Chapter 10

A Life Spent Trying To Forget

Annie pulls away first, breathless, and looking at me confused. She steps further away from me, but she still can't form a sentence. It takes her a minute to regain her voice, "Finnick…this is not a go-," Her voice catches. "A good idea." She finishes.

I don't say anything for a second, trying to find a way to disagree with her. "It's not necessarily a bad one," It's not very convincing.

"Yes it is," She hisses, "You know it is." She isn't being cruel; she's simply stating a fact.

"The-they have no say in my personal life," I say quietly, thinking that in a perfect world that might be true. Unfortunately this is about as far from perfect as a world can get.

"They do Fin," She sighs, as if she wishes they didn't. "As much as I hate it you have to play this game by their rules. You know what that means. It's not safe."

"It's never been safe," I protest, not loudly, but firmly. "Us being around each other so much, it's never been safe. What difference will it make if we're a little more than friends? Besides, it's never going to be safe. I can't be expected to be alone forever."

"Finnick," Her voice is sad, but still firm. I know what she's thinking: this is only going to bring trouble. Although I don't know if she's thinking the same thing as me when I think: I wish there was a way to make it work. "It's not safe for you to do this. It's not worth it, really."

I can't tell if she means she's not worth it, or I'm not worth it when she says 'it's'.

But, of course she'd be worried about how this would affect me, with no thought about how things would be for her. I sigh, wishing, not for the first time, that the Games hadn't made everything so complicated.

It isn't supposed to be this way. Winning is supposed to make life simple. A life of luxury. Unfortunately us victors live the life no one thinks about: a life spent trying to forget. What they don't show on the televisions, what no one but our closest friends (or, in Haymitch's case a bottle of hard liquor) ever sees is that forgetting is impossible.

As hard as we may try, as much as we wish we could pretend nothing happened, we're scarred. Permanently broken. The wounds go so deep that sometimes I feel like I would disappear with them-if there was a way to make them disappear. The pain that comes with winning is more than the sum of a victor's winnings for their entire life, because honestly, who picks the cost of 23 innocent lives? Who has the authority to say how much money is warranted by our constant trauma? Who decides that something as trivial as money may be able to whisk away our fear of sleep?

Even people like Johanna are plagued with nightmares. Any one of us with an ounce of decency is. We're haunted by the lost, but we're living half alive as the winners. And the worst part is that we still aren't free. Not all of us are like Johanna. We have a family. We can't throw our victor status around to get what we want when we want it-including something that blatantly breaks the law, as Johanna often does just for the heck of it.

Our loved ones are our downfall, at least in this instance. They are the hostages that allow the Capitol to manipulate us. We are, in all essences of the word, Capitol monkeys. We do as requested to protect our loved ones, who hold the final pieces of our sanity-our normalcy. And now the Capitol is taking away one of the only freedoms we really have in the districts.

Our right to be with whom we choose.

The anger at this realization comes on in full force and I can't stop the irritation that leaks into my voice. "It's not right Annie." My voice softens, "I want this, and you…" I trail off, unsure of her feelings at this point.

"I want it too Finnick. I started this, remember?" I do remember.

"That's just it Annie. You didn't start this. You sped it up, sure, but wouldn't this have happened anyways? Wouldn't we be like this without the Games? Granted I'd be slightly less messed up, but don't you think we'd be in the same position?"

"I'd hope we would. But that's not how things worked out is it?"

"No, it's not. The reality is that this is our story. As screwed up as it is, this is how it turned out. There shouldn't be anything complicated about it. I want this. You want it. Problem solved."

Annie just stares at me, her green eyes twinkling ever so slightly. I can't place why, but something I've said just now has softened her. Weakened her resolve.

"You…" She trails off. She steps forward and takes my hands, making me wish I could know what she's thinking. Her eyes meet mine and when she speaks her voice is serious. "You really want this." It's not so much a question, as an observation. "Don't you?"

"Yes. Annie it took me a while to realize it, not to mention you helping me along, but I care about you as more than a friend. I think that's obvious. But this isn't going to be dangerous for me. There isn't much they can do to me. You're the one who'd be in danger." I don't say what we're both probably thinking-if the Capitol hurt her, or Sapphira, or Rillia, it'd kill me, because it would be all my fault.

"No more than usual." She shrugs.

"Not to mention that this wouldn't be fair to you. It wouldn't be good for you. I can't do that to you."

"Who says secrets are a bad thing? So we have to stay behind the scenes, at least then I'd know you're never being anyone but yourself with me. It would be no different than when we were friends." She eyes me curiously, waiting for my response.

"Except that I'd get to kiss you." She smiles widely at my typical boyish response.

"Well there's that." She allows, now trying to fight back her smile. "But you can't feel guilty."

"Guilty?"

"You're going to have the same… fan base, because no one's going to know about us. You can't be upset with them, they don't know any better, and you're certainly not ugly." I can't bring myself to smile at this as the enormity of her statement sinks in. She's right. I'm still going to have to fight off hordes of female admirers, both here in 4, and in the Capitol.

"That's not fair to you." It's not a lie, I couldn't ask her to watch me flirt shamelessly with random girls who weren't… it takes me a second to find the word I'm looking for. I couldn't ask her to watch me flirt shamelessly with random girls who weren't her.

"It's not a problem. I'm not the jealous type. I'm worried about you." Shocker.

"Why are you worried about me?"

"Because-" Annie's cut off by Sapphira and Rillia running down the hall and out the back door, both of them laughing.

Annie smiles widely, though her expression shows her shock. She moves to close the now open door, and she sees the two of them laughing and running down the beach.

"You were saying?" I prompt, drawing her out of her thoughts.

"I'm worried about you because I think you'll make yourself feel awful when you don't need to. I'm a big girl, I can handle whatever your fans decide to do, and I can handle whatever retaliation this brings from them, if they find out." She doesn't need to say who, I know that 'them' is the Capitol.

"You shouldn't have to." I say firmly, "But I know that you can. You're amazingly strong that way."

"Thank you." She says, a light blush coloring her cheeks.

"It's the truth." I shrug. "And you shouldn't have to deal with it."

"But I will. For you-sorry, for us. If, you're serious about this."

"Of course I am."

"Then we can make this work." She smiles at me, her vibrant emerald eyes shine.

I smile too. "Should we go check on Rillia and Sapph?"

"Probably. Let me get my shoes." She turns away from me already looking for her shoes.

"Wait," I catch her around the waist, drawing her close to me.

"For what?" I don't answer her-with words, that is. Instead I lean down and capture her lips with my own, in a brief, sweet kiss that conveys to her my happiness at the moment.

She's startled, but she responds quickly meeting my enthusiasm with joy of her own. As messed up as the situation is-big picture, this particular moment is perfect.

I pull away, albeit reluctantly, allowing us to catch our breaths. When I can manage a sentence I say, "For that." She smiles, remembering her question, and she raises her eyebrows at me. "I thought we deserved it." I shrug, defending myself.

"Then I guess that's reason enough." She smiles, giving me a light peck the lips before turning to go hunt down her sisters.

Alright I'm back! I plan to be on here a while because I have devious plans for these two. I'm sorry I haven't updated in ages. I plan to update a lot over my Christmas break, so keep your eyes open. Also, I want to note that to go along with the cannon plot I have changed Finnick's age to eighteen, as opposed to the seventeen that was mentioned in chapter one-the issue has been changed there now. I hope you don' t mind the revision, it was necessary to stay with the books. I hope you all like this
chapter, and if you don't let me know.

As much as I love this pair I am sorry to say it won't be smooth sailing from here. Quite the opposite really. :) Please don't hate me by the time I end the story I promise you'll be ok with the ending.

Thanks for reading and reviewing. :D