A/N: Okay, I'm really excited about this story now. I've got so much planned out for the rest of the story and I'm looking forward to writing it. Thanks to amethystaquamarine34azure for your continued supply of reviews. They're all greatly appreciated :).
Oh, two more things: this story will be much more stretched out than my Johanna story, and I've decided that I'll change stuff towards the end.
"Annie!" someone in the distance shouted. The sun loomed over my head and my eyes were shut, I didn't want to move. "Annie! Come on! Get ready for work!" came the voice again, which I identified with my sister Allie. The water beneath my skin felt nice. I'd spent most of the morning just floating out in the middle of the lake behind my house and I really did not feel like moving.
I grumbled a bit as she shouted out to me again. "Don't make me take the canoe out there and get you!" she threatened. Andrew had built a canoe for fun back when he was a teenager and we'd used it to paddle out onto the lake ever since. Of course, I preferred swimming over canoeing, so I didn't use the canoe that much when I went out to the lake (which was fairly often).
"Annie!" Allie shouted again, although this time it sounded more like a plea. "Fine," I thought to myself, before allowing myself to sink into the water. The feel of the water swelling over my body and my face brought me back to life. I began treading water and opened my eyes. Allie was standing on the shore next to the canoe waving her arms at me. Sighing quietly to myself, I began to swim back to shore.
Allie had curly blonde hair that fell past her shoulders and was slightly taller than normal. She was wearing the uniform for my mom's store: a shiny gold shirt with a navy blue jacket over it, and pitch black pants. It was all a bit flashy for me, and whenever my mother wasn't around, I didn't wear it. Sometimes she would come back to the store and yell at me when she saw I wasn't wearing my uniform, but I'd rather get yelled at occasionally than always wear the uniform. I didn't even look that good in it, so I never saw what the big deal was. Allie looked good in the uniform, but Allie looked good in everything.
"Hurry up and change," she said when I got to the shore, "Our shift starts in a few minutes. I'm heading down to the shop now. Don't take too long changing." And then she took off. I went inside my house (elegant and two stories, my parents are pretty wealthy) and upstairs to my room. I quickly put on a brown skirt and a light brown shirt before drying my hair. Seeing that my shift started in two minutes, I dropped my towel and bolted out of my house. I was a pretty fast runner, but the store was on the other side of town.
District Four was conveniently divided into three sections. The majority of District Four was spotted with lakes and bordered a large sea. All of this land was dedicated to fishing. Aside from the fishing lands, there was only about two square miles of leftover space. 75% of this land went to housing and the rest was the district center, where the mayor's office and all of the shops were. The Victor's Village was also in the district center, as opposed to being in the residential area. My mom's store was called Hook, Line, and Sinker (horribly corny) and was right across from the mayor's house. I ran as fast as I could but I was still a minute or two late. Fortunately, it looked like no one had even started shopping yet. Allie seemed to just be passing time by scrubbing the counter.
The store had a fairly simple layout: two walls with two small racks in the middle of the store, a counter and cash register in the back, and a large storage room way in the back. One wall was lined with various rods, nets, and tridents. The other was lined with a wide assortment of bait and lures. The two racks in the middle was lined with more miscellaneous items: bait that didn't quite have a place on the bait wall, string for fishing rods, parts for the bigger fishing boats, and even a few books that detailed different types of fish.
"Mom's going to be mad if she sees you," muttered Allie without looking up from the counter. I shrugged and signed in on a sheet on the counter. I lied and put down that I arrived on time, what mom didn't know didn't hurt her. "Why don't you just wear the uniform?" Allie asked me, looking up at me. I simply shrugged at her question. "I mean, it's better than that," she scoffed, referring to my outfit, "and you actually look pretty good in the uniform. You can look pretty good when you want to." I smiled lightly. "Did I really look pretty sometimes?" I thought, "I guess my hair is sort of nice...And what's wrong with my outfit?" I looked down at my brown and brown ensemble. Sure, they weren't the most aesthetically pleasing clothes, but they were comfortable and I liked the color brown. "Some more of the square red lures came today, stack them for me, will you?" she said handing me a box. All of the bait and lures had technical names, but it was much easier for Allie and I to remember the items by their physical appearance.
An angry customer burst into the store yelling about a bad fishing rod he had bought and I immediately turned away in fright. Allie walked over and calmed him down while I started to stack the lures Allie had given me. I listened as Allie managed to calm the customer down and come up with a solution to their problem. Allie was so good with all the business stuff. I had just ducked my head, but she had confronted the problem and fixed it. I continued to stack the lures as the customer (now pleased) left the store. This was the perfect example as to why Allie was destined to take over the family store. "Oh, damn, that's right," muttered Allie to herself, remembering something important. "Hey Annie!" Allie called over, "Can you take over at the counter for a few minutes? I forgot about something mom wanted me to do." "Sure," I said reluctantly. I didn't like working the counter; there was a lot more room for error. I greatly preferred sorting lures. "Hopefully she won't take too long," I said to myself."
A few minutes passed and Allie still hadn't come out of the back room yet. Fortunately, we hadn't had another customer yet, but I was getting a bit antsy. "Hurry up, Allie,"
I muttered to myself. Just then, the bell on the door rang and I looked up in fright. A customer. But not just any customer. This customer was Finnick Odair. The District Four Victor that everybody in the world wanted. Personally, I never saw the appeal. He seemed so arrogant and egotistical sometimes. Sure, he was good looking. More than good actually. But I didn't think he had a heart. He seemed to make a lot of his decisions with a different part of his body. Still, I didn't want to make myself look like too much of a fool. Did I mention I'm horrible when I put pressure on myself? "Hey," he said. But before I could say anything, Allie came rushing in and took over. "Thank you" I breathed inaudibly. I went back to stacking the lures and noticed that Allie seemed to be bending over backwards in an effort to impress him. Finnick seemed to be flirting back with her, as far as I could tell. "We just got a new shipment in today. Hang on, I'll get them from the back," said Allie before winking at him and disappearing into the back.
As soon as Allie's figure disappeared into the back, Finnick let out a heavy sigh and rested his arms on the counter. He seemed, sad. Which was odd to me. What could he, Finnick Odair, possibly be sad about? I thought I was imagining it at first but he turned to face me and I saw the pain in his eyes. His face seemed to lighten when he saw me and our states caught. He studied me for a few seconds before flirtatiously saying, "Hey." The boy I had just seen disappeared in an instance. The sad, vulnerable Finnick disappeared once he had seen me, replaced by the ladies man I'd become accustomed to. I liked sad Finnick more. I turned away and went back to stacking but I couldn't help but blush a little. He seemed interested in me. But then again, he seemed interested in everyone. "Got what you wanted!" chirped Allie. "Thanks," said Finnick apathetically. Even though my back was to them, I could feel his gaze on me. "Come back anytime!" Allie squealed as Finnick exited the store. I didn't turn back around until I heard the door shut.
Allie watched the door, smiling. "Dreamy, ain't he?" she breathed. I shrugged and turned around again to put the last of the lures on the shelf. When I finished, I put the empty box away and saw that Allie was looking at me funny, a slight grin on her face. "You know, Finnick seemed to be checking you out." she said. "What!" my mind screamed. "Yeah, he couldn't take his eyes off you once I got back," she continued, "even though you're dressed like that. Maybe he was just marveling at your fashion sense. That seems like a more reasonable explanation. Besides, I thought he seemed to be really interested in me! We ooze chemistry!" "I'm sure that's what everyone he flirts with says," I said under my breath. "What was that?" asked Allie. "Nothing."
The rest of the day went by rather uneventfully. It was a pretty slow business day. When I got off of work, I went back out onto the lake and floated out there a bit. "What was up with Finnick?" I asked myself, unable to avoid thinking about he situation earlier, "Why did he seem so sad?" After a couple minutes of pondering, I couldn't come up with a very good answer. "Just drop it," I told myself. I relaxed and spent another few hours at the lake, either floating or updating my flora and fauna journal.
I was starting to get bored though. I had filled my entire journal but still had a few hours of sunlight left and I didn't want to go inside. So I decided to shake things up a bit. Normally, I didn't like change, but I didn't exactly have anything better to do. So I decided to mix things up by walking by some of the lakes. A few of the smaller lakes on the outskirts of the fishing area had been hunted in so much that all of the fish had been taken. Some people thought about trying to revitalize the population by bringing in fish from the other lakes, but it was discovered that these small lakes had slightly higher acidity levels that made the water unlivable for fish that weren't adapted to it, so fishing operations on these lakes were simply abandoned. I made my way through the residential area to the lakes and walked around. The area was really pretty, and I began to regret never coming out here before. The wildlife seemed generally undisturbed, so I doubted that anyone else ever came out here.
There were a few plants I hadn't seen before, and I made a mental note to get a new journal soon so I could come back out here and document them. My lake just had a few flowers and different grasses, but this lake had so many flowers, berries, trees, bushes, and...it was just so much! I walked for a bit when I came to a small clearing toward the top of a hill. From the hill, you could just lie back and look out at the lakes. The plain area just below the hill was lined with purple and yellow flowers, and the now setting sun was casting different shades of orange, red, and pink across the sky. The flowers, the perfect temperature, the comfort of the grass underneath me, and the colors of the sky reflected against the lake made one for one of the most surreally perfect moments of my life. "I need to come up here everyday," I thought to myself.
"Damn, I missed it," said someone from behind me, "Hey, what are you doing here?"
A/N: Hope you liked it. Story didn't move that much, but I promise it'll pick up a bit in the next chapter (and then REALLY pick up in the chapter after that!). Wonder who the mysterious person is? Hint: it's the obvious choice. Some more reviews for this chapter would be nice. And if you review, I'll give you a cookie! Not a real one, though (sorry). A metaphorical cookie. :)