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She should have known better than to leave her writing intensive course requirement until senior year.
She definitely should have known better than to listen to Madge.
“You’ll love Haymitch,” Madge said way too loudly as they turned down the English wing. Flyers with Shakespeare’s mug leered down at Katniss. “Open mic! FREE COOKIES!” advertised another sign.
“I thought this was Dr. Abernathy’s class.” A group photo caught Katniss’ eye: Victor University Fall Retreat, the caption read. A bunch of artsy dipshits (who wore beanies anymore?) lined up on the dock of a lake, arms around each other, faces just a little nervous that they were going to fall into the water. Or maybe they were high.
Except for one guy in the back row. He looked directly at the camera, smile wide, blue eyes relaxed.
During the one night they’d talked, really talked, freshman year, Peeta Mellark had told her he hadn’t decided on a major but was leaning toward biology. “I’m really interested in evolution and just figuring out how life came to be. It’s insane when you think about it. We’re just one big scientific accident.”
“I’m majoring in geology,” she told him. When he’d raised his eyebrows, she’d added, “I like sediments…and stuff.”
“Good for you. I’ve heard that geology rocks,” he’d said with a straight face, and as unoriginal as that stupid line was, she’d cracked up anyway.
She suppressed a sigh now. Et tu, Peeta?
Then again, she hadn’t talked to him since that night, so why should she care?
“Haymitch is the professor,” Madge explained as they arrived at the door. Katniss’ stomach lurched. Last first day of class ever, she reminded herself. “But he’s one of those profs who’s super cool and goes by his first name, you know?”
Sure.
Classes that Katniss enjoyed: huge lectures where she could doze off in the back if she’d worked late the night before. Lab work, nothing but her and the microscope shifting in and out of focus.
Classes that made Katniss want to puke rather than attend: a teeny tiny workshop of ten people.
Including Peeta Mellark.
“Put your desks in a circle and try not to scrape them on the ground,” said the man at the front of the room, adjusting his sunglasses. “I’ve got a fucking migraine and your poetry is only going to make it worse.”
I wholeheartedly agree. She scooted her desk as close to the door as possible, trying not to make eye contact with Peeta Mellark because if she did, she’d have to face the lack of recognition in his gaze. No way he remembered antisocial Katniss who’d been stuck on campus over Thanksgiving freshman year, just like him.
He rested his plaid shirt-clad forearms on the desk and leaned forward. Even from over here, she could see the muscles straining against the shirt. Nope, he wasn’t a lost freshman boy anymore, either.
And the girl next to him clearly knew it.
Tattooed forearms, fishnet tights despite the fact that it was balls cold outside, and close-cropped brown hair streaked with purple. Confident as shit. She reached over and clamped his forearm, whispering to him. He inclined his head toward her, blue eyes wide with concern. Then they both laughed.
Goddamn writing intensive requirement.
Haymitch sauntered to the center of the circle and peered at them through his sunglasses. “Which of you asshats is majoring in creative writing?”
The eager raising of hands, Peeta’s among them.
Yep, it was awesome being the only non-major here. Thanks, Madge.
“How many of you think you’re moving to Brooklyn after graduation?”
Fewer hands, but the ones that were still up stayed strong.
Haymitch shook his head, smirking. “How many people have told you that creative writing is useless?”
Everyone’s hand went up. Finally, something Katniss could get behind.
“How many of you agree?”
One hand left. Hers.
Peeta’s perfect blond eyebrows rose up. The girl beside him jabbed him in the side and whispered. Madge’s face froze in a tense smile.
And Haymitch started laughing. “What’s your name?”
She swallowed. So much for cruising through the semester in anonymity. “Katniss Everdeen.”
No, she would not check to see if Peeta remembered her.
“A dissident,” Haymitch said. “I think I like you, Everdeen.”
…
“Hey, Katherine?”
She would have been excited, even if he’d forgotten her name. But it wasn’t Peeta, because he was still in her line of vision across the classroom. Messenger bag slung over his broad shoulder, he scratched the back of his neck as he talked to the girl next to him. Jamie. Joann. Something.
“Katniss,” she corrected Gale. She knew his name because he was always sitting out in the quad, playing his guitar behind a little placard that said Gale’s Tales. Beanie-wearing, goatee-sporting, skinny-jean-clad Gale. He seemed harmless, even though he was definitely a smaller pant size than her.
“Oh, right, sorry. Hey, listen, I was really digging your haiku.”
Don’t roll your eyes. Behave. Instead, Katniss tried to smile. “Thanks.” She didn’t mention that she’d written it as Haymitch had taken attendance. (“Taken attendance” might be giving him too much credit; the professor had said, “Anyone not here? Great” and tossed the roster onto his desk.)
“I loved the sound patterns especially. Lyrical, really.” He went on to praise her use of literary devices that she’d never heard of (what the hell was a synecdoche and why would she want one?).
“Cool. Thanks.” All the while, her eyes tracked Peeta’s motions. Her ears strained for whatever he was saying to the girl next to him.
Johanna. That was it.
Why did she have to keep touching him?
But Peeta kept on smiling. That was the kind of guy he was, Katniss knew, even though she really didn’t know him at all.
She kept waiting for his eyes to meet hers.
“So yeah, you wanna?” Gale’s voice trailed off hopefully.
Wanna what? “Sure. It’s cool if Madge joins, right?” Hopefully he hadn’t just invited her to some kind of English major sex party.
Though if Peeta were there…
Get a fucking grip. You’re not a freshman anymore.
“Who?” Gale said.
“Marguerite Undersee? Blond, buxom, wrote that Ode to A Strawberry thing as an homage to Neruda?”
“Oh.” Gale’s eyes glazed over at “buxom.” “Yeah, she can come.”
…
Which was how she wound up sitting front and center at the next performance of Gale’s (and Two Gals’) Tales.
“Let me get this straight,” she said again. “You’re not panhandling, not trying to make any money off of this.”
“Nope.” Gale tuned his guitar, hitting an errant chord, and she winced. “Besides, everyone’s money is on their student ID, so it’s not like I can ask for donations in Victor Victuals.”
“Maybe you can perform for bookstore swag,” Madge suggested, legs tucked underneath her and cheeks flushed from the cold.
As luck would have it, Gale struck up the song that had been playing on the radio as she drove home from work, her head throbbing. Pop music wasn’t really her thing and she never would have guessed it was Gale’s, but the next thing she knew, he was singing and she was joining in.
She opened her eyes and was startled to see that a small crowd had gathered. Madge was grinning, singing along while filming the performance on her phone. Katniss made a mental note to confiscate the phone later and delete the evidence.
At the edge of the crowd, a flash of blue.
But before she could look any closer, it was gone.
…
Who’s the guy? Prim texted her on Sunday night.
Inorganic Chemistry II. He’s coming home with me for Easter.
Shut up. You haven’t complained about creative writing once. I know there’s someone!
Gale had roped her in for another edition of Gale’s Tales, and he and Madge had spent the afternoon discussing how he could better build his YouTube platform. It’d been a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours, mostly because she hadn’t had to talk much. On their way back to Madge and Katniss’ apartment, they’d run into Annie, a girl from class who was sweet if a little spacey. “I’m making vegan cookies,” she said in greeting. “Do you guys want some?” And although none of them were vegan, they agreed.
Creative writing…wasn’t that bad.
…
“Open your notebook or your overpriced laptop,” Haymitch said at the beginning of the next class. “Prepare to freewrite.”
“Sometimes Haymitch has us freewrite for the entire class,” Madge whispered to her. “He does it so he can nap.”
Gale’s hand snaked up.
“No, Hawthorne, this isn’t being graded. Or collected, for that matter. Thanks to those epigrams, I won’t be low on toilet paper for a while.”
Gale lowered his hand, satisfied.
Haymitch returned to his desk, put his head on his arms, and promptly began to snore.
Bizarrely enough, nobody took the opportunity to go on their cell phones or peace out of class. They were all writing away. Occasionally, Gale cracked his knuckles or sighed loudly. “Where are you, muse of mine?” he muttered.
Peeta’s curls bounced ever so slightly as he wrote in earnest. He was a lefty at a righty desk but seemed to be compensating okay. His lips twisted as his pencil sped up, and if she could have any superpower right now, it’d be to read what he was writing. Johanna kept stealing glances, but Peeta just smiled slightly and blocked her view with one excellently-sculpted arm.
Focus, Everdeen.
“So, uh, what’s the objective here?” she asked Madge.
“You write. Freely. About anything you want.” Madge already had half a page filled with her perfectly loopy handwriting. “Just go as long as you can. Haymitch never reads them, so don’t worry about it.”
As if he’d heard them, Haymitch proffered a particularly moist snore.
I’m going to write as hard as I can until you feel it. Until these words burn into you the way your words did to me.
Katniss pulled her pen away in surprise. Where the hell did that come from? She’d planned to doodle the time away. This creative writing stuff was whack.
You know, I dreamt about you last night. We were back in the basement four years ago, but this time, we didn’t need to talk. You put your secrets in me. I never let them out.
“Enough’s enough.” Just as quickly as he’d fallen asleep, Haymitch was back on his feet. His scuffed loafers moved around the perimeter of the circle with surprising dexterity. “Let’s see what the rebel has to share with the class.”
Oh. My. God.
“I thought these weren’t—” she began, throwing her arm over her notebook, but she was a hair too slow and Haymitch plucked it up.
“They’re not graded, but they’re fair game for class participation. Buck up, sweetheart.” He started reading out loud and dimly she felt Madge’s hand pat her shoulder encouragingly.
She waited for everyone to burst out laughing, and for Peeta to stand up and say, “Who the hell are you and why aren’t you over that one time we talked?”
Except nobody laughed.
“Maybe we should try that,” Johanna said to Peeta, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Telling secrets, is that what the kids call it these days?”
Yes, they were definitely fucking.
(And Peeta didn’t blush or scoot away but smiled.)
A lot.
“Not too bad, Everdeen.” Haymitch dropped the notebook back on her desk. Who should she throw it at first: the happy couple or her professor?
“Keep going with this,” Haymitch said. “Gale, put your hand down, you’re not allowed to volunteer anymore. I’ve had enough of your song lyrics to last a lifetime. Next?”
…
“I hear vegan cookies have negative calories,” Madge said as she tugged open the door to the library.
“I think that’s what they say about celery,” Katniss said.
“Can we all agree to just get drunk?” said Gale.
“We’re in a library,” Madge reminded him.
“So?”
So maybe vegan cookies weren’t the answer to quell the raging jealousy. Or being part of Gale’s sideshow that was slowly but surely gaining hits on the Internet.
But writing might be.
Between the last creative writing class and tonight’s open mic (free cookies!), Katniss had filled up ten pages of her Inorganic Chemistry II notebook with text that Freshman Katniss would have found mortifying, but that Senior Katniss found strangely…liberating. (So long as Haymitch didn’t get his stumpy fingers on it ever again.)
Gale yanked her to the microphone for an “acoustic duet” and she rolled her eyes but indulged him. Madge swayed dreamily at the closest table, and when they finished, even Haymitch applauded. (The old man was definitely blitzed.)
She toyed with the curve of her notebook as her classmates took their three-minute turns. Until Peeta went up to the microphone and she really, really wished she could fake a phone call and get out of there and stop thinking about how he and Johanna were probably going to make out passionately and maybe strip down right here on the tables after everyone else had left—
“Hey, guys, I’m Peeta.” A whoop from the entire crowd. “This is, I guess you could say, a prose poem.” He unfolded the tidy sheet of paper and her heart swooped. What if it was about Johanna? Why was she putting herself through this? Were free cookies really worth it?
“When she sings, the birds stop to eavesdrop,” he began. “Southbound flocks circle back north for one more note. Cardinals, orioles, mockingbirds, black birds, wounded birds.”
Of course Johanna sang, too. What couldn’t the girl do?
“You think he’d be interested in a songwriting career?” Gale whispered to Madge.
“I don’t know if listing types of birds counts as a song,” Madge whispered back.
“…I wonder if she will sing to me.” His voice dropped just a bit. Despite herself, she leaned forward.
Oh, I’m sure she’s singing every night in your bedroom.
His tongue caressed every syllable. Damn you, damn you, damn you. She was so busy in her damning that she almost missed the finale.
“…Not pretty. Not beautiful. Radiant under that winter sun, but just as impossible to touch.”
As everyone applauded, it was all Katniss could do not to groan right then and there. You win, Johanna.
…
“Katniss! Wake up!” The side of her bed plunged down as her roommate leaped onto it.
“What the fuck, Madge, is something on fire? If not, I’m going back to sleep.”
“Peeta Mellark’s prose poem. It was about you!”
Katniss rolled her sleepy eyes, but even so, excitement shot through her chest. “It was fiction. Fiction-poem. Whatever.”
“He saw you singing with Gale,” Madge said. “He’s in love with your voice.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious! He’s the first subscriber to Gale’s channel. Actually, the only one so far. MuffinMan232. He put a thumbs-up on all of the videos you’re in but none of the ones where it’s Gale solo. In fact, we’ve already gotten one dislike.”
Way too much math for her slow-spinning brain. “Madge, why the hell are you checking out Gale’s stupid YouTube channel at 2:30 in the morning?”
“Um.” The faint light of the computer screen was enough to illuminate her roommate’s blush. “Insomnia?”
…
Her writing was escalating. Her real-life interactions with Peeta were not, unless you counted occasionally making awkward eye contact.
And the fact that tried as she might, a character who looked a whole lot like Peeta appeared in her flash fiction piece and started talking about wrestling his older brother.
And the fact that he read out loud a piece about a raven-haired girl leading her sister into the woods and teaching the younger girl how to hunt.
Driven by jealousy or desperation or completely lack of dignity, she’d upped the ante: a character strongly resembling Peeta in mannerisms and looks walked out of the shower one night to encounter an intruder. An exercise in dialogue, with the main character wearing a single towel.
Then Peeta wrote about watching a girl with her hair in two braids as she in turn looked out the window, looking for the man who would never return. The class was all but weeping over that one.
God, could he just stop writing about Johanna already, because they all fucking got it by now?
…
Snow was not her friend.
If it was, class would have been canceled today. Instead, she arrived twenty minutes late, slipping and sliding the whole way there. She shook the snow out of her braid and tried to take her seat quietly. Haymitch was 1) writing on the board and 2) lecturing rather than berating the class. “You need to imagine yourself into the worlds you don’t know,” he was saying. “I’m not just talking about science fiction and fantasy. Look at the person across from you. Imagine your way into their lives. In fact, I’m going to assign you someone right now.”
Her bag hit the ground. Smooth.
“Everdeen, so nice of you to join us,” Haymitch said. “You’re writing about Mellark. Undersee, I want a damn good treatise on the brain of Odair…”
Thanks a lot, snow.
How could she hope to imagine what was going on in Peeta’s head? Especially with Johanna’s ringed fingers dancing up and down his forearm right now? A straight shot to the penis, she figured. Johanna could probably get him off in a single look.
When the time for writing was over, she raised her hand before Haymitch could volunteer her.
“‘It’s hard for him to think past all of the neurons firing under his skin,’” she started. “‘They burn directly under the scars and he believes that if he lets them go long enough, the scars will turn to ash, too.’”
“Why isn’t she writing my lyrics?” Gale said to Madge.
Peeta was watching her now. Really watching.
She forced her eyes back down to the page. “‘But she has that instant effect on him. She knows the exact scars to skip and the ones that are no longer so tender. He tries to keep his mind on imagining his way into someone else’s skin, except that’s when the throbbing—’”
“Enough’s enough!” Johanna interrupted. “What went down between you guys, brainless? Or, should I ask, who went down?”
Haymitch stared at them, stunned into silence.
Nobody and nothing went down. They’d talked. That was all.
For the entire night.
And at the diner the next morning, bleary-eyed with eggs over easy and quarters that they’d scrounged together as a tip and for taxi fare. Katniss hadn’t been able to afford the trip home for Thanksgiving. Peeta just hadn’t wanted to go, period.
They’d talked about everything. The small towns and siblings they’d both left, growing up without enough food on the table, losing her father, his mom’s verbal abuse. His dreams of doing everything and anything. Her dreams of just surviving school, working that summer USGS internship, and providing for her sister. In the span of twelve hours, Katniss had revealed more of herself to this stranger who lived on the third floor than she’d shared with anyone else, ever.
And then her roommate Delly had bounded in, smelling of fresh linens and home, and the spell was broken. “Hey,” Peeta said sometimes in the hallway, looking like he wanted to say more, but Katniss just offered a half-smile and hurried away. With everyone else back and the usual rhythm of papers and tests and people having sex in the next room, Thanksgiving felt like a dream. An oasis of a memory that became less real the more time passed.
“Brainless, it’s clear that you want his dick,” Johanna said. “Peeta, you’re trapped in some kind of romantic comedy, but without the comedy. And I think I speak for all of us when I say that we could live without the poetic masturbation.”
“Are you kidding me?” Gale said, his tiny chest puffing out. “This is real live participatory art happening right in front of us. We should feel honored to witness it.”
“Yeah,” Madge piped in. “Let the people write what they want.”
“I think it’s sweet,” Annie said softly from the far side of the circle.
“I stand corrected.” Johanna pinned Katniss with her glare. “Poetic circle jerk.”
“Prose.”
“Excuse me?”
Katniss cleared her throat. No backing down now. “Prose circle jerk. I fucking hate poetry.”
“That’s it,” Haymitch said, recovering. “We’re going to read goddamn For Whom the Bell Tolls for the rest of the semester, and if there is so much as a peep of shenanigans, you all fail. Understand?”
…
“Sorry I ruined your class,” Katniss said for the hundredth time, staring down at her mug of hot chocolate. They had a snow day. One day too late, as far as she was concerned.
Outside, students slid down the hill on lunch trays. Music thudded from someone’s dorm room window.
“It’s fine,” Madge said, fiddling with her phone. “It was memorable, that’s for sure. Hey, do you mind if Gale stops over?”
“As long as he doesn’t make us watch another documentary about animal cruelty.”
A knock on the door.
Katniss turned the handle. “Wow, Gale, did you teleport—oh!”
Not Gale.
Peeta, covered in snow, the melted bits dripping down his forehead and catching on his long blond lashes.
“Katniss, hey. Um, do you mind if I take off my boots? I’m a little frozen.” For the first time all semester, Peeta sounded nervous.
Understandable. According to Johanna, Katniss was nuts.
“I have to check on my grilled cheese. You guys make yourselves comfortable, okay?” In a flash, Madge was out of the room and in their apartment’s tiny kitchen.
“You, uh, left your notebook in class the other day.”
He might as well have handed her a dead body.
Dear God, what if he’d read it?
She took it without looking and tossed it behind her. “Thanks. Sorry you had to walk all the way over here.” What she really meant was, “Sorry for publicly humiliating you.” Except without being able to prepare her words beforehand, she didn’t know what to do.
“So Gale’s coming over, huh?” He leaned against the doorframe, more snow melting off of his jacket and pooling at his feet.
Their feet. He stood surprisingly close.
“Yeah, he and Madge are talking business for his Facebook page during post-coital recovery sessions.”
“Katniss!” Madge squeaked. “That is not what we’re doing.”
“Okay, maybe just sex.” A box of pasta sailed in her general direction.
Peeta’s eyebrows furrowed. “But I thought you and Gale were, you know.” When she shook her head, the frown deepened. “All of the duets? The love songs?”
“He just needed a female foil,” she said.
“Oh,” he said, considering. “Well, you do have a beautiful voice.”
If she didn’t know how to apologize to him, she definitely didn’t know what to do with a compliment. They stood there in suspended silence until he cleared his throat. “Also, I came here to tell you something else.”
This was it. The moment he announced that he’d asked for a restraining order.
“Johanna and I aren’t dating. We became friends sophomore year when her ex-boyfriend dumped her for a sixteen-year-old. Now he’s back in the picture and they’re engaged. Or maybe they eloped, I’m not sure. Johanna’s not really one for frills.”
Whoa. Information overload.
The first coherent thought she could muster was, “But what about all of the touching?”
He shrugged. “That’s just the way she is.”
“And the fact that she verbally assaulted me?”
“We’re best friends and she doesn’t want me to get hurt. It’s annoying, but I love her for it.” He paused. “Also, if you think that was verbal assault, well, that was a tame day for Johanna. She really likes you now, by the way.”
Too much to take in. Too many words. Too many water droplets coupling on his lashes, making them glow.
“Something like, ‘Any girl who throws the words “prose circle jerk” in my face is okay with me.’”
“Come here,” she said suddenly, shutting the door. “It’s…it’s cold out there. Just stay awhile.”
“Okay,” he said, tugging off his jacket.
And it was just like four years ago.
Except that this time, they didn’t have to talk.
…
When she woke up, her notebook was placed neatly on the dresser with a Post-It on top.
Katniss,
Inorganic Chemistry II? I’m even more impressed by you than I was before.
I had leave early to dig out my car this morning. But there’s this place that has the most delicious vegan cookies, if you’re into that sort of thing.
I’d like to have your secrets in me if you’ll have mine.
Peeta