Tough Love | EVERLARK

Where the boy with the dimples steals a doughnut.

minor TW for mentions of child abuse.

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EIGHT YEARS AGO

It had seemed like the entire world was against Katniss Everdeen.

Even the rain that poured around her paid no heed to her already foul mood. Twelve, who knew you had to be twelve years old for food stamps? What was she going to do now?

Kicking a stone across the road as hard as she could did nothing to alleviate Katniss' anger. She was soaked to the bone.

Her coat was so tight it was suffocating, she had tried to tell Mother that it was too small for her, but nothing seemed to get through to Mother nowadays.

Her father had only died a couple of months ago, but already Katniss was terrified that she and Prim would waste away. One measly school dinner a day did nothing for the two of them. And this morning Katniss realised that there was no food in the house, not even a leftover packet or a tin of something disgusting.

They had been living on these leftovers for the past two months, and Katniss knew that they had to run out at some point, but she hadn't realised it would be so soon.

School had ended over two hours ago now, and Katniss worried that leaving Prim at home hadn't been a wise decision, she didn't trust her mother to even know if Prim was there, let alone if she had hurt herself.

What if Prim was to fall and cut herself? What would her mother do? Would her Doctor instincts kick in? Katniss could only hope.

Katniss was tired, no, exhausted, and she was starving. So with all of this ailing her, the tears that came from her eyes were not voluntary. The stream of tears was as thick as the rain that was falling out of the sky.

She cursed her father, cursed the drunken man who had crashed into him that night, cursed the paramedics for declaring him dead on impact, cursed her mother for being so foolish to be that in love with somebody.

As Katniss wandered around aimlessly, she vowed she would never feel that way for anybody, never get married or have any children. There was no point to any of it, all it brought was pain.

The agonising smell of fresh bread filled her nose as she realised she had made it into the Merchant Highstreet of District Twelve.

Katniss felt desperate, desperate enough to begin running to where she knew the back entrance of the bakery to be.

Countless times when her father was alive she had followed and stood with him as he'd traded with the baker. Katniss was unaware of what was traded, but all she remembered was when Peeta Mellark had given her one of his cookies for free the last time she had gone with her father.

That felt like a lifetime ago now, but in reality, had only been a short nine weeks ago.

Using whatever energy she had left, Katniss made it to the back of the bakery, throwing open the lid of the massive rubbish bin, practically diving in as she searched for anything, anything that could be edible. She couldn't go home without something for Prim, she just couldn't.

Before Katniss could be disappointed, she felt herself get lifted from the rubbish bin by her collar, the shrill Scandinavian-accented voice of Ms Mellark filling her ears.

"You dirty Seam rat, out of my bins, out!" Ms Mellark had shouted, pulling Katniss to the sodden ground with one movement and proceeding to hit Katniss with the handle of her broom. Katniss cried in pain, trying and failing to scramble away from the woman.