Finnick's POV
It was Friday night and I was home, lying on my bed feeling sorry for myself. I had spent most of the afternoon moping around my room, not sure of what to do. Even Peeta had a date tonight, with Katniss, of all girls. I had been invited to a party, but since meeting Annie I couldn't bring myself to go, I couldn't stand to put on that act any longer. All I could think about was her, and how badly I wanted to see her again. At the same time, I was terrified that she wouldn't want to see me. I couldn't stand the thought of loosing her so soon after she had shown me how good it could feel to finally escape my reputation on the Upper East Side.
Dragging myself out of my room, I decided to talk to Mags, because no matter what, she always knew what to do. In her small room, she was sitting at her desk playing solitaire with a deck of old, worn cards.
"Maaaaaags." I moaned.
"Yes, child?" Mags said, not looking up from her game.
I flopped down on her bed. "I don't feel right."
"How so?" Mags turned to me.
"I don't want to go out, I don't want to do anything." I looked at her, "And I can't stop thinking about Annie."
"Ahhhh." said Mags knowingly. "I know what's wrong with you."
"Mmmhmmmm?" Mentioning Annie had made me think about her again. Her laugh, her eyes...
"You're lovesick." Mags interrupted my thoughts.
"Finnick Odair is not love sick." I argued.
"I'm afraid you are, young man." Mags said matter-of-factly.
I sighed. She was probably right. Mags was always right. "What do I dooooo?" I wailed.
"Call her!" Mags said, sounding exasperated.
"I can't."
"Why, you've been texting her all week!"
"That's different." I told her.
"You're making excuses." Mags crossed her arms. "You want to ask her out but you're scared."
"I am not scared!" I argued, but even as I said it I knew it wasn't true. "Ok, maybe I am a little scared..."
"The infamous Finnick Odair, scared to ask a girl on a date." Mags mused, "That story could just about make front page news around here."
"Very funny." I rolled my eyes. "So what do I do?"
"Call her and ask her out!"
"But what if she says no?"
"Well she's already said yes once!"
"But that wasn't really a date date..."
"Finnick Odair." she used the same voice she used to when I was being naughty as a child. "Pick up the phone and call Annie. Or I will."
I groaned. "Okay okay, I'll call her. But if she says no I'm blaming you."
I paced around my room several times, staring at my phone screen before I finally worked up the courage to call Annie. It rang four times before I heard her sweet voice on the other end of the line.
"Hey." she said softly.
I suddenly forgot how to speak. No words were coming to my mind at all.
"Finnick?" she asked, "Are you there? I can hear you breathing!"
"Wouldyouliketogoonadatewithme?" I said it so fast I had to take a deep breath straight afterwards.
"What?" Annie asked, but I could hear a laugh in her voice. "Didn't quite catch that!"
"Don't make me ask you again." I moaned.
"Ask me what?" Annie laughed.
"Ughhh, you're killing me." I couldn't help but laugh too. "So will you?"
"Okay."
"Okay?" I replied with disbelief. "Just okay?"
"Yes Finnick, I will go on a date with you!" she laughed.
"Great!" I exclaimed. I realised I should probably play it cooler. "I mean, yeah, that's cool."
I could tell that Annie was rolling her eyes by the way she laughed.
"Could I pick you up at 12pm?" I continued.
"Yeah, that's cool." Annie said, mimicking my tone.
I laughed again. "Okay Annie, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Bye, Finnick." she said sweetly.
I practically bounded back into Mags' room, and I couldn't stop myself from grinning widely.
"She said yes, she said yes, she said yes!" I exclaimed, jumping up and down.
"I told you, Finnick." Mags tried to be serious, but she was smiling too.
"I owe it all to you, Mags." I joked.
"So where are you going to take her?"
I stopped dead in my tracks. I had completely forgotten that I actually needed to plan something for Annie and I to do. I tried to think. Lunch was too average, I wanted something that Annie would never forget. The problem was, I hardly knew anything about her, other than the fact that she liked to swim. Suddenly it came to me. "We'll go to the beach at Coney Island!"
Mags stared at me, "Finnick, my first date was at Coney Island and you're always reminding me how old I am."
"Well can you think of anything better?"
Mags was silent. She was right of course, maybe Coney Island was past it's glory days, but the beach was perfect and I knew that Annie would like it.
"Coney Island it is!" I exclaimed.
When I tried to sleep that night, I found that it took me hours before I finally drifted off. I wondered if Annie's night was as sleepless as mine, and if she was as excited as I was for the morning.
It took me five minutes of staring at the apartment buzzer before I finally had the courage to press the button for Annie's apartment. She appeared moments later, and everything I had planned to say to her disappeared out of my head. I couldn't get over how pretty she was, wearing a light floral dress and a collection of colourful string bracelets around her wrists.
"Finnick?" she asked, breaking through my thoughts. I snapped my eyes up to look at her face, and she was giving me a quizzical look. "Are you alright?"
I offered her my arm. "Better now to be in your presence."
She rolled her eyes but took my arm in hers all the same. "So, where are we going?"
"Coney Island!"
"Seriously?" she didn't look impressed. "I haven't been there since I was five years old!"
"All the more reason to go back!" I said, trying to sell it to her, "I thought you might like the beach."
She smiled at me sweetly. "I love the beach."
"Another thing we have in common!" I smiled, "You know, once when I was in the ocean, a sea turtle swam off with my hat."
"That did not happen!" she argued.
"It did, I sware!"
I told her the story on the way on the subway, and we spent the journey sharing stories of beachside days. I loved hearing her talk about her life, but I felt as though there was sadness in her voice and eyes as she spoke about how her father used to throw her high into the air and catch her again while they were in the ocean. She stopped speaking after that, and started to play with the string bracelets around her wrists as if trying to distract herself from what she was thinking about.
"Are you ok?" I asked. She didn't hear me, and I was scared that something was very wrong. "Annie?"
Suddenly she seemed to snap out of it and she looked up at me. "Sorry." she said softly, "Sometimes I get kind of lost in my mind."
Lost in her mind. I liked that expression, but I felt as though there was much more to it than she was telling me. I didn't want to press her for information, but I hoped she would tell me in her own time.
Luckily, it was a nice day when we stepped off the subway and started to walk along the Coney Island boardwalk. To our right, rides roared passed us and children were laughing and squealing, and to our left waves lapped at the sandy shore and seagulls circled over head.
"Where to first?" I asked her.
"How about that?" Annie pointed to the iconic wooden rollercoaster.
"The Cyclone?" I gulped, "Are you sure?"
"What, are you scared it's going to mess up your hair?" Annie mocked me.
I rolled my eyes, "Let's go."
The best part about being on the rollercoaster was Annie's reaction to it. Her laughter rang out into the air and she smiled widely as we went through the dips and turns of the ride. At the end, she looked at me with bright eyes, "Let's go again!"
"Oh, so this place isn't so lame anymore?" I teased.
"I never said it was lame!" Annie argued, as we took our seats in the ride again.
After we had ridden the Cyclone another time, we walked along the boardwalk sharing cotton candy. Annie looked so cute, so unbelievably cute, taking a bite of the pink cotton candy, her hair windswept from the ride. I wanted to kiss her so badly, but I stopped myself. I wanted to take things slower with Annie. She wasn't like the other girls I had been with, when all either of us wanted was a quick fling. Annie was too sweet, too lovely for that, and I was terrified that I would scare her off. I wanted her to know that I wasn't going to treat her like any of the girls in the past, because that wasn't who I was. Annie was giving me a chance to finally be the real Finnick, and it was the greatest feeling in the entire world. There was no way I could loose her.
I realised that she had caught me staring at her again, and she was looking at me with her eyebrows raised.
"What are you smiling at?" she asked.
I must have been smiling way too widely, but I just couldn't help it. "You."
She groaned, but her smile widened too.
I felt like I had way too much energy- I wanted to jump up and down or pick her up and spin her around and I almost thought I was going to explode. I couldn't help myself, so I quickly kissed her on the cheek. I supposed it was better than nothing. She blushed faintly before biting her lip as if trying to contain her smile.
"Come on, let's go down to the water." I suggested.
We jumped off the boardwalk and kicked off our shoes. Suddenly, Annie looked at me with a cheeky grin on her face.
"Race you!" Annie exclaimed, and took off down the beach.
She was fast, and even though I wasn't a bad runner, I couldn't catch up. Maybe she felt like she had too much energy too. When we reached the ocean, Annie turned to me, beaming.
"I do believe that I am the winner!" she said triumphantly.
"Not fair, you cheated." I pretended to pout.
Annie ran further into the ocean until it reached her ankles. She started to spin around in the circle, laughing, with her arms stretched out to the sky. I couldn't help but watch her, she looked so beautiful. When she stopped, she had a smile on her face that made me feel like maybe she hadn't smiled like that in a long time.
"Let's sit." she said.
Just as we sat down next to each other at the edge of the water, I heard someone call my name.
"Finnick Odair, never thought I'd see you here!" A shrill voice said, coming closer.
I tried not to groan as I realised who it was. A girl from a party last month, I couldn't remember her name, who I never called back. This was not good timing. "I could say the same thing to you!" I tried to act normally but inside I was screaming at her to leave me alone. There was no way she was going to ruin this date for me.
"What have you been up to?" she said, twirling her hair, "You never called me back!" Suddenly she seemed to notice Annie. "Oh, you're on a date…I'll leave you to it." She looked very unimpressed as she turned and left.
I looked at Annie, and she had a distant look in her eye, almost as if she wasn't really paying attention to reality at all. This is what I feared most, that Annie would see what my life at home was really like and not want anything to do with me. For the few hours that we had spent together I could almost forget about my real life, and I had felt more free and content than I ever had before.
"Annie?" I asked cautiously. "I'm sorry about that."
"That's ok." she said, even though I knew that it wasn't.
We were silent for a moment, until Annie spoke again. "Finnick, can you promise me something?"
"Anything."
"Please don't mess me around."
"Annie, I would never…" I tried to say.
"Just hear me out ok?" she interrupted, "Because no one has ever taken any interest in me before, and I don't want to let myself get close to you if you're just going to get bored of me in a couple of days." she spoke quickly, as if all of the things she was worried about were just rushing out of her mouth. "It's just that I'm pretty messed up at the moment, and I'm scared that if I let you in and you leave then I won't be able to handle it. That it will just tip me over the edge, you know?" She looked up at me, completely serious.
"And then what?" I asked breathlessly. It was as if all the oxygen in the world had suddenly been sucked away with her words and I felt immense pressure on my chest.
"I don't want to think about it."
My mind was racing with what she was saying, and it hurt to think that this beautiful, lively girl was living so close to the edge. I wondered what went on in her mind, but more than that, I wanted to be the one to give her hope, just like she had given me. "You won't ever have to think about it." I said sincerely. "I promise you Annie, I'll stick around for as long as you want me to."
"Really?" she asked softly.
"Really." I pulled her into my arms and stroked her hair as she rested her head on my chest. We were quiet for a moment, but what she told me was still burning in my mind. "Annie?" I asked quietly.
"Yes, Finnick?"
"What happened to you?" It was a simple question, but the words felt heavy as I spoke. She knew exactly what I meant, and as soon as I said it she pulled away. At first I thought it was because I had pushed her too far and she wanted to leave, but I realised she was looking into my eyes to find the courage to tell me. "I mean, you don't have to tell me." I started to say quickly, "I just thought maybe…"
"I can tell you." Annie said, sounding confident, "I just don't talk about it that much, but it's good for me, to put it into words."
I was so relieved that she was going to trust me, because I could tell how hard it was for her to find the right words.
She looked out into the ocean as she finally began to speak again. "My parents died when I was fifteen. It was a car accident- we were all in the car together. I survived, but I watched them die...right in front of me. I couldn't save them." she shuddered at the memory, but she kept her voice strong, as if willing herself to get through it.
I could feel my heart breaking already, but I knew that there was more to Annie's story.
"I went to live with my aunt and uncle, and they thought I was coping, but I wasn't." she continued, taking a deep breath. "Every night I replayed the accident over and over in my head, and all day I could hear my mother's screams and the see the look of terror in my father's eyes…" she glanced down and started to play with her bracelets again.
As I watched her, I could see the cuts covering her soft skin again, and I felt sick to imagine Annie doing that to herself.
"Hurting myself was the only way to make it stop. I kept it hidden from everyone." She paused for a moment. "But one day I couldn't take it anymore and told my aunt. I've been in therapy ever since." She had tears in her eyes when she stopped speaking. "So that's my secret. You think I'm crazy, right?"
"I think you're the bravest person I have ever met." I told her honestly.
I looked into her eyes and I couldn't take it any more. I wasn't sure I'd be able to explain my feelings towards her properly enough with words, so that she would be able to understand. I was usually so smooth with my words and knew exactly what to say to a girl, but Annie was different. She made me nervous and utterly unable to form proper sentences when she looked at me with a smile on her face. But I needed her to know that I wasn't going to hurt her, because Mags was right, I was completely lovesick over the thought of her and there was no way I was going to let a girl as good as Annie go.
I had never felt this nervous before as I leant in and kissed her softly. I pulled back, because I wasn't sure how she would react, but I saw a small smile form on her lips. To my surprise, she was the one who began our second kiss. I had never experienced anything like that before, where I actually felt something while kissing a girl. It was so good, so impossibly good, and I almost never wanted the day to end.
In the end, the waves interrupted us, as the water started to lap at our feet as the tide came in. Annie laughed, digging her toes into the wet sand, before resting her head on my chest once again.
"I think you're going to be good for me." she said softly.
I stroked her hair. "I think you're going to be good for me too."
The perfect end to a perfect day, Annie and I walked hand in hand across the boardwalk as the sun began to set. I kept hold of her hand on the subway and didn't let go until I said goodbye to her at her doorstep. As soon as I let go, I felt cold and empty, and I knew I couldn't wait until her hand was in mine once again.
On Sunday, I spent most of the day moping around the house, not sure of what to do with myself. I wanted desperately to see Annie again, but at the same time I didn't want to come on too strong. Since our date, I felt like a totally different person. She made me realise that I could be myself and still live in the world that I did, but I needed her to be with me so that I could.
In the afternoon, Mags finally got sick of me lying around feeling sorry for myself, and ordered me to go and visit Peeta at work. His brownies always cheered me up.
"Hey buddy." Peeta said when I appeared in the kitchen.
The kitchen was kind of our 'go to' place when we needed to talk about anything serious, so he wasn't surprised to see me.
"Hey." I said glumly, sitting up on the bench beside him.
"You don't sound so happy." Peeta observed, mixing chocolate batter in a bowl.
"Are you making brownies?" I asked.
"You bet." Peeta smiled.
"Excellent."
"So something is wrong."
"Yes." I moaned, "I met a girl and it's killing me."
Peeta stopped what he was doing and stared at me. "Should I be worried?"
"She makes me want to write poetry." I continued mournfully.
"Write poetry?" Peeta asked incredulously, "Oh man, now I am worried about you."
"Ughhhh." I groaned, running a hand through my hair. "I can't talk about her. I'll go crazy."
"Here." Peeta handed me the bowl of leftover brownie mix and I immediately stared to lick it up with my finger. "What should we talk about instead?"
"Well how was your date?"
"It didn't go exactly to plan…a bit of a disaster really, but memorable to say the least." I could tell that Peeta was trying not to smile.
"Did you kiss her?"
"Yeah." Peeta said, smiling widely now.
"So is she your…girlfriend?"
Peeta looked at me. "I don't know, maybe?"
"You want her to be though."
"Well do you want your mystery girl to be your girlfriend?"
It was a strange thing to think about, Annie Cresta being my girlfriend…and me being her boyfriend. I had never been a boyfriend before and that thought kind of terrified me. I was lost in thought when Peeta joined me on the bench, scooping up some more of the mixture from the bowl.
"We are so pathetic right now." Peeta said glumly.
"I know, right?" I replied, equally as sad.
The oven beeped and Peeta took out the fresh batch of brownies. Even though thinking about Annie was driving me crazy, at least I had Peeta's brownies to cheer me up until I could see her again.