Chapter 46 :
"Hello, sweetheart." he said softly.
"Haymitch?" He could almost picture the frown on her face. "It's three in the morning. What's wrong? Did something happen? Your mother? Hayden?"
"They're fine." he replied, rubbing his face. "There was an explosion at the mine yesterday. Lots of people died."
There was a pause at the other end of the line, confused silence perhaps. "Did you know anyone who worked there?"
Probably. It had not even occurred to him. Almost everyone who had been in his class at school had gone to work in the mines. People he used to be friends with… People who were now strangers, like Hazelle.
"Have you said yes yet?" he asked.
"Are you drunk?" she sighed, slightly exasperated and almost resigned.
"Not even a little." he snorted.
He tried to picture her. Was she in her pink and white living room or in her gold and purple bedroom? Was she wearing a nightgown or one of those silky top and shorts pajamas?
"Haymitch, it's three in the morning and I don't think we should be having this conversation at all." she said quietly, so quietly he had trouble hearing it. She didn't sound convinced. It would have been easier if she had been standing right in front of him. He was good at reading her face even with all the stupid make-up she insisted on painting it with.
"Don't say yes." he requested.
"Haymitch…" she sighed again.
"I'm a selfish man, sweetheart." he cut her off before she could flat out refuse him.
She let out a soft chuckle, it sounded almost sad. "You really are not."
"Yeah, I am." he insisted. "'Cause if I wasn't, I would let you go to Six. But I'm selfish and I want you to stay."
"Give me one good reason." she demanded. "A very good one."
"You're the best escort we ever had." he shrugged, wandering to the sink to watch the backyard through the window. The wire was strained but it still worked.
"That's not a good reason. Perhaps the next one will be even better. How would you know?" she replied. "You always assume the worst of people."
"Yeah and they rarely disappoint me." he scorned.
"Even so." she argued. There was a ruffle of fabric on her side of the line.
"Are you in bed?" he smirked.
"We are not going there." she warned. "Don't even dare make one of your corny jokes."
"But you're in bed…" He closed his eyes and there she was in his mind. It was a prettier picture than anything his subconscious had to offer, like ghosts lurking in the dark corners of the kitchen or piles of dry earth ready to swallow him up whole until he suffocated to death.
"Really, Haymitch, it is three in the morning, where else do you expect me to be?" she huffed. "You woke me up – and I'm still waiting for an apology about that, I must add. However since I know how far-stretched the idea of you actually showing some manners is, I won't hold my breath on that."
His smirk morphed into a genuine smile. "I love it when you rant even if you're being annoying, how's that for a good reason?"
"You are not taking this seriously." she retorted. "I was serious. Give me a good reason because I already told you Six is a golden opportunity. I will have a real chance of winning and all those Games we lost…."
"Sweetheart, look at the betting books. Six is right above Twelve. It's not much better." he pointed out. "They win once in a blue mood, they're not exactly Career Districts. Besides, good luck taking their drugs away from them. All the victors in Six are junkies, everybody knows it."
"If I stay in Twelve, I will never get another promotion." she replied. "What you're asking out of me is nothing else than a professional suicide."
"Is that what I'm asking of you?" he mocked. "And here I thought we understood each other…"
She remained silent for a few seconds. "I am keeping that in mind too, if you must know. I would be lying if I said I haven't been thinking about it a lot."
"And?" he prompted.
"And I'm still waiting for a good reason." she said.
"Hayden needs you." he offered.
"No, he doesn't." she denied. "He knows how to work on his own. As for the rest, he knows I will always be his friend. We actually talked about it. He, contrary to you, doesn't remember my existence on random nights at three in the morning, he calls at decent hours to catch up."
"Okay, I need you." he countered. "That's the best reason I've got. Told you I'm selfish."
Her breath audibly caught and he breathed out slowly. There were other things he wanted to tell her but he would never dare on the phone, not when he was sure every conversation was recorded.
He wanted her.
That was what he wished he could tell her. He wanted her in his bed, he wanted her in his arms and he wanted her in his life. He wanted her to chase the ghosts away, he wanted her to hold him when he felt so disgusted with what the Capitol had made of him he couldn't look in the mirror anymore, he wanted her to say he was doing the right thing. He wanted her to have his back because he trusted her to do so. He wanted her to teach him how to love again even though it was the most scary thing he could ever face because love, until then, had brought him nothing but problems and heartache.
It was funny how he had stood by the mine earlier, watched the grief and the all-encompassing worry on everyone's face and he had thought he would never be able to go through that again, not after Mabel. Loving two people was enough for him, loving two people was difficult enough as it was because, even though he was grateful for them, his mother and his brother didn't always make it easy… And yet… He couldn't stop thinking about Effie and the idea of letting her go for good… It was a brand new kind of terrifying perspective.
"Please. Stay." If that was begging, he didn't care.
"If I do stay…" she ventured after some time.
"We'll figure it out." he promised. "I'm not saying it will be easy, sweetheart, but we can figure it out."
She held her breath for a few seconds and then breathed out slowly. It wasn't quite a sigh but it was tired and undecided all the same. "Together?"
He thought there was a double meaning in the question. "Together."
She sighed again. He had lost count of the number of sighs in that conversation. "I've always made the clever choices, Haymitch, always."
"Yeah, me too." At least he would like to think he had. He had always tried to make the best of impossible situations.
"That's disputable." she commented. "But nevertheless you must realize… This is not clever. At all."
"Arrange a train to get me up to the Capitol for Victory Tour. It's only two months away." he said. "We should talk about this face to face."
"I have to give my answer before Victory Tour actually starts." she objected. "And… I'm not sure it would be smart to make you come. They didn't request you. If you do come, they might…"
"They might, they might not. I'm not exactly Finnick anymore." he scoffed. "I don't care. I want to see you."
"Haymitch…" She sounded undecided. "I need to think about this."
"You've been thinking about it for two months." he snapped. "What do you want to do? If you had to choose right now. What would you do?"
"Right now I'm trying not to let my heart rule my head because at least one of us should be thinking straight and clearly the fact that you are even talking about that on the phone tells me you are not." she retorted sharply. "And you are not making it easy. I need to go. I will think about it, I promise."
"Effie." he growled.
"Goodnight, Haymitch." Just like that, she hang up and he was left listening to the sharp ringing of a disconnected call.
He felt so helpless he almost tore the phone off the wall.
I think it's the shortest chapter in the whole story but it was intense! What do you think? Please let me know!
