Gale's POV
Everyone sits in the living room after dinner. It was one of the worst and one of the best dinners I've ever had. I don't know where I stand with Johanna, and it's making me antsy.
"Okay, this whole dinner situation is pissing me off," Finnick crosses his arms. "I will figure it out if it kills me. So, what happened?"
"Nothing," Johanna, Annie, Nathan, and I say in unison.
"When multiple people say something in unison it makes it less believable," Katniss points out.
"So, let's start with what we know," Finnick suggests. "Something happened between Nathan and Jo. Annie figured it out and got mad at Nathan. Gale got mad at Jo. I don't know how much Peeta knows, but he was eavesdropping on Annie and Nathan's conversation, and then he was there when they went to get Gale and Jo."
"It really was nothing," Johanna insists.
"It wasn't nothing," Annie mutters under her breath. "It was high school repeating itself."
"Oh, a new development," Katniss claps her hands. "Beatrice, Ron, what happened between Annie and Nathan when they were in high school."
"Don't worry about it," Nathan says. "It doesn't matter."
"If it didn't matter, you would've told us," Katniss crosses her arms.
"Katniss, Finnick, will you come upstairs and help me with something?" Annie asks politely and they oblige.
They hurry up the stairs and Johanna, Peeta, Nathan and I exchange looks. "She's spilling the whole story, isn't she?"
Katniss's POV
"So, please don't tell my parents because they would be . . . brokenhearted, if they knew Nathan did things like that," Annie finishes.
"That's . . . disturbing," Katniss says.
"Annie, I swear if you say one word, you will regret it," we hear Johanna's voice in the hallway. She opens the door and frowns at us.
I walk past her and pat her shoulder. "What was that? Don't touch me," she steps away and turns toward Annie. "You told them! You told them after we told you not to."
"I didn't tell them all of it! Just the part about you and Nathan," Annie defends.
"Well, I didn't care about the other part!"
"What's the other part?" Finnick asks.
"Gale kissed me," Johanna hardly glances at him. "Annie, you can't do that! If someone tells you not to say something you don't! It's how adults act!"
"You shouldn't argue over something so stupid," I cross my arms.
"Just shut up," Johanna snaps. "No one asked for your opinion." She sighs. "I'm going back downstairs."
Annie shrugs. "She's mad but not too mad. She'll be over it by morning."
We walk back down the stairs and Nathan leans against the wall. "I'm tired. Can we all get some sleep?"
Finnick's POV
"Jason, run!" Annie thrashes on the coach. "Run!"
I rub the sleep out of my eyes and sit up in the recliner I'm sleeping in. I see Nathan doing the same in his recliner.
"Shit," I mutter. "It's not usually this bad."
"Usually?" Nathan asks. "How often does this happen?"
"Once or twice a night," I tell him.
"Wow, my sister's insane."
"Give her a break," I nap. "She saw your little brother burned alive."
I get out of the chair and walk over to her. I gently shake her shoulders. "Annie, wake up. It's just a nightmare."
She doesn't wake up. She continues to thrash around, and she manages to hit me in the jaw. I move so I'm sitting on top of her stomach and shake her shoulders harder. "Annie! Wake up!"
She slowly opens her eyes and wipes off her wet face. She doesn't stop crying, though.
"Finnick, I'm so sorry," she sobs. "I do this every night! I'm so sorry!"
"Shh," I soothe as I stroke her hair. I let her cry into my shoulder. "It's okay. Shh."
She sniffs and sits up. She wipes her eyes. "Sorry," she whispers.
"It's fine. Go back to sleep," I instruct.
She lays back down on the couch and, in a few minutes, her breaths become even.
"You must really care about her," Nathan says. "You acted like she was your wife or daughter, instead of a woman you've known for less than a month."
I shrug. "She's unstable right now. It's the right thing to do."
"You sure that's your motive?" he questions.
"You're trying to lecture me? After you harassed Jo?" I raise my eyebrow at him.
He sighs and leans back in his recliner. "That was not my best moment."
"It was pathetic," I say. "Annie said you used to do it all the time."
"Some habits die hard," he starts, "and others never die."
"You call harassing pretty women a habit?"
He shrugs and says, "Yeah."
"You really are an ass," I say to him.
Annie rolls over. "He's not an ass. He's just an idiot."
"Sorry, Annie," Nathan says. "Did we wake you?"
"Yes. It was just a second ago though." She wraps her blanket around herself. "By the way, it's freezing down here."
I shiver and nod. "Definitely," I say. "It's colder down here than it is outside."
Nathan picks up his blanket and pillow and stands up. "That's it. I'm sleeping on the porch."
"That's a horrible idea," Annie tells him. "Don't do that."
"I'll be fine," he says. "Don't worry about it. I'm your big brother. It's my job to worry about you, not your job to worry about me."
"Annie's right," I say. "You can't sleep alone on the back porch."
"I said don't worry about it," Nathan walks out.
"We should-" Annie starts.
"Yeah, we have to," I say.
Annie's POV
"You were right," Nathan says to us when he wakes up. "This was a bad idea."
"No shit," I mutter as I rub my neck. "It should've been obvious, dumbass."
"We should go inside," Finnick grabs his pillow and blanket.
I grab my stuff and walk into the house behind Finnick. Peeta and my mom are in the kitchen, cooking.
"Annie, where were you? We couldn't find you anywhere," Mom runs over to me.
"Nathan had an idiotic idea. That's all it was," I reassure her.
We put our stuff on the couch and go back into the kitchen. "I have an awful crick in my neck," Finnick complains.
"Me too," I frown. "I think I also messed up my shoulder."
"You probably did," he rolls his shoulders and winces.
"So, you slept on the back porch?" Peeta asks as he hands us each a bagel.
I nod glumly and Peeta laughs. "Who the hell thought that would be a good idea?"
"My idiot brother," I say.
"Don't talk bad about your older brother," Mom orders.
I almost laugh. "Whatever you say mother."
A few days ago in school the most hilarious thing happened. We were writing vocab. for this stupid thing that we do a few times a year and the definition for the word prissy was: extremely prim and finicky. I nearly died. Please review!