#mdrabble

Thanksgiving was always hectic in their household. It had been for years, which sort of came with the territory. Having six teenage boys under one roof meant that a lot of food had to be made and everyone had to help out. It also meant Michael had to make about a million trips to the grocery store.

Well, it meant someone had to make a million trips and Michael was highly aware that Lucinda kept sending him on purpose.

Life tip number one? Never, ever, ever tell your sister you think someone is cute. Especially not if your sister is the scheming type and has enough siblings to help her out. Even Daniel seemed to be making life harder for him by sending him on multiple trips.

But even if he resented them for it, he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed seeing Benny every. Single. Time. His crush on the cashier was ridiculous at this point and he knew it. But Benny was cute and friendly and almost as awkward as Michael and he honestly just felt drawn to the man in ways he couldn’t explain. It sounded to cheesy to even think about, so he never said it out loud.

In fact, he never mentioned Benny after coming back from the store, even when Luce straight up asked. If they were going to torture him, he was damn sure going to get even but keeping the details to himself, insignificant though they may have been.

This particular Thanksgiving was extra hectic. Not only were the siblings cooking for each other, half of them were bringing dates and all of them were going to be together for the first time in a few years.

Leo was road-tripping with his roommate and possible girlfriend (no one seemed to have an answer about that, Leo included) and had agreed to bring cookies. Raphael had invited Margot to come and seemed unusually anxious and excited. At first, Michael had been amused that someone could survive life as a soldier with confidence and be so nervous because of a girl, but then he remembered he’d been deployed too and could barely for a sentence around Benny and suddenly he related to his younger brother a lot better. Gabriel had invited someone he was seeing, though he wasn’t sure the offer would be accepted. Lucinda was extra excited to meet them all. Everyone else was at least a little curious about their brother’s various interests. It was honestly hard to say who they were the most curious about.

A few days before Thanksgiving, while they were getting some of the prep work done, Michael nearly chopped off a finger as he was cutting vegetables when Lucinda announced, “I invited Benny to the dinner.”

He set the knife aside and stared at her. “You did what?”

She nodded, setting dough on a baking sheet without pause. “Mhhmmmm. When I ran to the store for onions.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

He didn’t know how she could be having this conversation all while making perfect sized rolls and he envied her ability to multitask. “Because… why would you do that to me?”

“He doesn’t have to come. And I told him that. But I also told him he was welcome to stop by and suggested he bring some wine if he did because we can always use more alcohol, especially with everyone here. Zach said he’d bring wine by the way and he promised it wouldn’t be from the bar.”

He nodded, albeit a bit numbly. He knew he shouldn’t be that surprised by this. It was absolutely a Lucinda thing to do and Benny knew most of the family by now. They liked him well-enough and he was more than welcome here. And yet, he could not freaking believe she’d done it.

“Sometimes I hate you, you know that?”

“Mhhmmm. But sometimes you all hate me and sometimes I hate all of you so it doesn’t matter anyway. You should’ve known better than to let me go to the store anyway. And I’m not sorry.”

“You never are.”

“Not true. I’m sorry when things backfire.”

“That’s called regret, Luce.”

The rolls went into the oven and he picked up the knife, going back to work.

“Either way, I’m sorry sometimes. But I don’t think this is gonna be one of them.” She grinned at him. “I can’t decide if I’m more excited to meet Azalea or Margot.”

“Azalea,” Michael responded immediately. She arched a brow and he continued. “I wanna meet the person who seems pretty capable of handling Leo’s shit. Raphael and Margot make sense. Leo having a consistent relationship of any kind is a little weird.”

She rolled her eyes. “Things like that are why he doesn’t like you, you know.”

He sighed. “I try not to be judgmental but we both know he makes shit choices. Besides, he’s as flaky as Gabriel. You can’t pretend you’re not surprised that he likes this girl so much.”

“Didn’t say I wasn’t surprised. I just know how to not be an asshole about it. You should try that every once in a while.”

“You’re just an asshole about other things,” he responded, shooting her a pointed glare. Her grin only widened.

On the night of the school dance back in 7th grade when Farkle, Cory, and Riley had already left, he said to her her, “I’ll walk you home.” 

Sometime in the winter after eighth grade, they had all decided to go ice skating. Maya was freezing her butt off and was too stubborn to bring an extra jacket that all her friends had suggested her to. When he was helping her put her skates on, he looked up at her and asked, “Do you want to borrow my jacket?” 

The first day of high school, some junior had passed by their group and mumbled something about fresh meat. He proceeded to whistle as he walked by Maya, giving her rump a smack. The look on her face was absolutely mortified and before she could give him a piece of her mind, that boy of hers was face to face, leaning dangerously close to the junior’s ears. He whispered, but Maya was sure that he meant it to be loud enough for her to hear as well, “If you disrespect or lay a hand on any of my friends again, I will personally make sure you’ll no longer be able to use that hand.” 

Sophomore year, he had made the football team which didn’t surprise anyone in their friend group at all. He was so nervous to talk to her and at the time, Maya didn’t quite understand why. He and told her that it was tradition that a player’s friend make a poster that said the player’s jersey number and name. “So, will you make mine?” She didn’t know why he had asked her specifically, Riley and Farkle would also make posters, but she did know she was happy he asked her specifically. 

Junior year, Maya had an art piece in the school’s art exhibit. She invited her friends to the opening night, but Farkle told her that he had a big debate. Riley said she had to go to her grandparents’ place for the weekend for their anniversary. Before she could ask him, he already had the hugest smile on his face. He told her, “I’ll be there.” Farkle and Riley came other nights and so did he. Actually, he came every night. 

Senior year came along and she was stressed out beyond belief. She had gotten a conditional acceptance college letter and was working her butt off to make sure her grades were in the best shape they could be. So when prom was only 2 weeks away she had no idea about it. She panicked and eventually told herself that she had no time to be thinking about such things when her acceptance to the only college she applied to was on the line. Around 1 am, he showed up at her window. She told him to go home, she had lots of studying to do. He barged right in and said, “Me. You. Prom. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. You and I are going to go to prom together and the night will be great. If there’s anyone that needs a break from all the hard work their putting in, it’s you. It’s just one night, one stress free night.” She smiled and agreed. In the beginning, she thought she’d regret it. But she didn’t. In fact, she thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Last month was the worst month of her life. Maya and her dad weren’t particular close. In fact, she kind of despised him. He had left her and her mom when she was only 5. He told them that he would be right back, just going to grab a carton of milk. For years she waited for him to come back, and when he did he told her that he had a new family. He apologized, said that it was a mistake. But he grew up and learned from it. She didn’t forgive him. Maya told him it was too late for apologies. But when the news came that her dad had died in a car crash she wished she could have taken it back. She wished she could have told him that she accepted his apology. She wished she could apologize to him for treating him so harshly and shutting him out even when he tried to get back in. All day she cried in her room. At about 3 in the morning, eyes red and bloodshot from nonstop crying, he snuck in through the window. And though she didn’t know he was there, she didn’t object as he sat on her bed and pulled her close to him. She cradled up to him, using his shirt as a rag. The tears that she didn’t know she still had kept flowing and he just stayed there, rubbing circles into her back and combing fingers through her hair. She didn’t talk, there was no words to say. So he said it all. “Shhh, it’s okay. It’s fine. I’m here. He knows you love him. He knows you forgive him now.” And before she could even think of the question she was going to ask, he said, “He’s here with you, watching over you.” 

It was senior graduation. All students had received their diploma. All they needed was the principal to say, “Congratulations to the Class of 2020″ and they would all stand up and throw their caps in the air. Maya sat beside him, gripping onto his hand in excitement. “Maya,” he said. She shushed him, waiting for the speaker to say those final words. “Maya, I need to tell you something.” Maya shook her head, not paying him any attention. There it was, the final words of their last year in high school! She was in the process of standing up when she felt his hand tug on hers from his spot on the chair. She sat down with him, an annoyed look on her face. “What is it, huckleberry?” 

“Take your time,” she breathes and she can’t believe she’s said it. But as soon as she has she realises it’s true. She’s missed the feel of him near her. The golden length of his eyelashes under the one bare bulb that hangs in the room remind her of another time. The golden waves of hair, mussed from days of fighting, are illuminated like some kind of fucked up halo as she stares up at him. 

His lips quirk, “Close your eyes.” 

She does as told, wonders what Effie would think of her deference now. 

His fingers burn where they carefully paint the Mockingjay symbol, red as the blood of the fallen. She feels the heat of his touch pool low in her belly, tightens her grip on the chair underneath her to try and stop herself from doing something stupid. But she’s beginning to realise that even with the threat of an episode, the nearness of the end of her life is too close and too real to bury what she feels for the boy with the bread. 

His breath fans across her cheeks. 

She tilts her chin up slightly, parts her lips, keeps her eyes closed. 

“Katniss…” the words reach her ears strangled and pleading, “I’ll hurt you.” 

She reaches up to grip his forearms, the muscles tensing under her fingertips. 

“I trust you, Peeta,” and she does. 

He moves his thumbs across her cheekbones, runs a fingertip over the length of her eyelashes. She imagines the mockingjay he’d so painstakingly created on her face beginning to smudge as he gives in to the tension that has been building since he began. 

“That time on the beach,” she hears him move, he must kneel before her because suddenly his voice comes from in front instead of above, “You felt it too, real or not real?” 

She opens her mouth to answer but he swallows it in a kiss as though he changed his mind about wanting to know the truth. 

She surges forward and he falls backward into a sitting position, his hands tight on her hips as he pulls her chest against his. She wraps her arms around his, slides her hands into his hair, relishes the groan that comes from him as she tugs. 

He nips at her bottom lip and she stifles a cry in her throat, eyes burning with the desperation to feel all of him. 

Warm fingers sneak under the hem of her black shirt, soon to be laden with the weight of her armour and she wonders if she can seal the feel of his skin on hers so that it stays with her when she walks into battle a few hours from now. 

A knock on the steel door above them has them scrambling apart. She swipes a hand across her puffy lips, can’t tell if the redness is from the paint or from a bleeding lip. 

She sits back in the chair. 

Peeta rises above her. 

He corrects the war paint as Finnick and Gale and the rest of the Star Squad stumble down the stairs. 

And all the while she knows that something has shifted between. A piece of himself finally returning to where it should be. 

“Close your eyes,” he says again. 

They pull up a long driveway and she splays her hands against the car window. Through the mud-crusted glass she takes in a facade that is both impressive and decrepit. She eyes the rusted juliet balconies and rotting shutters. She’s never seen a house so big, let alone be faced with the prospect of living in one.

But when she steps over the twisted gnarls of tree roots that send cracks slithering through pavement, she knows she doesn’t care how grand this place must have once been. She misses home.

“Come on, Katniss, darling.”

Her mother’s voice floats through the mouldy air and disintegrates around her ears.

Katniss kicks at an overturned brick and shudders when a spider crawls out from beneath it.

“This is going to be great,” she grunts under her breath.

But her mother is already hauling suitcases through hallways and plastering a thin smile on her pale skin, demanding that this new life will be good for them.

––

“It was my great aunt’s,” Lily Everdeen states as she twirls patterns in the dust of the dining room table, but her daughter isn’t really listening.

Katniss can’t remember the last time she had a real conversation with her mother. Probably before Prim… Even earlier. Before this mess of constant moving and readjusting and pretending like you could just run away from problems.

She knows her mother is trying. That it’s better than no mother at all – the mother who existed after Dad was killed in the mines. But she misses her friends (however few of them existed), she misses pretending she could still smell her father whenever she sat in his armchair, or could still feel the weight of her sister beside her in their shared bed.

But she doesn’t have any memories in this old place. So it doesn’t matter to her who owned it.

She looks up at the ceiling, moulded and vaulted, listens to the creaking floorboards beneath them whenever they move.

She thinks maybe this place wants to share memories with her.

––

Katniss curls under the blankets that first night and tries not to think. If she does, she’s too hyper-aware of the fact she feels like she’s been watched, that every now and then she hears a sigh that doesn’t sound like wind, that it feels like this house is alive.

––

It’s a week before she meets him.

A week of dusting and washing and unpacking overused cardboard boxes.

Her mother throws them away as though to say this is it, this is the final move. But Katniss carefully cuts away the tape and flattens each box until they fit in a neat pile under her bed.

It makes it easier. And cheaper.

But on a Saturday evening, when she sits out in the expanse of backyard – this, she has decided, is her favourite part of the new house – she hears that sigh again, wistful and human.

“Who’s there?” It comes out harsh but she’s sick of whoever it is, like she didn’t grow up hunting with her father to know what it feels like to be watched.

The air beside her sort of trembles, she watches with a narrowed gaze.

“Who are you?” She asks again, voice still a thin line as it cuts across the distance between them.

The Tremble starts to move away from her and she realises that this might be her only opportunity to figure out what’s going on running away from her.

“Wait!”

That space of shimmering air halters for a moment.  

“Can you talk?”

A voice sounds out of the darkness, it’s sweet and shy and quiet, “Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

She doesn’t know what she’s doing but she’s in a strange house and won’t be at school for a few months and maybe, whatever this is, can be her friend. She feels her gut twist with the sudden realisation that she’s lonely.

“Peeta,” it answers. Peeta. She tests the name out for herself. The Tremble comes back to the spot beside her on the bench.

“Are you a ghost?”

“I don’t know,” it answers, and she hears a crack in it’s voice, “I was always told ghosts aren’t real. Am I real to you?”

Katniss doesn’t know how to answer that. She feels like she must have finally cracked. That after sixteen years her mind had decided to go the same way as her mother’s and this house with its sagging staircase was the final catalyst.

“Can I see you?”

The Tremble becomes something more for a moment, and then it’s a pale form hovering on the bench beside her. She can tell it was once a human, a boy, but she can’t make out real features.

“You seem real to me.”

Peeta, the ghost, smiles.

––

Peeta quickly becomes her friend.

Her mother is too busy figuring out how to repair the front facade to notice her daughter talking to what appears to be nobody.

Katniss thinks this is a good thing, because she’s sure if her mother knew there was a ghost in the house they’d be out of here.

One time they almost get caught playing a round of chess together and she hurries him to disappear into the air just as Lily opens the door.

Lily frowns at the chessboard and asks her what she wants for dinner and when Peeta reappears in the seat opposite her she can tell she’s hurt his feelings. Ghosts have feelings, she’s realised, and just like with real people (she hates herself for using the word), she’s not too great at understanding them.

“If she finds out,” Katniss says, pushing her bishop somewhere in the direction of his king, “We’ll leave. I’ll never see you again.”

“Okay,” he says, “No one needs to know I’m here.”

“Except me.”

“Except you.”

––

At some point school starts, and it actually starts to look like they might stay in this house.

She goes to classes and meets people but she’s never been good at making friends. When she gets home she rushes to her room and finds Peeta trying to make enough wind to turn the page of a book or he’ll be sitting on the balcony watching the sunset earlier and earlier as summer slips away from them.

She turns the page for him.

She watches the sunset, too.

“How many sunsets have you seen?” She asks, an odd feeling in her belly.

“I’ve lost count,” he sounds distant as he says it, the true distance of their lives opening in the gap between their words.

“How old were you, when you died?”

“Sixteen,” he looks at her. In final glowing embers of sunlight he looks almost golden to her, his whole being shifting from that pale white to something that almost makes her want to cry. She looks away.

“This is my favourite colour,” he says and indicates to a ribbon of pale orange that is spilt across the sky, “Always has been.”

She points to the trees, the darkening woods appearing almost sinister below the pale beauty of the sky above, “That’s mine.”

––

“How did you die?”

She’s never asked it.

He rolls over from his spot on the bed to look at her. He doesn’t actually sleep but they like the pretense of sharing a bed together, the feeling of closeness for two very lonely souls.

His eyes, which she’s decided even in his ghostly form are blue, skitter across her face.

“I don’t think I could tell you,” he finally breathes the word.

A frown creases her brow and she moves to roll away from him.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you!”

She feels a shiver run up her arm and realises he must have tried to reach out to her, hold her still.

There’s silence for a moment, then a sigh, a sob.

“I wish I could hold you,” he says into the darkness, “All I want is to hold you, just once, and then I think I’d be satisfied.”

She turns back to him and reaches a hand out to stroke what would be his cheek.

“Was it that bad?”

He nods.

“Peeta,” she sighs, and places her hand over where his would be. It’s just that cold, shivering feeling, like someone left the window open too late in the winter. But to her it means he’s there, he’s real. Whatever that word means.

“I don’t want you to go, I want you to stay here with me.”

The words feel so large in comparison to her as they leave her mouth.

“Will you stay with me?” She thinks it might be the most selfish thing she’s ever asked.

“Always.”

––

For her seventeenth birthday her mother decides they should have a party. It’s absolutely the last thing Katniss wants to do but Lily is set on the idea. She invites kids from her class and all of them try to look like they don’t find it weird this girl who hardly speaks is inviting them over.

On the day, Madge and Gale drive up from her hometown and she actually feels relieved to see them.

“I can’t believe you’re having a birthday party,” Gale laughs and messes up her hair.

“Me neither,” she grumbles at stares at her shoelaces.

“Well c’mon, I’ll help you get ready!” Madge takes her hand and oohs and ahhs over the faded grandeur of the house as they make their way through it.

Katniss doesn’t see Peeta all day.

––

Her classmates show up and she hates to admit she’d been worried none of them would, but it doesn’t stop it from being a bit awkward for her.

No one really talks to her.

They dance with each other (thanks, Gale, for the music), they laugh with each other, they eat chips and dip with each other. Even her mother seems to be making more friends than she is.

Gale and Madge have apparently started dating.

She stands in the corner and tries to act like she doesn’t care.

But then she notices someone at the top of the stairs.

He watches her the whole way as he walks down them, his hand firmly gripping the railing as though it’s been a while since he did this.

He walks through the crowd and doesn’t see anyone but her. Not the girls giving him appreciative glances, or the confused looks of those who don’t recognise him.

He stops before her and holds a hand out.

When she grips it, she expects that feeling: the cold, shivering one.

But it’s firm and warm and still so, so familiar.

“Peeta,” she whispers, looking up into blue eyes, taking in the waves of his blond hair, his stocky build, broad shoulders. She wants to touch all of him.

“How?”

He shakes his head, a sad smile falling across his lips, “Just let me hold you.”

She has to bite her lip to avoid thinking about the unsaid words that hang at the end of that sentence.

They dance in the centre of the room and she has no idea what’s playing. All she can see is him, her beautiful boy, so very real in her arms.

She grips his biceps under her fingers, digs her tips into the flesh. It’s real flesh. She breathes in and out and in and out and tries to tell herself this moment will sear itself into her memory, that this will be enough and she’ll know the feeling of him forever.

At midnight the old grandfather clock chimes once - he kisses her, she feels a wetness on her cheeks and she’s not sure who it’s come from - by the twelfth chime he’s gone.

The days have been long and hot, the nights offering no real relief from the insistent sunshine. She always struggles to remember why she misses summer on days like these. Days so long she can feel the heat of it lining the inside edges of her skin long after the sun has set. Nights where she can hardly sleep for the weight of a single sheet on her naked skin.

But the rain has finally come.

Maybe it’s the alcohol blurring her thoughts, or the fact that she feels like she’s been on fire for the past two months, or maybe it’s that other thing, the one she’s been steadfastly ignoring all summer long, but she steps out from under the overhang and into the middle of the lawn.

She opens her arms and her mouth wide and turns her head towards the cloudy sky.

In a moment she’s no longer Katniss Everdeen. She can imagine that girl doesn’t exist. She feels like rain and ground and skin and the wild rush of blood through her ears.

When she opens her eyes, he’s standing in the doorway looking at her like he always does: part humour, a lot admiration, that indefinable thing she knows she could probably name if she wanted.

She comes crashing back into herself.

“It’s not what it looks like!”

She has to shout over the rain.

He pops his beer on the ground by the door and walks into the darkness to join her.

She tries not to notice his white t-shirt as it begins to soak through, the hard edges of his body that she imagines on those nights when she feels like the only way to end the heat is by total and complete combustion.

“What does it look like?” He asks when he’s just a few steps away. Blond waves cling to his forehead.

He reaches a hand out to tug at the end of her braid. It’s soaking where it lies over her shoulder.

“I don’t know, but whatever you think it looks like, it’s not that.”

Well. She never was very good in debate class.

He doesn’t laugh but she can see it in his eyes.

“Peeta,” she turns away from the golden eyelashes clumped together with the rain. She pictures them in hazy streams of sunlight. She can almost feel that gentle, ticklish flutter of them against her cheekbones.

He pushes thick, wet strands of hair back from her forehead, curves his fingers over her ears.

Despite the rain she feels the heat again – that small, constant flame flaring deep in her belly.

“If I kiss you now, will you get mad at me again?” He asks it more as a statement. It’s been two months since graduation and getting drunk at Madge’s party and silly life decisions in kitchen pantries.

“I don’t know,” she says but her voice cracks. She grips his hand and he places her palm against his chest. She can feel the thump of his heart under her fingers. She looks into his eyes again.

“You know what I thought it looked like?”

She shakes her head no, takes his hand and splays it across her own chest.

“It looked like you were trying to fly away from here, like you could grow wings and disappear from our lives forever.”

Her heart continues tapping out a rapid pattern under the tips of his fingers. He curls his other hand around her waist.

“You always look like you just wanna fly away and I’m scared of caging you in.”

His thumb swipes a line across her damp hip, the fingers so carefully loose where they hold her.

“You’re the one who’s going to be flying away,” she finally manages the words.

“I’m going to be here in this shitty town and you’ll be off at college wrestling in that dumb uniform and you’ll never think about me again.”

He tugs her closer. She thinks the rain might be beating in time with her. Or is she the rain. The line between reality and not blurs in Peeta’s presence. With him, she feels like she can be anything: a bird, somebody worth loving, herself.

“Katniss,” he slides his nose across her forehead, her cheeks, her shoulders.

“If I kiss you right now,” he whispers into her ear, “I’ll never be satisfied. I’ll want it forever. College and dumb wrestling uniforms –” he smiles and she feels it against her collarbone, knows it’s because he’s caught her checking out that uniform on more than one occasion, “– none of that will change me wanting you. But I needed to know before I left if that chance exists.”

He pulls away to look at her. It’s dark out and she has to strain to properly see his eyes.

“What if we don’t kiss right now?”

The corner of his lips turns down in a way that almost crushes her.

“I’ll come back and visit you every holiday and we’ll play touch football in the Meadow and you’ll eat more cheese buns than considered appropriate and I’ll somehow learn to not act like a sappy idiot every time.”

“Are those my only options?”

He laughs for real this time.

“No, Katniss.”

And even though Peeta was always good in debate class, always good speaking to anybody really, she’s discovered that she finds the words he doesn’t say so much more interesting.

She can feel them hanging between them now, pressing past his fingertips and into her skin. They’re words that she’ll think about and turn over in her mouth at night when she stares at the blackness of her ceiling, when she feels the heat across her skin, when Peeta’s finally left for college.

She remembers a time when they were children and it was raining and how that moment really meant so much more than just the beginning of a friendship.

“It really wasn’t what it looked like,” she says, reaching up to smooth her hands over his shoulders.

He cocks an eyebrow.

Tomorrow, she’ll figure out the words to explain herself, it’ll happen when she stares into the open refrigerator and decides she wants milk and she’ll groan and he’ll look up from his spot at the dining room table and smile a stupid little smile that hasn’t really left his face all morning.

But for now she says:

“I won’t be mad.”

–

When Katniss had been offered only one of two scholarships awarded each year to the The Coriolanus Academy she had initially wanted to turn them down.

She was getting by at Capitol High, the local public school, and if the few CA students she’d met were any indication, the prestigious private school was full of Type-A dickheads she’d rather have nothing to do with.

But eventually her sister managed to convince her of what everyone else had only failed – this kind of education could set her up for life. The scholarship’s recipients usually had their pick of university, more scholarships, a career that didn’t succumb to the weight of student loans… And that meant more money for Prim to get through college, more time at home for their absent mother.

It was an offer she couldn’t refuse.

But then she got there, and it turned out the Glimmers and the Catos she’d been unfortunate enough to meet beforehand were exactly representative of the general population.

And she fucking hated every minute.

Well, almost every minute.

–

“Madge?”

Katniss can’t get the dream out of her head. It haunts her in the way that a locked box makes you desperate to see what’s inside. She just wants to know, just wants to take a quick peek. Even if its contents are worse than Pandora’s.

“Mm,” the blonde girl hums in between pages of her latest book. Something depressing probably. Something recommended by their English teacher. The thought has Katniss’ thighs pulling tight against each other.

“Have you ever, um,” She’s not sure she can ask this. Madge is the only friend she’s got in this hell hole – admittedly the most luxurious hell hole on the planet, but a hell hole nonetheless.

But if she doesn’t do something about this uh, problem, soon, then she’s going to go crazy.

“What do you do when you like someone?” Katniss spits out and Madge looks up from her book with an expression that can only be surprise.

Seeing that Katniss is being perfectly serious though, she schools her features.

“I’d probably tell them, ask them for study date or something.”

She wriggles in her seat, not the answer she was hoping for.

“What if I didn’t want to ask? They’d probably think I was ridiculous.”

Madge frowns, “It’s the twenty-first century, a girl can ask a guy out if she wants without fear of looking desperate.”

“Ugh –no! I don’t mean it like, like um that, I just,” Katniss stammers over the words. She sometimes wonder what on earth the scholarship board thought they saw in her. Eloquence was never her thing.

“I just,” Katniss thinks of the blond curls, the sound of his laughter beside her, the way his hands move as he speaks, “What if you were scared of ruining what you had with them and that’s why you didn’t want to ask?”

She thinks she sees Madge blush and look back to her book, bottom lip caught between teeth. Katniss sighs in relief – her friend must know the feeling.

“Oh, um,” the blonde tucks the book closed but still looks at the table as she speaks, “Just y’know, act flirtatious, they’ll get the picture soon enough.”

–

“You want me to what?”

Johanna barks a laugh so loud that Katniss has to duck under the front desk of the library, scared the patrons will be the ones telling her to shush.

“Shh, Jo, this is a library for God’s sake.”

The short-haired brunette raises a sardonic eyebrow at her, “You can’t expect me to keep quiet after you just asked me to teach you how to flirt.”

Katniss’ job at the public library across the road from her school is perfect. She hardly has to talk to anybody. She usually has time to get some homework done in between re-shelving books and answering enquiries. The staff love her and she gets to borrow all her textbooks for free.

The only downside is Johanna Mason, the barista at the coffee shop located inside the building who decided Katniss was the perfect person to vent to about the ups and downs of her wild life outside the library.

Even if she’s come to begrudgingly enjoy hearing the older woman’s stories.

Especially now, when she needs some advice.

“You heard me,” Katniss hushes a whisper after she crawls out from under the desk, “I’ve never done this before give me a break.”

Jo’s lips curl in suppressed laughter, “Just pull him into a broom closet between classes and get down on your knees, that’ll show him you’re interested.”

As if Katniss could be any more embarrassed, she’s sure her skin has turned some shade of purple with the amount of heat she can feel in her cheeks.

“It’s um, not a boy a school.”

It’s not exactly a lie, she thinks of broad shoulders and a broad chest narrowing to his waist, the five o’clock shadow that appears on his jaw by the end of the school day.

No, no he’s very much a man.

“Oh,” she’s sure if she were brave enough to look at Jo’s face she’d see that condescending smirk, “Well I’m impressed brainless. You wouldn’t want to be part of that incestuous cesspit anyway.”

Katniss’ nose scrunches. She couldn’t imagine anything worse.

“You’ve got that uniform don’t you?”

She looks up at Jo who at least seems to be seriously contemplating the matter.

“Uh yeah,” Katniss thinks of the crisp white shirt tucked into a red tartan skirt, the clunky black school shoes and the unflattering knee high socks that cut off half the circulation to her lower leg.

“What guy doesn’t fantasise about the sexy school girl? Show off a bit, unbutton a few buttons, hike up the skirt, get him alone and give him the sex eyes.”

The sex eyes?

Katniss frowns in confusion, but she thinks she might have an idea.

–

“Alright, that’s mostly it for today kids,” Dr Mellark finishes rubbing out the whiteboard and Katniss fixates on the back muscles she can she see rippling under his white button up.

“Just one last thing” he drawls, turning and picking up a stack of papers that has a collective groan rising from the class.

“In general these essays were much better than your last, though I might be a little bias because my Ph.D. thesis was on dystopian literature.”

He makes his way up and down the rows of seats, handing back essays to either groans or satisfied smirks.

Katniss’ nervousness grows as he gets closer and closer to her seat in the far back corner. She’d initially been grateful to be assigned this seat because it afforded her a view out the window, but it became a lifesaver in stopping her from drooling over Dr Mellark in the front row like most of the other girls in this class (and let’s be honest, some of the guys too when they weren’t busy shouting No Homo at each other.)

He clears his throat as he reaches her and Katniss can’t even bring herself to look up at him, instead staring at the fingers that tap on the bright red message on the front page: See me after class!  

The final bell rings and while the rest of the class flies out of the room, stuffing laptops and notebooks in their bags, Katniss lingers, taking her time to stack each piece of paper as neatly as possible before tucking it all away.

Eventually the commotion in the hallway dies down and she finds the courage to look up to the front of the class where Dr Mellark sits at his desk, brow furrowed over the frame of his glasses, arms crossed on top of the dark mahogany.

“Katniss,” he says, and her name on his lips has tingles shooting along her skin, “C’mon let’s chat.”

She bites her lip and makes her way to the chair he’s pulled up beside him, trying not to fidget with the hem of her skirt that’s a few inches shorter, or the socks that manage to make it over her knee, the blisters on her feet from her new Mary Janes.

When she finally makes it to the seat he turns to her with a raised eyebrow, hoping she’ll shed some light on what they both know is the worst essay she’s ever turned in to his class.

She stays silent, however, chewing her bottom lip and trying to subtly slide the hem of her skirt even further up her leg, crossing the left over the right towards him, wondering if he’d even appreciate the white lace panties she bought for the occasion.

(Some reckless, stupid, lovestruck part of her wondered as she stood in front of the mirror of the lingerie store change rooms, if these would be the underpants she lost her virginity to, if the white was somehow appropriate.)

She’d dreamed about it the night before. Him taking her virginity here on this desk, pulling aside her panties as he pushed her back against the wood, sliding into her. She’d woken at tried using three fingers tried to imagine what it’d feel like to have to him take her, thought about using the hairbrush in her bathroom but some sick part of her wanted him to know he was the one that owned that part of her. Tears had leaked from the corners of her eyes after she came and realised she’d probably never know.

Well fuck the odds she’s never wanted anybody in her life like she wants Dr Mellark. She doesn’t think it‘s just the dumb teenager inside of her that thinks she never will.

“Is the library taking up too much time?” He asks when she doesn’t say a thing.

Katniss just shakes her head ‘no’, the fingers of her right hand tugging her skirt up a little further. She wonders if he can smell the damp heat pooling in her panties, because she certainly can.

“I really like working there,” she finally manages, choking on the words. A blush rises in her cheeks and she takes the opportunity to fan herself, as though it’s too hot in the room.

She tries to be nonchalant about tugging at her tie, unbuttoning the first few buttons of her shirt so that he might be able to just glimpse the matching white lace of her bra.

Dr Mellark coughs and she thinks he might have, “They really need to turn down the heaters by now.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and it comes out breathy and desperate, she looks up and manages to catch his eye for just a moment, before they flicker away from her face to the essay he now holds in his hands. She thinks she sees him glance at her thighs, almost entirely exposed, but the line between wishful thinking and reality is so blurred that it’s impossible for her to tell.

“So,” he says, voice serious, a hand swipes through his blond curls and she wishes she could do the same, “Is something wrong at home, then?”

Katniss bites down hard on her lip, staring at her shoes, of course he read that much into a shitty essay.

She sees his hand reach out to maybe touch her, comfort her, but he pulls back before he does, rapping his knuckles on the desk.

“You can talk to me, Katniss, you can trust me.”

She knows this, he’s the only person in this place she feels she really can talk to or trust. He’d been her English teacher in Freshman year when she first arrived and while she’d scoffed at the girls swooning over him back then they’d actually managed to develop some kind of friendship. She’s tried not to think it was because he caught her eating lunch in the disabled bathroom and probably took pity on her ever since.

And while she didn’t have him as a teacher the following two years they’d stayed friendly. He’d give her book recommendations and helped her get the job at the library after she complained about not having any pocket money. He even introduced her to Madge by getting them to do some extra-curricular project together, and though he’d never admit it she knew it was because he thought she needed a friend.

But this year everything changed. This year, with him as her teacher once more, spending at least sixty minutes everyday together and more during debate season (even if she hates public speaking), well this year she wants him.

And the thought won’t leave her damn well enough alone.

“It’s not that,” she says, voice strong, “Home is the same as always.”

His lips turn downward, because he knows what that means and knows she thinks that her largely inadequate home life is fine.

“Then what is it, Katniss, this paper has me worried, you’re my star student and I want to help in anyway I can.”

She bites her lip, uncrossing and crossing her legs, arms outstretched as they push down into the chair, hoping to accentuate her minimal bust.

“I, uh, I’ve been distracted.”

Dr Mellark raises an eyebrow – Peeta – she thinks, wonders what he’d do if she said his name out loud.

“Is it a boy?”

She hates how his voice cracking on the end has her heart racing. But she shakes her head ‘no’, grateful once again for that little white lie.

“Is it a girl?”

She shakes her head again.

Her tongue darts out over her bottom lip and this time she’s sure she hasn’t imagined the way his eyes dart to the spot. The pupils dilate a little as they take in the sight of her wetted lips, she pulls her lip between her teeth, trying to keep his eyes fixed there as they struggle more and more to look into hers.

“I’ve been having these dreams,” she says, inching forward a fraction in the chair, closer to him.

“Nightmares?” He questions and she admires his attempt to maintain dignity. She’s gaining confidence. She can see the flush working it’s way up his neck, the scent of her arousal is overwhelming, a quick glance downward and she’s sure he’s at least a little aroused too.

“No, not exactly, but they’ve been stopping me from sleeping properly.”

His breathing shortens, his fingers clench and unclench at their spot on the desk.

“What are they about?” His adam’s apple bobs with the weight of his words.

“I’m in this classroom,” her voice drops a note or two, “Trying to write out my essay on the board for some reason.”

She inches forward again so her knee brushes against his. Dr Mellark jerks his leg away but doesn’t make her stop, doesn’t try harder even if he knows he should.

“Someone comes into the room but I don’t see who it is.”

When he relaxes she reaches her hand out to his knee, touching just lightly.

“They come up behind me and I’m scared at first.”

Her hand inches slightly higher, thumb tracing small soothing circles over his pant leg.

“But then I realise who it is.”

A little higher, she tugs an extra button open and his eyes dart to the scalloped edge of her bra.

“It’s someone I trust, someone I can talk to.”

The foot of her crossed leg bends toward his ankle. His chest starts to heave with the effort it takes him to breathe.

“So I let them push me against the whiteboard, hike up my skirt.”

A whispered moan escapes his lips, Holy fuck.

“His breath is in my ear, he says my name, he says he wants me too, he says I have to be quiet.”

She reaches the top of thigh and squeezes slightly, holding her hand there, staying quiet for a moment as she looks into eyes, searches for some indication that he’s going to stop her, that he hates her for this.

“And then he pulls aside my panties.”

She shifts her leg higher, relishing in the way his breath catches as he glimpses the crotch of her panties.

“And then he fucks me against the board and it takes everything inside me not to scream.”

The tips of my fingers trace the bulge of his erection and I watch the walls he’d been trying so hard to hold up crumble at the touch.

“What do you want to scream?” He finally rasps and I can’t help the smirk that settles on my lips.