Panem High: Freshman Year

Chapter 16

"Come on, let's dance," Gale grinned.

"No no no no no no no," Katniss said quickly. "I'm not really a dancer."

"But you're at a dance, Catnip," he insisted.

"I'm at homecoming," she specified. "I'm here to celebrate that."

"But Catnip," he pushed, "when I asked you to come to the dance with me, you should've known what you were signing up for in being my date."

"Gale!" she exclaimed. "We agreed on this! Friends!"

Gale rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I know, that's not what I meant."

"Well, you said date," Katniss scolded.

"I made plans with Clove and Thresh last week," he said, "and when we were finished talking about what we were gonna do, and we'd sorted out the place and time, Clove said, 'okay, it's a date'. She isn't dating both of us, obviously, but she meant it's a date as in 'that's the date that this is happening, I'll go mark this date on my calendar' kind of date."

"No but this is different, because you called me your date," Katniss pointed out.

"So? It's a friend date."

"No, a friend date is an event."

"Fine, you're my friend date."

"Gale."

"Date friend?"

"Gale," she sighed. "That's not a thing."

"It is! Prim is Rory's friend date to the Halloween dance at Snow." (Snow was the elementary school that most of their friend group's siblings attended, and where most of them had gone for kindergarten to eighth grade as well.)

"What?!" Katniss exclaimed. "She never told me about that! Prim tells me everything; are you sure they're going together?"

"Well, maybe Rory chickened out and hasn't asked her yet, but I know he was planning on it."

"Why would he have 'chickened out' if he just wants her to be his 'friend date'?" she asked skeptically.

"Catnip," he groaned. "He can't even order a pizza. Does it really surprise you?"

"Okay, fair," she allowed. "But still."

"We've been fighting about this for five minutes. Who cares?"

"Maybe I do? Maybe that's why I've been asking? Maybe?"

"Okay, little Miss Smartass. My point is, we're here as friends, and you're one of my best friends, so can we please not argue?"

"Who's arguing?" she shrugged.

"We are!"

"No, we aren't. I don't even know what you're talking about."

"Now we're arguing."

"About what? I don't hear any arguing."

"We're arguing about whether we're arguing, can't you see this is a little out of control?"

"Fine," Katniss said. "I'll go find someone else to dance with." She peeled her white chrysanthemum corsage off her wrist, pressed it delicately in his hand and turned on her heel.

She took a few steps forward then spun back around.

"Gotcha," she grinned, walking back over to him and slipping her corsage back onto her wrist.

"That wasn't funny, you bitch," Gale muttered.

Let's go dance," she grinned, grabbing both of his hands and pulling him into the crowd of people who were jumping around to Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars.