"She's dead, Katniss. She's dead." There is this quality to his voice, to his expression that makes my eyes water. Because I know- I've been there. It's impossible to believe, at first. The world seems to slow down, and yet everyone keeps going. And- and, there is this big thing of nothingness. Dead, dead. What does it even mean?
I imagine it to be like an accident. The way everything slows down until it hits. The way the impact is brutal. Because when it hits, it is so much more than just a word. So much more than unseeing eyes, even.
It's- it's the knowledge. Never again. Never again will you see them smile, will you laugh, will you cry. They will never hold you again, talk to you, and comfort you when you break. And it's such a huge loss. It's like a piece of your heart gets torn out, it's this emptiness in your chest that suddenly makes it so hard to breathe, it's this dull ache that slows down your mind, this sluggishness that comes over you.
Dead. Gone. Forever.
And you still love them. They are gone, but they still own that part of you that loves them, and all this raw love has no place to go anymore, so it collapses inside of you, searching, searching for some place to go, tearing you apart from the inside out.
There is nothing anyone can do, and that is maybe the worst thing of all. How quick the world moves on. How things keep happening. How Coin will call a meeting later and discuss their new strategy, without even a pause or a minute of silence. She sees a casualty of war. She sees an acceptable loss. She sees the greater good.
But Finnick has just lost a part of his life that he will never, ever get back. And I want to fix it, I really do, but there is nothing I can do about it. Nothing, but offer comfort and strength I don't even feel. Nothing but be there, and feel wholly inadequate, wholly lacking.
"I'm so sorry, Finnick," and my voice breaks too.
Two victors stand in the darkness of District 13's underground, arms wrapped around each other, not understanding how this is a victory at all.
.
Things get worse.
How could they not?
It has been seventy-five years in the making.
(Children died. Children were killed, murdered. Innocence was lost.)
.
Finnick throws himself into the fight, and I just stand there and watch him. I watch him get more and more brutal in fighting, using al his pent up anger in training. It is not until he almost kills a trainer that they pull him out. He sobs and he screams and he threatens but it is to no avail, and I watch him get dragged away. Joanna uses my momentary distraction to knock me to the floor, but she is watching, too.
I bring a piece of rope to his room later, a short one. I don't trust him to not hang himself.
(I don't trust myself either.)
He takes it, and I see that he knows the reason why it is so short, a bitter not-quite smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth for a second, but he simply starts making knots, and counting. I stand up, but before I can leave he takes my hand, pulls me back, and so I simply sit next to him, and try to breathe. I still am not used to the air they have in thirteen. I yearn for the forest of twelve; I yearn to see the trees.
.
It is like your lungs forget how to breathe, forget how to get that precious oxygen out of the air, forget how to expand and collapse. It is like your rib cage forgets how to function, forgets it has to protect your heart. It is like your heart forgets how to pump your blood to your body, forgets how to beat and be a raw mass of life, it is like your nerve endings forget how to rest, and they burn and they burn, it is like your eyes forget how to see, constantly blurring your vision with salt, they seem to be in an eternal competition to make the most tears, it seems like your cheeks forget how not to itch, it seems like your mouth forgets how to smile, cracked lips and cracked corners and dry tongue-
You are screaming, can't they see? Help me, help me, help me please. I am dying, can't you see? Can't you see how my bones are collapsing and my blood is running cold, can't you see how my body is a burden to me, can't you see the red tracks my nails are leaving on my skin.
Can't you see?
.
It is Finnick.
When I open my eyes it is Finnick, pushing the water from my lungs, blowing air inside my mouth, forcing my heart to beat.
I scream, I scramble, I push him away, I claw at him with my nails, still red from the wounds I've made on my arms but he is stronger than me, always has been, pushes me down and forces me to keep still, warms my body with his and I hate him for it.
"How dare you," I'll say later, after my bravery/cowardice is long gone, after I have pulled some pieces back together, and it will not come out nearly as accusing as I meant it to.
He will bandage my arms and he will say "No, how dare you."
He will not say I know what it is like, I feel it too, he will not say you are not allowed to leave me, you are the only thing I still have left, he will not say don't give in, it takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart, he will not say any of this. He will not need to.
Finnick and I, we are wired the same, we understand each other without having to speak, we have both lost so much and we know.
I will not ask him to stay, but he will do it anyways, wrap his arm like a vice around my body, my frail human body as if afraid that I will disappear if he does not hold me tight but I will not say a word because I will be holding him tighter.
There will be only one word in my mind until I fall asleep, only one word until the nightmares come, playing on and on like a broken record, stuck and useless, dead, dead, dead.
Peeta.
.
How much does it takes before a human breaks and falls apart?
How much before the heart just stops beating?
Peeta's heart still beats, but his mind has shut down, his eyes are empty and his tongue is a dead weight in his mouth, his limbs not responding to commands.
Haymitch pushes a bottle of spirits into her chest and whispers "it is time."
She drinks it all.
He holds her as she throws up, blood and food and salt and alcohol all mixed together, and she keeps dry heaving for a long time after her stomach has been emptied.
.
Coin pulls me out of training too.
I am the Mockingjay, I need to be protected, and I need to be kept safe.
Finnick hands me a piece of rope that evening; a short one, barely enough to make knots, but I understand.
I hand him a bag of sugar cubes and watch a smile flit over his face.
He tells me it helps, lays his hands over mine to direct my fingers and falls asleep watching me.
When he wakes up, I have lost track of how many knots I have made, my eyes are burning, the rope is red with my blood.
But my mind is finally empty. And I keep making knots.
.
The districts have all been conquered, and the capitol looms closer and closer still. she sits in the meeting, and doesn't say a word. They don't need her to anyways. They discuss and they plot and they plan and she sits silently and she listens, to the hate, to the body count, to the way Coin sounds frightfully familiar to Snow.
She holds a long stemmed white rose in her hand, twists it around and around, and when Coin looks at her she smiles. It is ugly, it is lethal, but she smiles back, even uglier, even more lethal.
"What about the Mockingjay?"
"I have but one request," she says.
"Speak."
"I get to kill President Snow."
.
We get send into the capitol.
It's a show, it's a pretence, it's the fact that the Mockingjay is not broken, that she is mourning Peeta but still strong, that she is a leader.
It's to show of Finnick too, the capitol' golden boy, pearly whites and charming smile, carefully tousled hair.
Look at us.
Look at us victors and root for us, like you did before.
Root for us to kill, like you did before.
Watch us throw tridents and shoot arrows and admire our beauty, watch us speak propos and admire our grace, ooh and ah at our appearances, laugh at our jokes, gasp at our reveals.
Pretend you care.
.
Finnick's lips taste like salt and Gale is watching and she misses the smell of bread and hates the smell of the sea but her lips taste like salt too, like salt and blood and she kisses him harder, pulls away and slaps him.
"You don't get to die, Finnick!" And her voice cords are ripped and her voice comes out scraping and harsh and she is a mess, a mess, but the mutts almost got him and she is so beyond caring and she cares so much, too much, too much.
He pulls her in, unrelenting, hard, covers her mouth with his again and they both pretend not to notice the other is whispering a name that does not belong to them, that does not belong to the living anymore.
.
"Annie."
"Peeta."
.
She watches the parachutes fall from the sky, feels her heart seize up as they explode, sees the nurses push past.
She feels more than she sees the blonde hair, the braid, the shirt that is not quite tucked in, the little duck-tail.
She is soaring, falling, there is nothing to catch her and she pushes past and screams and yells and she is almost there-
Her life is defined by the word almost.
The rest of the parachutes go off, and she watches her dreams, inspiration and reason to live literally go up in smoke.
.
"Oh my dear Miss Everdeen, I thought we had an agreement not to lie to each other."
"Make no mistake; she was intending to take my place right from the beginning."
I'm still on fire, I have to be. Snow's sentences keep rolling through my mind, one by one, make no mistake, I thought we had an agreement, your sister.
The pain is excruciating, I double over and cry, make no mistake, make no mistake, make no mistake.
Prim, Prim, Primrose.
Again it is Finnick who finds me. He holds me, and he is not Peeta, and he is not Prim, and I try to push him away, try to stop smelling the sea and search for bread, for goats, for herbs, but he holds me tighter.
"Coin wants to see the victors."
Make no mistake.
.
The least loss of lives.
Another Hunger Games.
Make no mistake.
Finnick votes no and tells us that Annie would have done the same.
Johanna and Enobaria vote yes.
Beetee votes no.
In her heart, she knows that Peeta would've said no, but Peeta, but Prim.
"I vote yes... for Prim," she says.
"I stand with the Mockingjay," Haymitch says. She almost has to smile.
But Finnick looks at her, and she sees Peeta in his eyes. She almost takes her vote back.
Her life is defined by the word almost.
.
I shift the point of my arrow up. I release the string. President Coin falls, dead.
I look at President Snow, but I needn't have worried: under the rose I picked out for him, a trident is firmly lodged in his chest.
Finnick stops me from getting to the night lock, simply takes my hand and holds on tight and I look him in the eyes and I understand.
I still scream when the guards tear us apart.
.
Green eyes, a charming smile, carefully tousled hair.
A braid down her back, short because the flames burned most of her hair, but her body is hers now.
The smell of the sea.
Hunter's clothes.
"Finnick."
"Katniss."
Their lips don't taste like salt anymore.