The last month without Finnick has been horrible. Sleep just doesn't come, and when it does, I wake up screaming, crying or shaking. I barely eat, even though my house has enough food to feed all of the poor people in the district for a year. I stay in my house all day making nets. Because of this, my fingers are cracked and rough. They bleed whenever I tie the knots, and the nets are stained red.
But I don't care. Making the nets is the only thing that keeps me sane. If I don't, the voices come back, telling me that no one loves me and they are all on a mission to kill me. I constantly have a battle raging on inside my head, me against the voices. But today, the battle will end because Finnick is coming home.
I have been keeping a tally of how many days he has been gone by drawing a star every day on a wall by my front door. I know he said he would be gone for thirty days. Slowly, but surely, the number of stars has reached thirty. I woke up and ran to the wall. I saw there were thirty, and I screamed. Almost immediately, my front door burst open. Mags comes rushing in, coming over to me. "Annie, are you okay? I heard you scream, and when you scream, it isn't usually a good thing."
"Mags, I'm completely fine. Look at the number of stars." I point at the lines of neatly drawn stars. "Thirty. That means Finnick is coming home today! I get to see him!" I squeal and jump up and down like a little girl.
"He is, isn't he? We should throw him a welcome home party! On the beach! Why don't you run down to the beach and try and get some shrimp and crab for your stew? We can have that and some of the seaweed bread. Come on Annie! We don't have much time!" She pushes me towards the stairs and urges me to get my swimsuit on. I rush upstairs and get dressed. After that, I run, more like trip, down the flight of stairs. On my way out, I grab a gallon bucket to carry my catches.
While I am walking down to the beach, I hear people whispering and see them point and give me weird looks. I notice my two old friends, Dylan and Maria. They don't notice me, but I begin to walk over to them to say hi. When I get about five feet from them, I can hear what they are talking about. "Maria, did you see how Annie acted in the Games?" Dylan is using the voice she uses when she is gossiping.
"Yeah. She went like completely crazy. Just whack. Why did she flip out so much when Raycen got beheaded? It's the Games for goodness sake. She should have expected to see people get killed. She has seen previous Games and she didn't go crazy then." Maria raises her eyebrows to emphasize her point.
"You're right. She didn't. Thank God she doesn't come to school anymore. If she did, we would probably have to deal with her breaking down and acting like a mental patient." They both start cracking up. This is when I speak up.
"Dylan? Maria? You guys seriously think I've gone insane?" A memory floods into my mind. My prep team is surrounding me, talking about how crazy I am and how they can't believe how somebody could just snap like I did.
Tears spill down my cheeks. They turn around briskly, their eyes wide. "No, Annie, we didn't mean it like that. We were totally kidding." Maria hops up and comes over to me to try and provide some comfort. But Dylan just sits there, leaning back onto a boulder. I shake my head, the tears making my side-bangs wet.
"Actually Annie, we do think you've gone bonkers. Maria is just too nice to admit it." She shrugs and walks away. Maria gives me a sympathetic look and jogs to catch up to Dylan. They just leave me there for everyone to stare at, like an animal in a zoo.