Seafoam and Stars

▬▬ 𝟎𝟖 ∙ 𝝤𝗯❙𝗶𝘃𝗶𝝾𝘂𝘀

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽

˚✩ ⋆｡ ✩┊ 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐟𝐨𝐚𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬 ┊✦ ˚ · .

▬▬ 08 ∙ 𝙾𝚋𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜

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I DON'T know how long we end up sitting in the bathroom. At some point, Johanna leans her head back against the sink, while I end up leaning against the wall, abandoning the plastic chair altogether.

We had talked—she asked questions, I gave her answers. I relived the hours, the minutes, the seconds.

We talked about other things too, things we wouldn't have dared said on the phone. Johanna told me about how Blight's swinging by her house everyday now to do what she said is checking in on her, but she thought it was really just to steal from her store of alcohol.

"He's never given a crap about my feelings, so why should he start now? Because Johanna's lost all her family? Because Johanna's alone? Because Johanna should be pitied for carrying so much burden for so many years?" She gave a harsh laugh and said that nobody pitied her when she pretended to be a helpless tribute; they only do now that she's who they point fingers at when they need someone to blame for the death of their child. It's not the Capitol half the time, but the victor who took their lives so they could keep theirs.

"Honestly though," she said, looping the string of a loofah around her finger and swinging it in circles. "It's sad that I actually look forward to coming to the Capitol every year, just because it's so miserable in 7. Don't they ever allow victors to visit others from other districts?"

"Imagine Snow allowing that."

"I bet we could ask him," she said, fixing me with a serious look. "I'm all buddy-buddy with him. I reject his precious job for me"—I winced, not wanting to think about the appointments I had lined up starting tomorrow during training—"and he rejects my wish to keep my family away from my stupid business. So yes, I think Snow would allow it, especially for his one and only rebellious victor," she said, contempt and sarcasm dripping from every syllable she spitted out.

"I thought your family wasn't talking to you," I said quietly.

"They weren't," she huffed, "but at least they could pretend to be unaffected innocents until Snow dragged them back into the picture."

I sat and I had thought about what was worse—losing your family without talking to them for months, or losing them when they had just gotten you back? Either way, it was easy to pin the blame on both of us for the deaths of the people we called our mother, our father, our siblings that I never had, that Johanna did.

It was quiet for long, heavy moments until I asked, "Why didn't you ever tell me you were claustrophobic?"

"Because I haven't regularly sat in a tiny closet with you, perhaps." She blew out a breath, then said that she was good at keeping it suppressed most of the time. "It's okay, it's stupid. I mean, if I just started screaming in the middle of my Games, I'd be dead, so..."

"Yeah," I said quietly. The more I know about her, the more apparent it became that we had a lot more in common than I first thought. I, too, knew what it was like to have a fear running through your veins, driving you to insanity just from the thought of it for no specified reason. The only thing was that I had people to reach out to for help, Finnick, who was unfailingly there, when Johanna had no one. Her family was dead. She pushed everyone away. Blight was the only person she saw on a daily basis, and I couldn't imagine Blight being willing to help.