II.
Frienducation
Many things Katniss doesn't know, and one important thing she does.
Her little fall happened on Saturday morning. After spending most of the weekend sitting and grumbling in her bed, she almost trust herself to make it all the way to school on Monday.
Not like she could learn anything too necessary there. Most of the knowledge that has sustained her and her family for years comes from the plant book her parents have compiled together. And from experience. The Capitol is more interested in keeping them in school for the sake of controlling their time and feeding them propaganda than in teaching them anything useful. Perhaps they reckon that if they keep beating their lies into children's heads for long enough, they'll forget how to think and fend for themselves.
Katniss would be interested in learning new things, if education could take her anywhere better. Or if it amounted to more than the approved facts about the tiny sliver of a world that is their district, the labor they can provide for the Capitol, and the bombastic history of Panem that might as well be written in the blood of their ancestors. The Capitol won't admit what it has done and keeps doing to its citizens, of course, but all the injustices of the past seven decades, and so many more before the so called Dark Days, are bleeding between the lines.
At least the basic maths, reading and writing comes useful, but the sign above the door of the toilets makes for better reading material than the Treaty of Treason they are supposed to know by heart.
As it is, Katniss thinks she'll be better off hunting whenever possible, and stopping by at school just enough not to raise suspicion. She still goes every day, though, to keep up appearances and to walk Prim there and back, just to make absolutely sure her sister arrives safely.
Tables have turned a bit now, with her knee still sore and unsteady. Katniss wraps her arm around Prim's shoulders, her usual protective gesture, but ends up leaning part of her weight on her little sister. Prim manages to bear it, though, and does her best to stand tall. Barely twelve, she is a lot taller and stronger than Katniss had been at that age, and Katniss considers that her greatest accomplishment so far.
"You've been walking me to school for years. Now I'll walk you," Prim says with a light laugh as they set out.
Katniss squeezes her shoulder playfully. "What would I do without you, Little Duck."
The Hawthorne boys catch up with them along the way, starting later but walking faster, and Gale laughs quietly when he sees the Everdeen sisters hobbling together. He offers to help out and replace Prim's support, but she straightens under Katniss' heavy arm and indignantly refuses.
"Catnip must be proud of you," he says.
"She is," Katniss reassures him with a smile.
The next time she sees him, Gale grins and waves at her from the door of the dilapidated school cafeteria. He's two years above Katniss and has a different schedule, but never fails to check on her on his way by. She's come to anticipate that, watching the door like a hawk until she catches a glimpse of his face.
Her answering smile fades when she overhears whispers from a nearby table.
"What does he see in her?" a girl whispers. Prettier, richer, better fed than her, Katniss can see that much.
"Don't mind them, they are just jealous," whispers Madge.
She's sitting opposite Katniss, with her back to the door, but by now she knows her routine well enough to know where she'd been looking. She's Katniss' classmate and her only other good friend, but doesn't know her nearly as well as Gale does. Sometimes, Katniss wonders why Madge prefers her company to that of her fellow town girls, and whether many of them have come to shun her because of her association with her. She'll have to ask some other day, somewhere where they can't overhear.
"Jealous of what?" she retorts. "Of everything we have to do just to survive?"
Madge rolls her eyes. "You know what I mean."
"We are friends," Katniss snaps, ending the discussion before it really begins. Luckily, Madge is kind enough not to pry directly and Katniss is grateful for that. She has no idea what would she say anyway – what would she admit to herself, or to someone else. So she's left with only her own thoughts to nag her.
What does Gale see in me? And what do I see in him?
What does it matter? They are partners, they function better together, and they can take care of their families better when they work together. Seeing things is not the point. (However easy on the eyes Gale is, even she can admit as much.) They just find something in their companionship every day, something that keeps them going.
What do other girls see in him, without really knowing him as well as she does?
It's not hard to tell, she has to admit. Gale is handsome, certainly, strong, skilled, and devoted to his family. Even the town girls whisper about him like they want him. But they don't really know how he smiles at his little sister, how he frowns in concentration when setting a snare, how his eyes light up and how he seems to become even more alive when he slips beyond the fence into the woods.
They don't know how he smiles at her.
Gale used to hang around with other girls and other friends more, but lately he's been spending most of his time outside school with Katniss, out in the woods or at the Hob or with their families. Katniss knows about pretty much everything important going on in his life and is fairly sure there's no other significant girl in it. Just her. His best friend.
But if a friend - and that's all she'll ever dare to be, she thinks - will not be enough forever.
Is he going to pick one of them?
Would one of the town girls who like to stare at him love him enough to do for him what Katniss' mother had done for her father? To marry him and leave what passes for a comfortable life in Twelve for the squalor of the Seam? Or would her parents handle it better and welcome him to their better life? Or will he end up with a Seam girl like her? And start his own family with the girl he chooses, the girl who chooses him?
(Haven't they done that already, in their own way?)
Katniss has never dared to ask him about that directly, but from seeing him with his siblings, especially with little Posy, for whom he's the only father figure she's known, it's not hard to guess he'd want that. Much later perhaps, but still.
Katniss wouldn't, and that's where their ways might part.
Where would she be, then? She likes to believe she'll take care of herself, and her mother and Prim too, for as long as necessary, but with Gale it's just so much… easier. Better. She's gotten used to it, might have mellowed out a bit in the months it took them to build their unconditional trust, and the years it took their friendship to deepen and grow into whatever it is now.
Could he have something like that with someone else, the same trust, and the same easy companionship? Would someone else be able to make him smile the way she does?
Maybe not, but they could do other things girls whisper about in the bathrooms, sometimes with words she wouldn't repeat in front of Prim or words she couldn't even pronounce right.
Would that matter more?
She can't tell if she's being protective or possessive, but she insists to herself she just wants him to be happy.
But with how intertwined their lives have become, she can't bring herself to see Gale without her, or her without him.
That would be... unthinkable.
She doesn't even know where that comes from, but she imagines Gale taking some strange girl into his arms and carrying her over the threshold of his house, like men usually do with their new wives, and involuntarily clenches her fist.
When she concentrates on the memory, she can almost feel his arms around her as he carried her all the way home from the woods. An oddly pleasant shiver passes through her body.
She fit there just right. That much she's learned for sure.