Say what you want about the Capitol, but there's no denying that they know how to make good food. My stomach is gurgling in protest the second a savory whiff of dinner reaches my nostrils. When we are all called to take our seats, I don't rush when browsing the extravagant presentation on the dining table. Some sort of roasted bird makes a garnished center piece, and countless bowls surrounding it are filled with foods ranging from peaches and cream to seasoned vegetables. Members of District 4, victors especially, always make off well with food, but even we don't get meals quite like this.
Before I can inhale the whole dinner table, Mags rests a hand on my shoulder to let me know that the others are beginning to sit down. I notice her staring across the room and I follow her gaze to see an exhausted-looking Annie quietly entering and taking her seat. Mags squeezes my shoulder once, and I wonder once again just how obvious I was being at last night's dinner with my so-called "fascination."
I try to catch Annie's eye to no avail. I don't even know why I desire her acknowledgement so much; just seeing her awakens some stale, underlying anger and frustration from our earlier confrontation, but I might as well admit there's also a feeling of relief. Even when we can't stand to look at one another, there's an aura of calm that comes with her close presence. The thought is sickening, considering our situation.
Annie hasn't so much as breathed the same air as me since the argument earlier. After the elevator door shut and I was alone, I decided to aimlessly stroll the hallways of the Training Center lobby away from the cameras. It was only later that I came to my senses and realized that the District 4 flat is huge with separate rooms, and that there was no real need for me to avoid the whole floor just because Annie couldn't bear to see my face. How Eura would laugh to hear that a mentor was taking orders from a tribute in the first place.
The District 4 victors and prep teams are chatty as usual during the first half of dinner. Eura seems too intrigued with her mixed vegetables to hold conversation and Annie sits politely yet silently with her food untouched. I'm pretty sure Drift is shooting daggers at me with his eyes, but I don't care enough to check for sure.
"...why, just ask Finnick!"
The sound of my name snaps me to attention. Drift's designer, the one who seemingly had glitter injected into the surface of her skin, waves at me from the other end of the table. At my look of confusion, she says in her shrill voice, "We were just talking about those from 1, 2 and 4 who train in the academies for the Games! You were one of them, were you not?"
"Uh, yes, yes I was," I answer. I feel Annie's eyes on me. " I didn't volunteer, though; most kids wait 'til age seventeen or eighteen before deciding to do that. I was reaped the old fashioned way, and I guess none of the big guys that year were up to taking the reins."
This earns a couple laughs from around the table, though I'm not entirely sure why.
"My, it was just a stroke of luck for you, then," the designer says with hands clasped together. "Such greatness you've come to have, becoming the youngest victor in all of Panem history!"
I try to hold back a snort of laughter. A stroke of luck isn't exactly what I'd call being reaped at age fourteen, especially when I was far from being convinced to one day volunteer. Most who train in the academies never do; often we grow up to discover that our heart just isn't in the competition. To volunteer you need to have a distinguished thirst for blood.
"Oh, but that must have been so hard," says the Capitol woman seated next to the designer. The intricate neon butterfly tattooed smack in the middle of her face is terribly distracting. "Leaving home so much sooner than you expected, knowing that no one else your age had ever won the Games. Even with such excellent skill, that must have been difficult."
"Oh, it was," I say mid-chew, trying to match the woman's nonchalant manner. But then I look again at Annie watching me from across the table, and I'm drawn back to the moment I said goodbye to my father after the reaping and to the moment when I hugged Mags before the launch thinking I might never see her again.
"But despite the odds, I knew I needed to try my best to win," I continue, more solemn and quiet as I look down the table. "Because I had people counting on me to return, and to lose confidence or succumb to fear before even trying...you can't do that to the people you know."
I dare look at Annie out of the corner of my eye, and I see her mouth pressed in a tight line. She pushes a piece of hair behind her ear before our eyes meet and lock. Suddenly nobody else is there but the two of us, me becoming lost in Annie's dark green eyes and endless array of freckles. "You just can't do that to the people who care about you."
"And so many people who cared about you, there were!" the Capitol woman shrieks with a high pitched laugh, shattering our eye contact but not before I notice Annie's cheeks flush pink. "Here we are, five years past your Games and the people of the Capitol stillcan't get enough of you!"
The prep teams join in collective snickers, holding up and clinking their glasses in what can only be an ode to my long string of love affairs. How fun it must be for them to gossip about my love life, to whisper about the times I've been caught sneaking away with Capitol women on Capitol TV. They must say I deserve it, being the shining star I am. I'm about to fake a half smile for the sake of appearances, but I then stop myself. A sudden flash of hot anger comes over me.
"I suppose they really can't get enough, can they?" The words tumbling out of my mouth sound grim and poisonous. "Lucky me."
The whole table falls silent and I lift my drink casually to my mouth while mentally cursing myself. That was stupid, really stupid. To my left the Capitol prep team members look as puzzled as a wide-eyed toddler that's fallen and can't piece together what just happened. Then suddenly, a giggle bubbles up from one of them, the one with the glittery skin, and the rest of them follow soon after. I haven't the slightest idea what's so funny, but Capitol citizens tend to be idiots anyway so I decide to go along with it and flash a smile.
It's not too long after that the other victors return to normal conversation, all except for Eura and Mags who look at me oddly. Annie is once again doing a visual dissection of my face, her eyes narrow and almost sad like she's determined to uncover the meaning of everything I say and do. I return her stare with a casual half smile, and in that moment I wish I could communicate with her telepathically, or at least see what's inside her head for just a moment. Eventually she bites her lip before picking up her fork to begin eating her untouched plate of food.
A half hour after everyone has left dinner, there's a light knock on my bedroom door. When I open it to see Annie standing there with her hands clasped in front of her and a small smile on her face, I can't stop myself from breaking into a grin. I feel as though I've been holding in a deep breath that I can only now exhale. Annie's talking to me again.
"Hey," I say.
"Hey," she says back, her voice slightly breathy. Her shifting eyes tell me that something is bothering her, and from behind her I can hear the echoes of other voices from the lounge.
"Come on in," I say, sidestepping out of the doorway and waving her inside my bedroom. She pauses momentarily before rushing past me, and the moment I shut the door she turns.
"Is it bad?" she asks in a rush, rearranging her clasped hands and looking at me with wide eyes.
"What?" I walk closer to her, confused by her words and stance.
"What you said at dinner. About the Capitol. I don't know exactly what you meant – well, I might know what you meant but I don't know for sure—"
"Annie—"
"But I could tell that for some reason you weren't supposed to say what you did. I don't know why, but I could see in your face that you messed up. I just want to know, is it bad that you said what you did, like can it get someone in trouble if word got around...?" She takes a deep breath when her sentence tampers off into a question.
"Annie," I say, walking close enough to her now that I could lean out and touch her. I can tell I've upset her, and I curse myself mentally once again. "I promise nothing I say or do is going to get you in trouble or hinder your chances in that arena. I'd never let that happen."
"What?" Her concerned expression breaks and she gives me a strange puzzled look, her eyebrows drawn together like she can't make sense of what I've said. The turning wheels behind her eyes are practically visible as she registers my words. "No, no," she says suddenly, waving her hand to dismiss my words. "I know that. I'm fine. I want to know if you'regoing to be okay."
"Me?"
"Yes, you!" she says impatiently as her cheeks begin to redden. "There's cameras and gossip and stuff, and I'm not sure what kind of hole you've dug yourself into."
I stand there and silently stare at her, Annie Cresta, my tribute who is going to enter the arena in just shy of three days, and I register that out of this whole mess the one thing on her mind is my wellbeing after making a mindless slip at dinner.
Before I can stop myself, I begin to laugh. It starts as an incredulous chuckle and quickly progresses to the point where I'm almost doubled over laughing.
"What? What is it?" she asks, looking slightly peeved with my sudden outburst.
"It... it's nothing..." I say, trying to find my voice in between my laughter. I can't even remember the last time I've laughed, let alone this hard. "It's just... if the Peacekeepers show up to drag me away, I'll be sure to contact you about it first."
She shoves me, but in a way that's not really meant to hurt. "That's not funny!" she says, her quivering mouth set in a thin line and her arms crossed.
"Aww," I say teasingly, my grin spanning across my entire face. "Careful, Cresta, or I'll start to think that you actually care about me."
"Oh, shut up." She rolls her eyes, but the tiniest of smiles sneaks its way out of her mouth. "Don't act like I didn't see the way you were staring at me at dinner, Odair."
"I recall no such thing."
"Sure you don't." Suddenly Annie turns and skips over to my bed before sprawling out on top of the covers. She hugs a silk purple pillow close to her chest and multiple messy strands of dark hair fall across her face. "I'm sure you also don't recall the way you insinuated that you care about me, huh? I may have been ignoring you, but I'm not completely oblivious."
For a moment I only stare at her as she moves her legs across the sheets as if making a snow angel, and I feel beside myself at the fact that a person like Annie Cresta exists. Finally, someone who treats me neither like a promiscuous god nor a broken piece of china, someone who can challenge me and keep up with me and understand me, someone who genuinely cares about me without fully knowing who I am. For a second, all thoughts of the Games and the possibility of Annie's death melt from my mind, and I feel those same walls I tried hastily rebuilding earlier coming down once again.
She turns over onto her stomach suddenly and looks at me thoughtfully with her chin in her hand.
"Aw, won't you look at that," she says with a smile. "Finnick Odair is blushing."
"I am not blushing." I walk over and take a seat next to her on the bed.
"Apology accepted, by the way," she says, sitting up so that we are at eye level and her face is only inches from mine. My pulse picks up speed, which is ridiculous because I've been this close to a countless number of strangers in my company. Something about this is different, though. It's difficult not to be come lost in the light flecks of her eyes. "You know, for our argument earlier."
I raise an eyebrow. "That's funny, I don't remember apologizing."
"Oh, but you were going to," she says in a sing-song voice.
I can only laugh in response, which makes two times that Annie's made me laugh in one day. She laughs, too, and it's a truly beautiful laugh, and we both look at each other as the laughter soon dies and fades to silence.
"So you'll really be okay?" she whispers, looking up at me through her dark eyelashes. It's the same look she gave me when we trained in the lounge yesterday, the nervous and wistful expression that made me want to comfort her.
"Don't worry about me. It's gone over everyone's heads by this point, and it really isn't a big deal anyway." Well, it's mostly true. I need to take precaution in the future to not slip up again, and at least in this case, I didn't necessarily say anything wrong; it was all in the suggestion of my words. The Capitol freaks have obviously forgotten it, and Snow likely is too busy with the Games to watch a live feed of my every move. Still, the cameras are always something to be wary of, even the cameras in this very room. If only I could find a way to escape for a bit...
"Well, that's good." Annie sighs. "I suppose I owe you a bit of an explanation myself. You know, in regards to our earlier... conversation."
"You owe me nothing." The words fall out of my mouth without thought, and I avoid Annie's eyes. "Let's just make sure you win in that arena, alright?"
"I definitely owe you more than nothing," she says in a whisper, completely ignoring my question.
We sit there in silence as I think over her words, and suddenly the hidden cameras and the constrictions of the room are both suffocating.
"I'm the one who owes you an explanation, but here isn't the right place for it. Do you want to get out of here?" I say suddenly, standing up from the bed and looking down at Annie.
She snorts a laugh. "What's here? This bedroom? We are stuck in this building, remember? There's practically nowhere to go."
"Maybe, maybe not. I happen to be familiar with the area, and I think I know a place we can go." I extend my open hand down toward her with a smile. "You just gotta trust me."
Before I even finish my sentence, Annie stands and takes my hand in hers. Her palm is warm and soft, not chalked up with rough calluses and scars like mine. In a way, it's like they were made to be a perfectly opposite match.
"I trust you," she says quietly with a squeeze of my hand, and not even her teasing smile can hide the darkening blush on her face. "Now lead the way."