Clato: The forgotten love.

Chapter 13

This chapters kinda short but I think it's pretty good, please read (:

Cloves POV:

I meet Ian by the main staircase right after language arts.

"I only have 5 minutes till I have to go to training with Cato," I say. "What do you want?"

"Damn Clover, you must have had a bad day," My eyes go wide at the nickname.

"What did you call me?" I ask.

"I just called what Cato called you!" He says getting a little defensive.

"Cato called me Clover?!" I ask. "When?!"

"I don't know," He responds. "Like a few weeks ago or something. Why do you care so much?"

"I don't," I say. Do I? "What did you want to talk about?"

Ian's smart enough to drop the Clover thing. "After you finish your training with Cato, I'm going to his house and I'm going to talk to his mom,"

"But, what if she..."I cut in.

"I'm going," he says. "I was a jerk to Cato and his mom is a jerk to him every day. You can come if you want, it doesn't matter to me."

"I'll go," I decided. "Right after training, I'll tell Cato to go to my house and that I'll be a little late." Ian nods and looks down at the time.

"We should get going," he says. I nod.

I make my way to the training gym to see Cato already in there, sword fighting a dummy. I watch him for a second, he seems angrier than normal. He's slashing the dummy over and over, white stuffing flies everywhere. He turns and sees me in the doorframe.

"What took you so long?" he asks.

"I had to stop by my locker," I gesture to the athletic bag in my hands. He nods.

"Well, we should get started," he says, looking down at the stuffing littering the floor.

"I can help you clean up," I offer. " If you want" Cato's already gathering the stuffing but he looks up at me.

"Thanks," he says as I squat down and start to collect the stuffing he's gathered and bring it to the trash can in the corner of the room.

Once we finish cleaning up we start training. I start by just taking a few laps and lifting weights, then it's finally to fighting. Cato and I decide to do the same thing that I had been doing during group training.

While the girl who was fighting me earlier was good, Cato's easily ten times better. We fight, both of us trying different maneuvers to get around, each time I fall down, we start again. I don't notice that an hour has gone by and I don't think Cato has either. Cato strikes me across the chest with the blunt sword and I fall to the ground.

"You could've blocked that," He says.

"You striked to fast," I complain.

"That usually doesn't stop the unstoppable Clover," He adds, then he blushes. I do too. Why does he keep calling me Clover?

"Lets just go again," I say, standing up and getting into the ready position. Cato does too.

"Ready?" he asks.

"Ready," I respond, staring straight at him. Then Cato lunges for me, but I dodge him. I spin around him and all of a sudden we've switched places. I lunge toward him, letting my sword fly toward his left thigh, but he dodges me. We go back and forth for a while until finally I think I have the upper hand. I fly at Cato, and hit his chest with all my strength. Cato stumbles and I push hit him again, he falls. Yes, I finally beat him. A loud thud echoes throughout the gym, then a hurt whimper comes from Cato.

I look down at him, he's clutching his ankle like it just snapped in half.

"You ok?" I ask, squatting down next to him.

"Yeah" He says unconvincingly.

"No you're not," I say, I can tell by his face, How his eyes gloss over like he's trying not to cry, and how he clutches his ankle, staring into my eyes.

"I am," He says, but he winces as he says it. "Ok, I'm not." He gives up trying to convince me otherwise.

"What happened?" I ask.

"I don't know, I just fell, and...god it hurts," A single tear falls down his face and that's when I know he's hurt. Cato isn't the kind of person to show even the tiniest bit of weakness.

"I'm going to go get someone," I say, getting to my feet.

"No, It's not that serious," he says, but as he talks he slightly turns. He winces at the motion, the hold around his ankle tightening.

I don't look back as I jog out of the gym and head toward the main office, but before I can get there, I bump into Coach Cassidy.

"Sorry," I say, then I notice who I'm talking to. "I need your help" 

Thanks for reading and please read the other chapters. As always main characters belong to Suzanne Collins.