"For you, who has suffered enough."


Everyone knows. After all, the concept of secrecy within a high school is more dated than the computers in the basement "technology" lab. So, it isn't a secret to anyone that she's crazy. Oh, no. The gossip-mongers who normally spread secrets like caked lip gloss exclusively amongst their own social circles make special exception for a case as spectacular as Annie's. The tales spun about her, some exaggerated, some understated, all perfectly crafted to breed a special kind of disdain for a girl whose only notable offense was being quiet and isolated, tromp across clique lines and smash social barriers until everyone, from the most infamous prom queen to the least notable punk, shudders when they hear her name called in class or whispered in passing through the hallway. If it isn't about the time she hummed through while taking an English exam, then it's about the time she spent the night in the library because she was too afraid to walk home in the rain.

And because everyone thinks they know the character of Annie Cresta's mind, Finnick Odair receives the most pitying of displays when it's announced he will be tutoring her after school in history. The moment the statement crosses his teacher's lips, the entire classroom freezes, as if their spines were held in vices made of ice. Eyes, downcast and apologetic, turn to survey the man in question, penetrating his suddenly dumbstruck form.

"I'm sorry?" He asks, inclining his head forward as if he hadn't heard, when in reality, he heard but hopes on hope that he heard incorrectly.

The teacher wipes the chalk from her hands, leaving stains of white on her grey-knit pencil skirt, and smiles at the young man. Such a good young man, she thinks to herself, her aging features glowing as she looks at him. Such a good young man. Minds authority well. Represents the school as Head of the Student Council. Has set records and won medals in any athletic endeavor he's pursued. Yes. Such a good young man if there ever was one. Surely, this additional task wouldn't be too big a burden for him to shoulder.

"Annie Cresta. She's a Junior and needs some tutoring after being away from school for a family emergency," she clarifies.

All the air in the room seems to evaporate as people struggle to hold in their laughter at that blatant lie. Family emergency, indeed. The secrets of that lie are as well-known as any other Crazy Cresta story out there. About three weeks ago, she was eating lunch by herself when a group of social services representatives dragged her from the cafeteria, the school principal and superintendent following grimly behind. No one knows the particulars, not exactly, but the general consensus of the story was that she was deemed a danger to herself and to others, and thus was sent away for a two-week stint in some inpatient clinic close to the coast. Finnick thinks of that moment now, how time seemed to stop as she let them drag her from her chair, her bottle of water falling with diamond grace to the floor, leaving a trail of crystalline rain behind it. He stopped a story of his mid-sentence to watch as four hands pulled her from the room, his eyes joining the hundreds of others watching in complete awe. Finnick recalls with a shiver that she did not fight them. She bowed her head and let them lead her on. It was the look of defeat.

"Would you be willing to help her? I know you're terribly busy, but I know you're up for a challenge."

Finnick doesn't know why he says yes, but the next thing he knows, it's a week later and he's waiting for her in the library like some junior high kid waiting for a girl outside of the movies. He taps his pen against his notebook anxiously, fighting the urge to bite at his well-kept nails. Words fly around his head, words from the teachers and students alike who warned him against this moment.

What if she gets violent on you?

What if she does something really insane, like throws her shit at the wall?

You're in over your head, Finnick.

You have no idea how to handle a crazy person, not one like her.

They should have left her in that hospital. Maybe they'll send her back.

You should make her do something crazy so they'll send her back.

Don't you think she's a little dangerous?

Against his will, inklings of fear begin to rise in him and the desire to flee before she arrives swells in his chest. After all, he's never talked to her before; he honestly couldn't have pointed her out in a crowd until a few weeks ago. But if the popular account is that she's as crazy as all that, then perhaps it would be best if he just left. Maybe it would be safer. Maybe things would be simpler if she just failed out of school and he stayed in his lane, continued on his path of uninterrupted coolness, of unbridled success and notoriety.

For some reason, though, he stays rooted to his chair. The clock ticks on the wall and he checks the slip of paper given to him by his teacher. Yes, this is the correct time and location, he confirms.

But, as it turns out, his worrying is for nothing. Because Annie never shows.


For the next twenty-four hours, he turns it over and over in his mind. His sleep suffers from the attention he pays to her avoidance of him; it consumes him. No one stands him up; no one has before, at least. And who is she to ignore him? Nothing but some crazy, lonely girl that he had the decency to help. The louder parts of his mind rattle off reason after reason as to why he is justified in his feeling of insult.

On the other hand, a quieter, much smaller portion of his brain mutters half a dozen defenses of her. Powerful, defenses, but fewer all the same, and thus he chooses to ignore them, even the next morning, as he flashes his winning smile at the school's receptionist until she gives him Annie Cresta's locker number. He promises that, no, he isn't intending to do anything cruel to the girl, and then walks toward his goal with a swagger that might have looked ridiculous on any man but him.

He breathes in confidence and self-righteousness at her absence the day before swirls in his mind. His steps bounce and his chin is high. He feels no trepidation, no hesitance.

That is, until he sees her locker. Angry red sharpie marks its territory, screaming "CRAZY CRESTA" over and over again until the metallic silver is no longer visible at a passing glance. Finnick's stomach drops to his feet at the vandalism obviously perpetrated some time ago; the permanent marker has set and it's set for good. No attempts have been made to erase the words, not that he can see at least. He stares at those pen stains, even as bodies pass him, even as people try to speak to him as they skirt down the hallway toward homeroom. It isn't so much the cruelty of the words, of the action, that makes him pause, that makes him feel as if someone has broken him in half with one solid blow to the stomach, but it's the realization that Annie Cresta, Crazy Cresta herself, has made no action to try and erase the words. She's accepted them.

The realization fills his mouth with the acrid taste of blood as he bites down too hard on the inside of his lip.

When Annie finally arrives at her locker, the young man watches her from his place across the hall as she slowly, carefully, turns the combination of her lock. The rich red tattoos on her locker reflect angrily on her skin; Finnick suddenly feels queasy. Watching her now, there isn't anything remotely deranged about her. There's just something immaterial about her, as if she would simply dissolve into the air if she were given the chance. Finnick watches from the sidelines of her world for a stretch of time incalculable to his distracted mind, entranced by the quiet motions of the body she is trying so desperately to make small and invisible. But he sees her, and he sees her more clearly now than he's perhaps ever seen a person before.

She begins to leave her locker and Finnick's trance is broken.

"Hey!"

The word comes out of his mouth before he gives it permission to do so. But all at once his body is blocking her path down the hall and he has her attention. Confronted so directly with another human being, Annie retreats further and further into herself. Finnick tries to regain his composure, but stumbles on the way under the blank, detached and unabashed stare that she fixes on him.

"Hey-hi- Hi. I'm Finnick."

She makes no motion to speak or acknowledge his words. Her expression doesn't change. But Finnick notices that her hands are shaking as they desperately press her notebook against her chest. He softens his tone in an attempt to help, but fears that nothing he could do or say could make the tremors of her bones go away.

"I'm tutoring you in History," he gently reminds her.

Again, no recognition or acknowledgement. She stares and tries to hide how fast her heart is beating. Finnick smiles tightly and rubs a hand across the back of his neck, trying to win her over with some unspoken language that neither of them quite understand.

"We were supposed to meet yesterday, but I guess our wires got crossed or something," he says, trying to explain the situation away, but she cuts him off.

"No, they didn't."

It is as resolute as a bullet shooting out of a gun. No room for argument. No nervous stutter. No uncertain waver in tone. It is as sure and as certain as if she were giving her name and birthday. Finnick falters.

"What?" He asks, not entirely sure he understands her right.

Her voice is quiet, hardly audible against the echoing walls of the high school hallway, but it is sure, and the young man across from her hears it all the same.

"Our wires didn't get crossed," she states.

Finnick tries to process, but looses his mental footing and has to ask for a hand up.

"Did I miss something?" He asks, his eyes narrowing slightly even as his smile remains painted in place.

This is the part that Annie dreads. Her greatest dishonor has always been telling people that she knows they don't like her company. She may be crazy, but she isn't stupid enough to think anyone could want to be around her, and it is thinking about moments like this one that often cause Annie to cry without warning. She looks at the floor.

"I wasn't going to make you suffer," she says, her voice faltering for the first time as a wry smile tugs at each side of her lips.

A knot begins folding in Finnick's stomach.

"What do you mean?" He asks.

Annie's mouth dries and she hugs her books tighter into her body as if they were protecting her from the trauma of the outside world. The young man standing before her notes that she has the unique ability to be engaged with him and yet somehow immeasurably distant from him all at once.

"I wasn't going to make you spend two hours a week with Crazy Cresta," she says.

He tries to come to the defense of both of their honors, protestations rising in his throat at accusations that had not been made.

"I- I don't know what you're-"

But Annie isn't interested in his protests. She just wants to release him from whatever obligation he seems to think he's under. No one should have to suffer her. That's what she thinks.

"I'd rather fail History than make anyone be around me, you know?"

There isn't anything so bitter-tasting as defeat. Or, at least, that's what Finnick thought before this moment. What he knows now that he didn't know before was that it isn't defeat that's so bitter. It's watching someone feel like they deserve defeat.

Finnick remembers sitting in the library, alone, yesterday, stewing in his anger at her not showing up. Oh, how he wanted to hate her. How he wanted to think her crazy and how he wanted to despise her for wasting his time, for insulting his pride.

But now, he can find no room in his corner of the universe to reproach her. Now, he feels such pity for her. Now, he feels like he's finally staring at Annie Cresta, not the walking rumor of her, not the idea of her. But actually her.

And now, all he wants to do is fight by her side.

The emotions playing obvious patterns across his face, Annie takes notice. She begins to push past him.

"Smile. I'm letting you off the hook," she says.

She only makes it two or three steps more before his voice reaches her once more.

"What if I don't want to be off the hook?" He asks.

It would have been so easy to walk away before he said that. But now, Annie turns, her eyes cautious and her soul locked far from him.

"What?" She replies.

Finnick crosses the space between them until he's in front of her once more. People passing by them watch with curious gazes, and he knows that this will be all anyone talks about for the near future: him talking to crazy Cresta in the hallway without any hint of malice or irony. It's sure to cause a great deal of disagreeable talk, but Finnick doesn't care.

"I don't want to be off the hook," he rephrases, knowing somehow in his angsty, teenage heart that it has to be true.

Annie shakes her head, wondering why he didn't take the out when he had the chance. Surely, he's heard about her. Surely, he knows what people say and what has happened to her. She remembers seeing him the day that they took her out of the cafeteria to bring her to the psych ward. How could he possibly want to be around her?

"You don't know what you're talking about," she says, surmising that he simply must not understand the danger, must not understand how truly far gone she is.

Instead of answering her question, Finnick points back towards her locker, towards the graffiti crying out indecencies against her.

"Why haven't you gotten that washed off yet?" He asks, the question gnawing at his stomach.

The question lands on Annie for an unsettling stretch of time. She stares at him with that drawn, unfiltered look in her eye for so long that Finnick fears she's gone off somewhere he cannot retrieve her from. But, eventually, she blinks a few times, holding a memory at bay, and returns to reality. She shrugs, but only slightly.

"You can't keep people from saying things that are true, can you?" Annie asks.

Finnick's response would have been a lie three minutes ago, but now feels as truthful to him as any prayer he's ever uttered in his life.

"I don't think it's true," he replies.

The shrill ring of the bell pierces the walls of the school and the pair of them begin moving with the crowds meandering to class.

"That makes one of us."

Nervously, one of Annie's shaking hands reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small length of rope, no longer than the length of one of her fingers, and she begins tugging and twisting it, knotting and unknotting it again under Finnick's careful gaze.

"What's that?" He asks.

Annie looks up, as if she'd forgotten his presence. Suddenly embarrassed, she flushes and shakes her head.

"It's stupid," she says, brushing off the question.

Finnick chuckles, his eyes lighting up as he looks down at the well-worn down knot in her hand.

"I didn't ask if it was stupid. I asked what it was," he teases.

Considering him for a long moment, Annie wonders if he's ready for the truth. If he's ready to know just how crazy she is. If he's ready to know that it's one of her most nervous of ticks, that she can't have her hands still for too long or they'll start doing destructive things to her own body.

She decides that that is a topic too heavy for eight fifteen in the morning, and allows a lie to come to her as easily as exhaling.

"It's for luck. I tie it for luck," she says.

Finnick reads the lie almost immediately. But he plays along.

"You're better than me," he says with a smile and a shrug, "I have the worst luck."

Part of Annie thinks to ignore him, to disengage. But she doesn't. She thinks of the little kindness that he paid her by saying she wasn't crazy. And she decides to repay the kindness in her own way. Smiling down at the cheap tiles that they're walking down, Annie gives a shrug of her own.

"Maybe your luck is changing, Finnick."

It is the first time she's said his name, and Finnick's world pauses for a half-second on its axis. There's something so gentle, so delicate about the way the two syllables that have always denoted his existence sound on her tongue. It's as if he's hearing the word for the first time and realizing that its his own; it's as if no one on Earth has ever spoken before, and the silence of the Earth is suddenly shattered by her speaking him into existence.

It's overwhelming.

Finnick spares a glance her way as they're walking and realizes that she's right. But not for the reasons she's probably thinking.

"Yeah. Maybe."


So, yes! I know I have a billion other stories to be working on right now (I AM getting to them, I promise!), but I'm beta for Jennycaakes' Under the Same Sun (which is fantastic, by the way!) and was so drawn into her characterization of Annie and Finnick that I had to write something about it! I hope you all enjoy! Please review!