Dew of the Sea [Finnick Odair]

[02. Trauma Bonding]

In the apartment above the Mellark Bakery, where the family of five lived, there was a small coat closet by the entrance door. Their winter coats only lived there half of the year, retired when flowers started to bloom in the spring and taken back out when it got darker earlier in the afternoon. The closet was so small that nothing else but her father's briefcase of important documents could fit. And, on occasions when her father was obliviously baking away downstairs or her brothers were on an errand around town, Rosemary was stuffed in there too.

In the beginning of her forays into the closet, she would freak out. The claustrophobia she experienced and the way the darkness played with her mind had her in a wild panic and she would scream and weep and bang on the door to be let out, but her mother would ignore her. Peeta, on the occasions where he was present, would be locked in their shared bedroom, unable to help in any way because of his age, and at that time, Rye worked with their father in the bakery more than his siblings did. Sometimes Rosemary would be there for a few hours, exhausted by her spent emotions and fears. She would just sit and wait for it to be over, retreating into her head where she'd go over books she had memorized or daydream about being with Peeta, Rye, or Kline.

Rye had been her hero. One day, while he took a break from work downstairs, he heard her as soon as he walked through the door. Seeing Rye's face, horror struck and bewildered, had sent her gasping, hysterically asking him for his help. Rye acted immediately and pulled her out of the cubby and into his arms, asking over and over again what had happened.

Rosemary couldn't answer him, she couldn't speak as she sobbed into his shoulder and stared at the door, her eyes adjusting to the light. She felt him stiffen and she heard him yell for a few minutes, and then he carried her past their mother and into her bedroom where he discovered Peeta, who was also hysterical.

Rosemary started working more in the bakery after that, but there were still times when their mother would shove her into the closet when Rye and Sage were away. Each time when Rye got home, he'd check the closet and most of the time she would be there, staring blankly into the dark. As she got older and stronger and Capri couldn't just shove her in there, the visits to the closet ended. Instead, Capri moved onto Peeta. She still received snide comments and smacks to the face when she protected Peeta–hardly ever allowing him to be alone with the horrid woman–but that was fine as long as Peeta was okay. Sometimes, when she couldn't prevent the abuse and both of them got hurt, she got so angry that she wanted to lash out, taking that stupid tube of parchment paper and knocking her mother over the head with it.

It was in those moments when Rosemary had to take a break from Parchment Pike and try different methods of releasing her energy. She had dealt with violence from her mother her whole life, she didn't want to continue the cycle or experience more than she had to.

Rye, this whole life, never received the same treatment from their mother like Rosemary and Peeta. Sometimes Rosemary resented him for it, but most of the time she was just relieved he didn't have to deal with it. Being the favorite child was saving his life and Rye stepped in between Capri and her youngest children as often as he could. It was more than Sage did, and it led to feelings that she hid deep, deep inside her because she couldn't hate her father, too.