Panem High: Freshman Year

Chapter 31

Trigger warning: very brief acknowledgement of self-harm.

Glimmer's phone alarm vibrated under her pillow. She checked the time. Was it 12:30 already?

She tossed around for a while but eventually pushed off her covers and rolled out of bed, slinking into her bathroom as quietly as she could. She had been planning to put on some makeup or something, but these were her friends, she reminded herself. She wasn't trying to please anyone - they didn't care what she looked like - but she hated feeling like a slob, so she decided to at least brush her hair out a little. She slid a hair tie on her wrist in case the Georgia humidity got to be too much, and slipped downstairs. She grabbed two cans of Pringles and a fruit tray from the fridge and stuffed them into a backpack she took from the mudroom.

She heard a thud in the living room and stopped cold. She listened for any other noise, but there was nothing. She crept in as quietly as she could and flicked on the light, and there was her brother and some girl she'd never seen before making out with their shirts off.

"Glimmer!" he yelled, throwing a pillow at her. The girl twirled one of her wild black curls around her finger and rolled her eyes as Gabe held his arms in front of his chest and scrambled to find his shirt.

"Yes, Gabe, cover your boobs," the girl said. "I'm Fallon," she told Glimmer, holding out her hand to shake, clearly not ashamed of the fact that she was wearing nothing other than a bra and the tiniest shorts Glimmer had ever seen... or maybe they were underwear? She announced that she was hungry and sauntered into the kitchen.

"Gabriel James, I can't believe you," Glimmer chastised.

"You're sneaking out at one o'clock in the morning, I think the ethics ship has sailed for you, honey," he retorted.

"It's one already?" she exclaimed.

"Yeah. Go."

"You better not tell Momma," she warned.

"Pfft, and give you leverage to tell her I was hooking up with someone on her couch? Please. I'm not stupid."

"Well..."

"Just get out of here," he said, shoving her and rolling his eyes.

"Tell your, uh... girlfriend-?"

"Something like that."

"- that it was nice to meet her."

"Sure thing. Now scram, you little punk. I'm in the middle of something..." he trailed off.

"You're disgusting."

Glimmer slid into a pair of flip flops at the front door and shouldered the backpack, clicking the door shut behind her. As she walked, she did her best to put that image behind her. Walking half a mile in nothing but shitty Walmart flip flops was agony, and she was relieved when she finally got to the school.

She tripped over a tree root protruding from the ground and swore, and not a second later, she saw a short little flaming ball of rage storming towards her.

"Glimmer Belcourt, where have you been?" Clove demanded, folding her arms in front of her chest. Glimmer noticed a few thin pink scars on her best friend's exposed forearms, but they didn't look too recent. It upset her, of course, but it looked a lot better than it had in the past. "We have been waiting here for twenty minutes!" Clove pressed on.

"I got, uh, delayed," Glimmer explained, telling Clove about Gabe and Fallon as the two walked towards the bleachers together.

"Ew! So you just walked in on your brother hooking up with some random girl?" Clove exclaimed.