I spend the next couple of weeks at Clara and Drew's house since Mother is taking care of Elliot while Mrs. Odair is attending to sort of business in the Justice Building every day. At least, that's what my mother tells me.
I don't tell Clara about my conversation with Finnick but I'm pretty sure she's guessed. I'm in an exponentially better mood now that Finnick's come back from wherever his mind was for those past six months.
This time around I decide to watch the Victory Tour on television so I can get an idea of what Finnick is experiencing, but it's hard. In District Twelve the crowd is a tired-looking mass in the center of a concrete, monochromatic world. In Eleven the faces in the crowd have the same haggard look to them, most of the older bodies bent from age and labor. Everything is so brown—the same brown clothes, skin, dirt, even the sky. I can't help but feel thankful for District Four with its seashells and wind chimes. Here we at least have some room for beauty.
The entire time Finnick is on stage in most of the districts he speaks in a clinical, detached, carefully rehearsed way. I watch his face closely whenever I can, but he hides his emotions well. The only time I see any part of the boy I know is in District Eight. Finnick trapped and killed its male tribute, so I would have to imagine that some semblance of guilt might seep through his mask of indifference, but it doesn't. Not until the end of his speech, anyway.
It's only for a moment and I'm positive that I'm the only one in the world who could have noticed it. He's just finished the final sentence when he makes the mistake of glancing up at the families. A cross of sadness and guilt flashes across his face and leaves just as quickly, but his fists are clenched as he leaves the stage.
Suddenly I wish I were there with him, to tell him that no one blames him for what he did—that it was survival. Kill or be killed. But I know how his mind works and I know he's got to be killing himself over it.
The year before Finnick's games a single seal washed up on our beach with a bite wound, inches from death. I remember coming home from school and finding Finnick at my doorstep, almost in tears. He led me down to the beach and asked me if I knew how to heal the wound, but at first glance I already knew the animal was far past any help. Just to humor him, I used some of the Yucca plant from our neighbor's house to set the wound but somehow found the wherewithal to tell him the animal wasn't going to live. The next day Finnick took his father's old dinghy and dropped into deeper water, alone. The look on his face the day that seal died was the same look I recognized flash across his face today. Once again I feel a slow-burning hatred for the Capitol rise in my gut.
My Finnick has always taken the pain of others upon himself, but the Capitol Finnick is a star because he inflicted such pain. Now it's not enough that he kills other children for their entertainment, but that he has to face the families of those he hurt?
I bury my face in my hands and plug my ears. I don't know how he could possibly stay sane. I try to imagine myself in his position but to no avail. The thought simply revolts me; I find myself physically feeling ill at the thought of facing the world in such a way. I understand Finnick's hesitation towards me after his games now that I understand this—now that I understand what he has to do to appease the monster. He has to be one, too.
I don't notice that I'm shaking until I feel Clara's hand on my shoulder. She turns off the television before turning to me.
"You don't have to watch it if it upsets you." Her voice is soft, like the velvet dress our mother used to wear when we were young. It was our father's favorite.
"It's horrible," I whimper, "that's not him. That's not Finnick."
Her hands are pulling me up, sitting me down on a chair.
"But it is, Annie. That's Finnick. And he's going to need you when he gets back."
I nod. The thought of anyone needing me is foreign, strange. I need Clara, I need my mother, but no one has ever needed me. Of course Finnick has other friends—he was popular even before the games, just from being friendly to nearly everyone. But I've noticed lately that his friends from school haven't treated him the same since the games. I can add them to the list of things the Capitol has taken from Finnick.
But not me. I'll be here, just like always. I'm home.
When Finnick comes back, I take special care not to ask him about the tour. In fact, I don't really ask him anything at all. We don't really talk all that much. We sit on our beach, net, even swim sometimes. He seems to be in deep thought a lot of the time and it provokes my curiosity, but not enough to ask. Sometimes I try to imagine what could be going through his head, but it's hard because one moment he looks peaceful and almost happy in his thoughts and the next he's frozen with terror or swimming in sadness. Is he reliving the games? Thinking about the families of the tributes he killed? Or is he thinking about his grocery list?
I keep him company as much as I can, but still try to give him some sort of privacy when it's obvious he's thinking about something painful. I'll stand up and stretch my legs or get us some water while he works through it. Part of me wants to help him but the reality is that I just don't know how; I have an idea of what he went through but I don't think I could ever fully understand.
As time goes on, Finnick comes back into himself. It takes a couple months, but it happens sure enough. Soon he's leading me on expeditions into coves and suggesting day trips on his boat. The best part of it all is that he smiles again. Finnick's real smile is much different than his Capitol one—it radiates a certain warm quality and makes whoever it's directed at feel right. Luckily that person's been me lately. I didn't realize how much I'd missed his smile until it came back—until he came back. A lot of that has been happening recently.
My mother has been asked to help train workers up north to help rebuild the netting factory that burnt down a few months ago, so I've moved in with Drew and Clara semi-permanently.
Clara has constantly been giving me her "I Was Right" look ever since Finnick got back from the tour. I try to ignore her. I don't quite know myself why Finnick is spending all his spare time with me—I meant it when I said I though he had outgrown me all that time ago, but something in Clara's all-knowing looks tells me I was wrong. I'm glad I was because I don't really know what I'd be doing everyday without Finnick. Probably sitting in Clara's house netting until my hands bleed. I mean, I do that anyway, but only when necessary. I try to be out of the house when Drew gets home from the docks to give him and Clara some privacy, so I often go over to Finnick's for dinner.
At first when he'd insisted I come I'd refuse, not wanting to seem like I was some sort of charity (since Finnick's rich and all now) but after a week or so I cave, getting tired of the cheap bits of boiled grouper Leonora sells in the market. I'm still careful never to give myself anything but petite portions of whatever Mrs. Odair makes, claiming to have a small appetite.
It's during these dinners in the months leading up to the 66th games that I come to know Althea Odair and her husband, Finnick's father, Eric. Finnick and I never really talked about our fathers before his games. The grief and horror was still too immediate to bear discussing out loud. Whenever we were too sad to talk at all, we had a way of telling each other 'not today' with just a look. But the way Mrs. Odair talks about her husband is refreshing; her stories are nostalgic and saddening at times, of course, but the overall sense is always peaceful, as though she's talking about an old friend who has moved away. Content, at peace.
I always watch Finnick watch me out of the corner of my eye as Mrs. Odair tells her stories is her funny, dreamy voice, but I can never tell what he thinks of it all. Whenever I get too curious to restrain myself from turning to look at him full on, he just smiles and looks down, continuing to pick at his food. One day when we're laying out on our beach on a rare sunny day, a few days before he has to leave to mentor for the next games, I finally ask him something I've been thinking a lot about.
"Do you think we'd still be friends if that ship hadn't gone down?" I ask, dragging my fingers through the sand.
"I think we'd still be friends if I lived in District 12." Finnick says matter-of-factly. I snort.
"I'm serious!" I say, propping myself up on my elbows.
"So am I!" Finnick has propped himself up too and is giving me his serious face. I shake my head, smiling, and lay back down. Finnick doesn't follow my lead this time and sits all the way up, crossing his long gangly teenager legs. I can't help thinking what the Capitol would think of Finnick like this. Would they be repulsed by the sand in his hair or the slight sunburn in his cheeks? Would his boyishness confuse them? I like to think so. This Finnick belongs to me.
"I think it just accelerated the process." Finnick finally says, giving me his real answer.
"Our fathers being killed in a wreck 'accelerated the process' of our friendship?" I'm giving him a hard time but I know what he means. Something else about my own question bothers me, but I can't quite place it.
"I don't want to say that I think that it happened for a reason. It didn't. But maybe someone up there knew we couldn't do it… alone, I guess." He glances up at the clouds and for once his allusion to some higher being doesn't have me rolling my eyes. I know now why my question from before felt wrong to me. The word "friendship" is too juvenile, too superficial to explain Finnick and I.
I just nod. It's the last day I see him before he leaves for the games.
This time around, the games are harder to watch but I watch them anyway. My mother is back home again, so I sit beside her on our beat-up little couch and let her stroke my hair every time I wince at something onscreen. It's hard not to see the images and imagine experiencing them myself now that the games have become so much more personal. I skip school twice in the first week of the games because I'm so shaken up from being so invested in them that I can't focus.
I'll being sitting in my desk, half-listening to the teacher when I find myself in a vivid daydream, except they're more like nightmares. I imagine I'm the girl tribute from 4 who was stabbed to death by a rabid-looking tribute with no weapon except for a two-inch long knife. I imagine I'm a gamemaker, pressing a big red button that opens up the pit of boiling water underneath the twelve-year-old boy from 6. I imagine I'm Finnick, sitting in a lavish room, watching the boy from 4 who made it to the final eight nearly starve to death with no funds left to send him any more food.
Sometimes when I 'wake' from these terrors, I'm crying. Sometimes I'm shaking. Sometimes people will notice and try to snap me out of it, sometimes people don't notice at all, and sometimes I come to by myself to see the faces of the other kids my age staring at me like I'm a freak. I almost convince myself that I don't mind it, but I do.
I want Finnick to come back. When the boy from our district is shot through the heart with an arrow, I have a sick fluttering of hope that Finnick will come back sooner because of it, but I know that's not the case. All the mentors, especially the Capitol's beloved Finnick Odair, will have to stay until the very end. Until the Capitol has their new a victor—their new victim.
After the games end, I still have nightmares, but now only when I'm actually asleep. My mother and Clara are glad to find I'm not having my strange lapses at school anymore. As usual, Clara knows what's really happening with me, and I'm glad to hear to hear since I haven't been so sure myself, lately.
"You've always had an active imagination, Annie, I just never thought it would be so strong that it'd literally consume you!" Clara teases, tossing me a strawberry. I almost drop it, scowling. Even when in season, they're expensive.
"Watch the berries, Clara," I grumble, then reluctantly bite into mine.
"Too busy watching you, sis," she winks, then adds, "when does Finnick get back?"
"Tonight, maybe tomorrow." I answer.
"Good. You're crankier when he's not around." It bugs me that she's so serious about it. I scowl, only supporting her previous comment, which makes her laugh. Somehow I find it in me to laugh, too.
