Twenty Years: Augustana.
Love stories weren't meant to blossom in the Districts. Fairytales, dreamed up for the children in the Capitol and those of the dark days. They were elaborated on for those poor people without hope and full of delusion. Those are what fairytales are made of. …Told, but not found in District Four. There are no mermaids in the sea. Only lonely fisherman with their old boats and siren songs.
Two years had passed and the cloudy smog of sea salt still shrouded our afternoons only to sometimes involve the hazy sun that would only appear with a harsh heat. The angry waves that only calm after storms beat against fishing marshes and pools that we knew to swim in when safe. It was home. District Four was beautiful. I sat on the beach where I first met him. He was throwing a flimsy trident with his older brother and Thomas Reed…an old friend, savior even.
I missed him. I still dreamt about him. There wasn't a day I didn't think about him.
I still remember the day his squad came home. I looked for him. I called for him. They gave me nothing of him, they gave me nothing to console in, just apologies. I had feared that moment, afraid I would slip into a dark world and never reappear. But I held to the letter he wrote me. I had to come home. I lived on autopilot for weeks, months even. He was gone, leaving a hole in my heart that I was sure would be there for the rest of my lonely life. He was gone. I would spend my days lying in my bed, part of me still waiting. Waiting for nothing. My stomach grew, and sometimes I'd forget why. Sometimes I would have visitors. Johanna and Peeta mostly. They would try to comfort me. Peeta more than Jo. Johanna mostly sat with me in order to keep me company. She, in time, became one of my closest friends.
The only comfort in losing my love was that our lives in Panem were safe. I didn't fully appreciate that until my beautiful baby boy came into the world. "What will you name him?" Johanna asked.
I didn't know. I didn't have a name for him for two weeks. Nothing seemed right. He was so perfect though. A funny, giggling baby who only reminded me of his father each day. He was such a strong baby who rarely ever cried. "Jonah," I told her one day. "After Finnick…and like Johanna." I told her. "Jonah Thomas Odair." He was perfect. Named after three great people, it was destined he gain their bravery, their hearts. Johanna was quick to love him, and soon Jonah filled the lonely void in both of our hearts. Since his birth, I never saw the darkness again.
He was two now, almost three. He loved the ocean. Sometimes he would sit on the shore and babble stories to me. I watched him play and run after little ocean critters. He would often bring me shells shouting, "Look mommy!" whenever he thought something amazing and different.
Jonah would often play until the sunset and then he'd beg that we sit out on the front porch of my parent's old house and I tell him stories. I did, stories that sailors told of mermaids and fantastic things. I'd tell him stories of a brave boy who saved a young girl from the sea. I told him stories of the old days when children played in dark games. I told him of the boy with the trident and the girl trapped in the nets…He never asked about them, until years passed. Then he learned the real story of the boy and the girl who met in District Four. He learned the truth of his brave father and his widowed mother, and the star-crossed lovers who only knew goodbyes.
District Four changed since then. It became a better place. It was a safe place for my son, a place where he learned and thrived. He even had his own love story to tell as time passed. He was a victor's child, safe because of an accidental love that never ceased, never quit fighting, and that was forever gentle and patient.
No. Love stories weren't meant to blossom here, but ours did. Finnick was right years ago, our story wasn't perfect, but it had been worth every moment of heartache. He was mine and I was his no matter our distance. He was the man in the clouds and I was the woman in the sea…and one day I'd go home to him. Until then, I would wait.