There were only a small handful of people in Panem who knew the truth about the lives of the Hunger Games' victors. What the whole country saw was the propaganda, the pretty dresses and well-tailored suits, the perfectly scripted interviews and the dazzling parties. That was what they put on TV to paint a picture for the public. What most people didn't realize was that there really were no victors of the Hunger Games. Once you were Reaped, your choices were gruesome death or a role to play after the arena as the Capitol's plaything in one sense or another. Life as a victor was anything but victorious.
It's enough to drive anyone mad, Finnick thought.
He didn't know how long he'd been sitting on the back porch of his house in the Victor's Village. He didn't know how long he'd been tying and untying the piece of rope in his hands. He didn't even know what day it was. He had returned earlier that day from another "appointment" in the Capitol. President Snow had summoned him to his mansion to promise him many more in the near future and to tell him to "keep up the good work." It had been all Finnick could do to hold down his lunch.
He should have just died in the arena. Surely death wouldn't have felt so much like enslavement.
"Finnick?"
The unexpected voice, soft though it was, nearly made him jump out of his skin. He hadn't even heard her behind him.
"Oh, Annie…I'm sorry, I didn't see you there." His voice sounded far away, even to himself.
"Are you okay?" She sat down next to him.
"I'm fine," he said, not looking her in the eye.
"No, you're not." Annie tried to get him to look at her. He stayed frozen to his chair, trying to rein in the terror that seemed to be devouring him from the inside out. "Finnick, it's just me. You don't have to bottle this up inside you. What is it?"
Instead, he got up off the porch chair he'd been sitting on for the past few hours and began pacing madly back and forth.
"I don't even know anymore, Annie. I think I'm losing my mind…I don't know what's real and what's not. I don't know who I am. I'm nobody. I'm just their slave, their puppet. Nothing more. I'd be better off dead. God, why couldn't they have just let me die?"
He leaned forward onto the railing and buried his face in his hands, on the brink of a panic attack. He hated letting anyone see him like this, especially Annie. He tried so hard to be strong for her, and yet here he was, on the verge of a full-blown meltdown.
Annie walked over and slowly, carefully, wrapped her arms around him from behind. "It's okay, Finn," she said softly. "It's okay. Just breathe. That's all you have to focus on, just like you always tell me. I won't let you go. Just breathe."
He did. He closed his eyes and forced himself to come back to Earth. All he had to focus on…in, out, in out. Slowly. Listen to her voice. In, out, in out.
He scrubbed at his eyes with still violently shaking hands before facing her and returning her hug, burying his face in her dark hair. And they just stood there for an amount of time that neither of them could determine, anchoring each other to the Earth, being each other's barrier between nonsense and reality.
"I'm so sorry, love." Finnick whispered.
"Don't," Annie replied. "Just don't. You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing at all."
"I don't deserve you…I'm just the Capitol's toy, I'm damaged goods, I'm…"
Annie shushed him with her finger over his lips. "Stop that," she said gently. "You are neither of those things, Finnick. The Capitol is a terrible place full of brainwashed people that wouldn't know right from wrong if it stared them in the eyes. They're sick and twisted and cruel. But you're not. You are Finnick Odair, and you are nobody's toy. You may not be able to control what happens to you. But you can control how you face it." She gave him a soft smile. "And don't you ever think, even for a second, that I love you with anything less than my entire heart and soul. I don't care what President Snow or anyone says." With that, she pulled him into a kiss that sealed her words with absolute truth.
After they broke apart, Finnick gave her the first real smile that he'd given anyone in days. "I really don't know what I'd do without you, you know."
"You'll never have to find out, if I have anything to say about it."
Finnick wrapped one arm around her shoulders. "Care for a walk down the beach?"
Annie wrapped her arm around his waist. "Always."