Lost at Sea || Finnick Odair x OC (DISCONTINUED)

Twenty-Seven: i run some tests

DAPHNE

°•. ✿ .•°

Things were not weird afterwards, which made me feel weird.

I feel like after something like that... you talk about it, right? You feel like there's something between you two, something that can't just be ignored. You feel like the course of your relationship has completely changed. You feel like you're seeing them in a new light.

But, that's just a theory, I suppose, because I feel absolutely none of that.

When I see Finnick in the following weeks, he's just that; Finnick. He's my best friend. I don't see him in any sort of new light. There's nothing between us that I think I'm ignoring. I can't ignore things. I fixate, even, which leads to me asking a lot of questions and just being an annoying person. I feel like the course of our relationship has not taken any dire hit.

And, it's not that I attribute it to a "drunk mistake", though I wonder if Finnick does. I'll admit that I was not entirely sober. In fact, I was far from it. But, that doesn't make it a mistake. I don't really feel like it was. If anything, I think it was beneficial. It's not this weird, uncomfortable stink that we've agreed just "didn't happen". We just don't talk about it. Ever.

I guess that's all we really do. We don't talk about things. We experience, yes. We experience a plethora of emotions together, even in each other's arms, but I don't recall the last time I actually talked to Finnick about how I felt about things. Maybe he understands, and maybe he doesn't. But it works out for us, so I want to leave it be.

I'm a mentor again, this time for the 69th Hunger Games. Finnick isn't with me this time, so I'm stuck on my own. Luckily, I've finally come to terms with the fact that my life isn't going to be changing. I can't get out of this unspoken contract I have with President Snow. I can't resurrect my mother and my father and my sister and my brother. They've been gone for a long time now. I won't ever be out of the spotlight.

I've finally come to understand that I am a Capitol favorite. They don't love me as much as Finnick, or Cashmere and Gloss, but I realize that I'm high up there, and that means I can have anything I want. I've come to terms with the fact that my body is to be rented for a short period of time as long as a price is paid, and I think it's fine. It's a better fate than some of these other Victors, whose children have been sent off to the arena or they've drank themselves to death or they can't spend a single day without the comforting bliss of morphling.

Snow had me altered this summer almost as soon as I came to the Capitol. In all honesty, I think it's the only thing he's done for me since I was Reaped and placed in the arena. I can no longer have any children of my own.

At first, I was upset. I used to dream of things like that. Wondering what it would be like to settle down and have children. But, of course, I can't possibly do that anymore. Victors's children are just as eligible to be Reaped as anyone else. I believe they're even more likely. It always causes a buzz when one of them goes in the arena, which happens too many times for it to be a coincidence. How could I subject my children to that? Even before, it was such a debate for me internally. Even before, I always thought about the utter pain and fear I see in people's eyes when their child's name is called. I remember the fear in my own mother's eyes when my name was called. I remember how she wailed, how she came to tell me goodbye. How could I put my own child through that?

It's a lot easier this way. It's a burden I no longer have to deal with.

Something about it gave me a sort of freedom. I'm not sure what it was. Maybe I was visibly more confident. I feel like I can smile more, like I can flirt better, and it seems to be a magnet. More and more people are vying for my company. The weird thing? Not very many of them are looking to use my body. They need my presence and my presence only.