To Save a Victor

Chapter 18

This is an actual update! Told you I would keep updating this series! (I also tried to give you a longer chapter to make up for the lack of updates... even though I know it won't help my case.) Happy reading lovelies! 

Finnick and I sat on the train in companionable silence as we headed home. The rattling of the train filled the air around us until Finnick's deep voice cut through the silence. 

"Penny for your thoughts?"

 I looked up, my hands stilling on the piece of ribbon I was winding and unwinding around my finger. 

"Peeta really loves her." 

He nodded, "It seems so." 

"She loves him too," I turned back to my ribbon, tying it into a bow and then untying it.

 Finnick was quiet for a moment before he answered, "Yeah, in her own way." 

"She must not be an easy person to love." 

"I have a feeling we aren't talking about Katniss Everdeen anymore." I wound the ribbon around my fingers again. He was right, we weren't talking about Katniss anymore. 

"You are an easy person to love Sage, you just don't know what to do with the love they give you." 

I looked up into his green eyes and he gave me a kind smile. "Just because everyone you've let yourself love has hurt you doesn't mean that you are hard to love, it just means that you love deeper than most." 

"Annie is really lucky to have you, Fin." 

He smiled, "I'm lucky to have her."

.

.

.

I groaned and rolled over in bed as the bright light of morning burned my eyes. My sleep had been restless but I must have been tired enough from getting back from the Capitol that my mind couldn't paint the nightmares. 

"You're a very easy person to love, Sage, you just don't know what to do with the love they give you." 

Finnick's words echoed through my sleep weary mind.

  He's so full of bullshit. 

I kicked the fluffy down comforter off and pressed my bare feet to the cold wood floor. The house was so quiet now that Cedar was gone. Now that my mother is gone. Every morning I woke up thinking that I heard her making breakfast and that I would run down the stairs and she would be there. That this was all one big nightmare. I tried to run a hand through my hair, pulling at the knots for a moment before giving up to grab the brush that had been left on the nightstand. Pulling the brush thorough the dark curtain of hair, letting it fall like a wave down my back. It fell past the waistband of my jeans, the longest I had ever had it. My mother would have loved it. She had always been so proud of Cedar and I's hair. Stopping the memories before they could hit in full force, I pulled it back into a braid. I wanted to cut it all off, but Adrian loved braiding it up into the intricate hairstyles that his masterful mind came up with. So I left it, with a vow that as soon as I could, I would cut it.  

They were loose, my jeans were so loose.  I looked over at the mirror. Standing there in just my bra I took in my body. In school I had never been a "little" girl, always having a little bit more to me in the tummy and thigh than most of the girls in my year. Looking in the mirror it hit me in full force how much I had changed, my ribs showed and my face was gaunt and pale. 

Holy shit.

My eyes were dark and sunken in and the straps of my bra hung off of my shoulders. Combing my mind I tried to remember the last time I had eaten something. Sat down and had a full meal. The last few months had been a blur of early breakfasts and late dinners, if you could call them that. An apple here and a protein bar there.