Panem High School {COMPLETED}

Chapter 17 - Clove

(Clove's POV)

Things get better very quickly. It's hard to have a bad day with Johanna as your friend. She has the freakishly good ability of finding the silver lining of every cloud, and then joking her way through everything else. And, to my relief, the only people who treat her differently are Glimmer's closest friends. And, for the most part, everyone just leaves me alone.

Friday, Johanna drags me over to the drama classroom. For the most part, she doesn't show much enthusiasm about things, but drama is different. She loves it. And she's a great actress.

She pushes her way through a group kids flocked around the drama classroom door, pulling me after her.

Glimmer is standing directly in front of the sheet, but she moves over a bit when Johanna gets there, probably so she won't be trampled. She manages a disdainful look at me before turning back to the sheet.

"Yes!" Johanna shouts, then gives me a high five.

"What?" I ask.

"I'm the witch!" A couple of kids congratulate her. I smile.

"What?!" Glimmer's shouting drowns out everyone else. We all turn to her. "I got the baker's wife?! This has to be a mistake!"

Johanna frowned. "What's wrong with it? It's a good part."

"I didn't want this part! I wanted Cinderella. Who got Cinderella?" She stares at the sheet again, then apparently finds Cinderella and stomps her foot.

"Who got it?" I asks innocently.

Glimmer glares at me, but I think the anger is probably more directed at the person who got "her" part than at me. "Katniss Everdeen has zero talent, at least compared to me! This isn't fair!"

"What are you going to do? Tell your grandpa?" Johanna asks mockingly, then laughs. "It's show biz. No one said it's fair. Though, in my opinion, that seems pretty fair."

Glimmer opens her mouth to say something, then apparently decided against it. She turns and stomps away, probably to complain to Cato. A little wave as sadness washes over at me at that. Cato and I were so close, and now we can't even talk to each other.

Johanna seems to notice something's wrong. "You ok?" she asks as we walk away. I nod. I don't want to talk about it right now.

We walk outside, and someone honks their horn a few times. Johanna glances over and curses under her breath. "How could I forget that?" She turns to me. "I have to go, I have some annoying cousins coming in town and we have to go pick them up at the airport. See ya later!" She runs off towards her dad's car.

I wave, then start walking home as her dad drives away. Suddenly, someone runs into me, knocking me over. I hear a thud, meaning whoever it was fell over as well. He quickly scrambles to his feet, then holds out a hand to help me up.

"Thank y..." The words die on my lips as I look up into Cato's blue eyes. His smile fades and he takes a step back, pulling his hand away.

"Um... Clove... I-" he gets cut off by someone shouting his name. Shaking his head, like he was clearing his thoughts, he reaches down and grabs a football. "Sorry about that," he says cooly and jogs back over to his friends.

I watch him run off, and I can't stand it anymore. I quickly turn and start towards my house. Maybe I can get home before the tears start to fall.

It's bad enough that I never got over him. He seems to have forgotten about me just fine. I've rarely been jealous of Glimmer, but I can't say I ever stopped liked Cato. And now, we can't even be friends. And it's like my whole world is crumbling to pieces.

Once I've locked my front door behind me, the floodgates open. I curl up on my bed and weep my heart out. How is this fair? Why am I the one who has to go through this? What did I do to deserve this?

Slowly, the tears trickle to a stop. I sit on my bed, wishing I had more to cry. How can I escape this? My thoughts flit to the box in my mom's room. And before I know what I'm doing, Im sitting on the bathroom floor, staring at the razor in my hand. And I slide it across my skin.