A/N- Thanks for reading, I'm glad that you've stuck with my stories this long. I appreciate any feedback. Thank you.
"Finnick-," she says, about to launch into a huge lecture.
"What?" I snap before she says anything else. "What is the problem with killing myself? It'll just be better for everyone."
"You're the only one who thinks that."
"Seriously? You don't know me anymore, Mags. I'm not what you think."
"You're a living person, and every person deserves to live."
"President Snow?" I ask dryly. Mags waves it off easily.
"He isn't a true human being."
"I'm not much better." She shakes her head, then lowers herself into a chair beside me.
"Do you send innocent children into an arena to die for your entertainment?"
"It's pretty good tv," is my response. I don't want anyone defending me. I want someone to take that damn knife and plunge it into my heart for me.
"Finnick, you need help."
"It's too late for that," I say, burying my face in my hands. There's nothing that can help me. The fire that started burning me away five years ago has finally finished the job. I'm nothing but a pile of ashes, and you can't rebuild a house after it's burned to the ground.
"When the Lord is going to do something great, he begins with an improbability. When he's going to perform a miracle, he begins with an impossibility."
"Shit Mags, don't you think that if there was a "Lord", the Games would've ended a long time ago?" Hell, if there was a God, my life would've ended a long time ago. I'm basically the devil incarnate.
"Everyone needs something to believe in Finnick. I think that's your problem. The only thing you truly believe in is that no one can attain true happiness."
"You've got it all wrong. I don't believe that no one can attain true happiness. I just believe that it's never going to be me or anyone that ever comes into contact with me."
"It's President Snow. Not you."
"That should be my new motto. I go and blow up a building, but when the Peacekeepers come, I'll just tell them that it isn't my fault. President Snow made me do it." That's when she slaps me across the face. Hard. I stare at her, slowly brining my hand up to touch the place where she'd hit me.
"Listen," she shouts, right in my face. I shut up immediately. "Annie will get better, those things do eventually heal. But you have to help her, to be patient. Okay?"
"It isn't just Annie," I mumble.
"The Games? You've dealt with that before. When you and Annie were really close, you were happy."
"Then Snow made me his bitch. Do you want me to tell him to fuck off or something? Because I really cannot be happy if I'm subjected to that."
"Sometimes you have to look past imperfections."
"Imperfection? That's a nice euphemism. But whatever. Maybe I can look beyond the imperfections, maybe I can help Annie recover, then live a halfway decent sort of life, but do you ever think I can really be happy?" I'm like a burn victim. I may live, but I'll always have the scars to remind me of just what I've been through.
"Just be patient, Finnick. Your time will come."
"My time was those four days before the Games started, when I managed to captivate the entire nation. It has come. Now it's gone. End of story."
"If you can hold onto hope, you're story has a lot more chapters left. Give Annie time, and she will heal." Then she starts walking away.
"I want my knife back," I snap. And I guess she realizes that I have enough to think about not to kill myself, because she tosses it over her shoulder. It lands in front of me with a loud clang. I grab it, then delicately trace the blade with my fingers. It seems like it'd be fun to stab through skin. Suddenly, my blood just seems to be begging for a release. I decide to think about what Mags said later. For the time being, I cut narrow slits on the tops of all my fingers, letting the blood flow freely. The pain feels good, but the best feeling is the warm blood running across my skin. I fall asleep right there on the floor, wondering if I'll wake up in a pool of blood.
There is no pool, though. Hardly any blood, really. The cuts weren't deep. They hurt like hell, though, and I start regretting my decision. A new experience for me, I know, but I think I handle it well enough.
Really, I do handle it better than my other problems. I shower, being very careful with my fingers, then smother them in medicine and bandage them all up. After that, I head over to Annie's. It's not like I have anything else to do, and Mags' words are echoing through my head. Maybe that's all I need, to give her more time.
Her mother answers the door, dark circles under her eyes. They're almost as big as mine.
"Hello Finnick," she says softly, then moves to let me in. I start to walk past her, then turn at the last second to give her a quick hug.
"I'm sorry," I say. She just manages a week smile, then shuffles back to the kitchen. Annie pokes her head out of a bedroom a minute later, her eyes wide and her hair wild.
"Finnick," she says. There's dull recognition, but also wariness.
"What's up?" I ask her. She blinks, then slowly makes her way out of her bedroom.
"Are they here?" she asks. I actually smile in shock. She's decided to include me in her little crazy world. Maybe it's a good thing I didn't kill myself.
"Just me Annie." She looks skeptical. "I'm sure. I wouldn't lie to you, would I?"
"I don't trust anyone," she says. And even though it hurts, I put a hand on her shoulder.
"Smart." Then I lead her to the living room. She plops down on the couch, and I sit beside her. Like always, she flips on the tv, not caring that it's another rerun of the Games. This one isn't bad, though. It's some girl named Cecelia's. I know Mags has talked about her, but I don't know her, so I can manage to watch the whole thing in a kind of detached way. Annie gets real into it, though, cheering and everything. I actually take her hand when she gets too excited, and she doesn't let go. Actually, it's even better than that.
"What'd you do?" she asks, holding up my hand.
"Got cut," I answer. It doesn't matter that I did the cutting.
"Did they do it?" she asks. Then she looks up at me with those big green eyes, and I realize that I can't lie to her.
"I did." Her eyes grow wider, and she lifts my hand up to her face, like she wants a closer look. I actually blush, because Annie is the only person who can embarrass me anymore. Even when she isn't all there, admitting how messed up I really am is extremely difficult.
"Why?" she asks softly.
"Sometimes feeling pain is better than dealing with what's really going on." I'm sure it's not smart to tell an unstable person something like that, but I do anyway. I need to tell someone, and it's always been Annie that I've told. This is different, I don't think she even cares, but it's still Annie.
"Oh," she says quietly, then goes back to watching the Games, still holding onto my hand. I lean my head back against the couch and just watch her. She looks younger, a lot younger than before. That's weird. When I got back from my Games, I looked years older than I had before. Maybe it's because of what's going on in her head. I guess I'm not sure, but she just seems so tiny, so delicate, like a little child. I know that if I looked into her eyes again, if I saw the unnatural fear there, that any sign of youth would go away. That's why I don't. Seeing her look like a kid again brings back so many memories.
Tears flood my eyes when I think of the first time I met her, of pacing back and forth in front of that old wooden house, working up the courage to go in. As soon as she saw me, her eyes flared with distrust. But I made her trust me, I made her see that I wasn't the person I seemed to be in the Games. In all honesty, I probably lied to her. Now, I'm pretty sure that the Games didn't turn me into something that I wasn't. Instead, they just brought out my true nature. Now, she's all caught up with me, when really she shouldn't be. I should try to set her up with Rafe or someone like that. Someone normal.
But as soon as I think it, I know that it isn't even a possibility. No matter what I did to Annie, no matter what I will do to her, I'm selfish enough to know that there's no way I can make myself let her go. No matter how much better than me she is, I'm going to force her to stoop to my level until she realizes just how much better the rest of the world is than me. And as soon as she does, I truly will lose any reason to live. Annie may still be here now, with a small piece of hope left, but as soon as she's gone, I will be too.
"Do you remember anything before the Games?" I ask Annie. She looks up at me.
"There is no "before"," she says wistfully. Which, at the time, I take to mean that she doesn't.
"So you don't know anything about me?"
"You're Finnick Odair," she says. I try not to let myself get frustrated.
"Anything else?" She starts looking troubled, so I quickly change my question. "What about your sister? Do you remember your sister?" Her eyes raise up to meet mine, and I can see tears getting ready to fall.
"I don't have a sister," she says. I put my hands on her shoulders.
"Arowana. She was tall and blonde, and she cared more about you than anything else."
"The girl in your Games," Annie says quietly. I nod.
"The girl in my Games."
"Did you love her?" I close my eyes, then take a deep breath. I didn't think I loved her, not then, but right now, I would die if I could just talk to her for five minutes. She would beat the hell out of me if I told her what I did to Annie, what I've become. I desperately need that.
"Yeah, I guess I did."
"They got her." I just nod. Then Annie puts her hands over her ears and starts shaking her head, like she's trying to drown out some kind of horrible noise. I grab her hands, then slowly bring them down to her side, murmuring to her that nothing will hurt her. Eventually, she stops shaking and her face relaxes.
"They'll get us all," she warns me, then she walks off to her bedroom, leaving me on the couch, wondering what's going to come next.
"Are you okay, Finnick?" Annie's mom asks from behind me. I jump, my hand flying to the pocket where I keep my knife. Then I stop myself, gather my bearings, and turn around.
"Yeah, totally fine." Not everyone needs to know about my problems.
"You look sick."
"Just worried." Then she gives me a somewhat awkward hug, mostly because I'm not a huge fan of human contact (yeah, hard to believe, I know).
"She's getting better, and it's only been a few days. I remember what you were like when you got home from the Games, and you got better." I smile, hopefully convincingly.
"Yeah, and Annie will do the same." Then I leave as quickly as possible, the tears flowing down my cheeks before I'm all the way out the door. Because I know that I never got better. Truthfully, it only gets worse.