at her, as though she's interrupted something, so she forces a small smile for him before turning her pink ended face away and scurrying off a little faster than before.
For a few minutes she thinks she's alone again, just like always, traversing the long but well lit way home, until she senses someone behind her again.
With barely a half glance, she spots Gale again, trudging almost silently behind her, head down but stormy eyes flicking up to her every few minutes.
She isn't sure why he's following her. Maybe because she's alone and he's like his dad, reluctant to let someone so small and young make their way alone, but she isn't sure. For some reason she hopes not. She isn't that much younger than him and the thought that he sees her as a child stings a bit.
He follows behind her, always a safe distance away, both of them seemingly alone as they trundle along through the now falling snow in town.
Halfway home she passes a pair of rowdy boys, older than Gale even, probably a little drunk by the looks of them and obnoxious. They yell some nasty things at her as she passes by, though she doubts it has anything to do with who she is. They'd bother any girl that passed them by.
She doesn't stop, doesn't spare them so much as a glance, just plods past them as they sputter dim compliments then sputter thoughtless insults when she ignores their efforts.
Gale doesn't rush to her side and tell them off, though part of her wishes he would. That would ruin the illusion that they are separate entities, that they're alone on this walk together.
Her pace is steady until she reaches the gate to her house. Once through it, she races across the yard, up the back steps, and to the door.
Turning, she looks back at Gale.
He's got a heavy dusting of snow in his dark hair and she wonders if he'd accept a hat from her as payment for his not-quite walking her home. She doubts it. People from the Seam have very definite ideas about what equals what as far as payment, even if Madge doesn't understand it. Still, maybe she can sneak one of her dad's old ones into his locker eventually. The thought of him catching something just because he can't afford a proper hat makes her stomach hurt.
Reluctant as she is to see him go, letting him stand out in the increasingly cold dark of evening is almost painful to her. Raising her hand, she gives him a small wave goodbye, her cheeks heating up again under his gaze.
Thank you.
He doesn't wave back, just gives her a little nod before turning away and heading off, swallowed up into the evening before Madge has even locked the door behind her.
Peaking out the small window in the door, Madge pretends she sees Gale coming back to keep her company. She isn't quite ready to be alone again.