Tough Love | EVERLARK

Where a scowling girl meets the baker's boy.

Katniss knew that she would never get used to the hustle and bustle of city life. Born and bred in the countryside and practically raised in the woods that surrounded her home town of District Twelve, she was used to a certain level of quietness.

Living in Capitol City had taken some amount of time to get used to, with never-ending hollering, sirens and parties.

Katniss marvelled over the amount of bodies that bumped into each other every day, everyone scrambling for a place to fit in.

After living here for six months, one would imagine that she would be more adjusted by this point. But she was no less shocked and scandalised by the behaviour of city folk.

It was a rare day for Katniss, with just the clothes on her back and her camera slung over her shoulder, she had no running around to do, no coffees to make for bossy executives, and certainly no asses to kiss.

She knew that being afforded a much-coveted internship at Fireshot Focus, a well-respected and highly exclusive photography agency, was an opportunity of a lifetime. An opportunity that meant that she had to wait some substantial time before she could do what she wanted. And all Katniss wanted to do was take photos that everyone would see.

It had seemed so stupid to her at first, to make her most cherished hobby her job. Katniss had been living behind a lens for most of her life. Her father gifted his beloved film camera to her on her eleventh birthday, just shy of a year before his death.

He was the one who introduced her to a life of capturing everything around her, teaching her everything he knew about the art.

Just a few short years ago, this would have been out of the realm of possibility for Katniss.

Ever since the loss of her father in a car accident, she had abandoned the role of big sister in favour of acting more like a mother towards her younger sister Primrose.

Being only eleven at the time of the death, Katniss could not understand why her mother had become practically catatonic after the death of Katniss' dad. She remembered the pleading and begging as she screamed at her mother to get out of bed. She could never forget her mother's blank, emotionless face as she cried, telling her that neither she nor Prim had eaten for days.

Katniss could remember perfectly the numbness of the hunger that had ravished her and her baby sister for those months before she started receiving the food stamps.

She had to be twelve for some reason to collect the food. So in the meanwhile, Katniss had done everything in her power so that nobody would call Child Protective Services on her mother, who was still unmoving in her bed, only rising to either go to the bathroom or eat the morsels Katniss gave to her.

Katniss and Prim would both receive free lunches at least, only leaving two other meals unaccounted for.

So Katniss did what she could during that time. She learned how to steal from the local shops, hiding tins of soup and packets of rice under her father's hunting jacket.

Soon she perfected the skill, but only daring to do it in their most desperate moments.

During the time before Katniss had learned to steal, she remembered being slumped over against a wall out of pure hunger. She had tried to search through the local bakery's rubbish bin, but had found it empty, causing her immense pain as the bakers wife had come out, screaming and brandishing a broom, hitting her until the baker had intervened.

Bloodied and bruised, Katniss had given up hope, knowing that was probably her last opportunity to bring home anything for Prim to eat.

She remembered smelling burning before she spotted him, a boy who also attended her school but was about a year older than her, Peeta Mellark.