Finnick.
They always feed you that crap that you don't know what you have until it's gone. That all humans are ungrateful creatures who take every good thing they have in their life for granted. That when something bad happens to us, we're running around in disarray like a fish out of water, floundering and floundering, slowly dying and nowhere left to go.
Truth is all that crap they feed you, is true. But it's also true that they tell you can never miss something you never had.
That part is a lie.
I never had a father. I grew up with people who called themselves my parents but never played the part. They never yelled at me for being home after dark, never asked me where I was going, never sat down and asked me "How are you Finnick?" and waited for an honest answer. I never had parents that showed me right from wrong, that gave me the awkward birds-and-the-bees talk, that tucked me in at night and read me a bedtime story. I never had a father that taught his son how to throw a ball or swim. I never had a father that ruffled my hair and looked out for my big sister, his daughter. Sure, Peeta smiled when I got home from wherever the hell I had been and taught me how to make bread, but that was as far as our relationship ever went. Smiles and bread.
So how is it that you can miss something you never had so terribly? That was never yours to call your own?
I feel a hand lace through my own when we enter the training arena. "Stay strong Fin," Matilda whispers under her breath, so quietly it might've been the wind talking to me.
All eyes watch me as we enter the training hall, hand in hand. All conversation and taunting stops, all weapons stop swinging around, and somebody drops their spear. Even the Gamemakers are watching me, glasses full of weird liquids forgotten. Everybody just watches us, judging my every move, waiting for what, I do not know. Maybe they expect me to fall to the ground and sob, seeking attention and a shoulder to cry on. Or maybe their-
"Take a picture it'll last longer," a voice says. I look at Tilda, but she looks just as confused as I do.
Then I see the flash of red-brown hair and know. This seems to snap people back to reality, and my fifteen seconds of fame are finally over, because the tributes start moving around the training room again, taunting each other and picking up their swords and spears and bows again. Tilda disappears from my arm. And then I see the red again.
"Hey," I say, picking up the rope next to her. She doesn't look at me, doesn't make any sign she knows I'm there. "Thanks."
She doesn't say anything for a long time, and then finally looks at me, dropping the rope. "My dad died too," she says. "I never met him. So I guess we're a part of the same club now." She turns back to the rope.
"I'm sorry," I say quietly.
"Sorry for what? You didn't do anything," she says simply.
"Do you know how-"
"No," Ginnie says shortly. "And I don't really want to know. It happened, it's in the past, I can't go back and change it. So there's no point in wondering and wanting to know every detail. He's dead. That's all that matters."
I have the sudden urge to flick a piece of hair that fell in front of her eyes and tuck it behind her ear, but shove the thought aside. She's just another tribute. Yet, I find myself watching her for the rest of the day, and once in a while I catch her cold brown eyes flicking towards me and then away. She keeps to herself, never even talking to the tribute from her district, a tall boy with glasses.
"You're staring again," Tilda says for the third time in less than an hour. I curse and turn back to the knot I've been playing with. She smiles and shakes her head, finishing her fifth knot perfectly.
"I'm sorry," I say lamely, there's no denying that I wasn't watching her shimmy up a fake tree trunk.
She laughs once, but I can see the hurt in her eyes. "We aren't officially a couple, Fin," she says tightly, not looking at me. I can feel some words she's not letting me hear. "I'm not going to forbid you from watching pretty girls." I try to focus and finish the knot, but I end up throwing it on the ground angrily. "Didn't she ask you to teach her how to shoot a bow yesterday?" Tilda asks, picking up the worn down piece of rope. "Go, get it out of your system." She gives me a light shove on the back before walking to the next station, and I'm left standing there, confused out of my mind.
"Didn't you ask me to teach you how to shoot a bow?" I ask, coming up behind the red. Without saying a word, she grabs the bow and an arrow and I show her how to set it up and aim, aim at the target not at the person. Not yet anyway. She smiles. She shoots it and it hits the target on the first try, right in the bull's-eye, and she looks at me triumphantly, the light in her eyes surprising.
"I can see why this is addicting," she says half an hour later. "It's like you can release a different problem with every arrow."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," I say airy, looking over my shoulder. Tilda is doing something a little more physical, learning how to throw a knife. And she's pretty good, even though I can tell she's holding back. I've seen her throw knives in the forest, when we get bored. She just flicks them lazily at the trees, and they always stay wedged in. A good stress reliever, she says. If she senses my watching eyes, she doesn't show any sign, she just listens to something the instructor says and flicks it again, landing it dead center of the target. I see her eyes quickly scan the room to see if anyone saw her, and then relax when she thinks no one has.
"Finnick?" Ginnie asks, snapping me out of my daze. "Did you hear me?"
I turn my gaze back to the red-headed girl, her eyebrows furrowed togethor. My mind doesn't seem to want to focus, or maybe it's the testosterone. "No, sorry," I apologize.
"You lost focus there for a second, huh?" she teases, smirking. "I said; show me how to do it. I want to see the famous Finnick Mellark shoot an arrow."
"You know I'm not supposed to," I mutter, noticing the Gamemaker's watching eyes.
"So be it. But I want to see the amazing archer-god come out in you, if you're so good you can't do it in here." She winks and smiles.
"You're really beautiful when you smile," I blurt out, and then shove my hands in my pockets, my face getting hot again. Ginnie's smile fades and she looks down, biting her lip. "Sorry," I murmur.
She just looks at me, not saying anything back.
"Sometimes it's nice to forget, isn't it?" a voice says from behind me. The cool night hair calms me down, the clear air making my head no feel so heavy. Tilda, dressed in a white nightgown, her hair up in this ridiculous, messy bun, no touch of makeup on her face, no shoes, she looks beautiful. Her green eyes glow in the darkness, or in the artificial darkness of the Capitol. The buildings still radiate with life, people are still partying and singing and dancing in the restaurants and clubs, cars still zooming around the streets.
"Kind of hard to forget out here, isn't it? It's like it's slapping you right in the face, where we are and why we're here," I say dryly, chuckling once.
Tilda comes up next to me, moving silently, and places a hand on my arm. She smells clean, like lilacs and shampoo. "What do you think would happen, Finnick, if we didn't listen to them?" she whispers, looking at me.
"Why would we not listen to them? They're our higher-up, our rulers of the society. If they told their people to stop breathing, they would, in a heartbeat. They dictate our every move, our every breath, our every motion. Make one small move and if you're lucky, you end up dead."
"What's worse than death?" she breathes, seeming so innocent in the lights of the city.
"Being like my mother."
Tilda doesn't say anything for a long time just looks out at the city and bites her nails, a nervous habit of hers she's never really tried to break. I don't interrupt her thoughts; I let her slip into her own world that I'm not permitted to enter. A dark and angry world, much like mine, but she puts those bars up firmly. I'm not welcomed there.
"Why do we listen to them? Why do we show up at the reaping? Why do we go up there when we're called? Why do we let them pluck us and bathe us and make us look pretty and then slice our heads off? Why do they make our families watch? Why do they torture us after we leave? I think I'd rather die in there, Finnick, than come out alive. I don't want to have to live in a world messed up as this. I don't want for people to think I'm being glorified like some god only for my every action to be at gun point. I don't want that, and I don't want that for my children. Don't you see? This never ends! What's the point in trying? Either way, we come out of there in a box or dead." She says all this in one quick breath, like she's been holding it in for so long and suddenly it all rushes out.
I pull her close to me and smell her shampoo, taking her all in. "We do it not because we fear for ourselves, but because we fear for those we love."
"Hazelle," she whispers, clutching on to my shirt, and quietly sobs into it, the city noises drowning out her sorrow.