CAN'T REMEMBER TO FORGET YOU ✶ finnick odair / revising

iv. ▬▬ one last kiss goodbye

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004 ▬▬ ONE LAST KISS GOODBYE
𓄲 ࣪˖ 𓏲 › 3.4K WORDS

and if i'm dead to you, why are you
at the wake? / cursing my name, wishing
stayed / look at how my tears ricochet

─ TAYLOR SWIFT, ❛ my tears
ricochet ❜

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(rewritten jun. 21, 2024 )

She's been awake since four in the morning.

A terrible pain surges through her left leg and ends up at her stump. The sensation of Davy's spear gliding through skin and bone remains etched in her mind, even if her foot is absent. She falls off her bed and searches perilously on her bedroom floor for a medicine bag packed by Charmaine (for a speedy recovery). Nerissa rattles a bottle that she vaguely remembers to be the pain relieving medication and takes out two pills. She swallows them whole, without water, a guttural cry escaping her throat.

For four more hours, she stays on that floor. Her hand reaches under a pile of clothes beside her when she sees the shine of freshly polished wood sticking out from underneath. When she pulls it out, she finds herself met with a wooden cross. The same cross that her father would caress before every Reaping for luck, making sure that it's not his children's name that was called. Nerissa isn't sure of its origins, but she knows that it's supposed to offer a source of comfort. She hugs it close to her chest, unsure of the correct rituals to perform with it, and slowly rocks back and forth.

She holds the wooden thing tightly as she studies Coralie's sleeping figure, making sure that when her chest falls, it rises again. When it rises, it falls. The cycle repeats. It's predictable, it's ordinary, it's what she deserves. She's so tired of surprises.

So tired.

When Coralie wakes up, she panics when she doesn't feel her sister beside her, and jolts upward. She wastes no time to join her on the floor. She rests her head on Nerissa's shoulder without uttering a word.

"Good morning," Nerissa croaks. Coralie doesn't answer. "Still not talking?" Nothing. "Fine. I can work with that."

Her stomach grumbles loudly, and they look between each other. Neither of them are professionals in the kitchen. They were prissy princesses that waited until Marion or their father whipped up a seafood pancake for them to enjoy. A few minutes later, Mags Flanagan welcomes two starving girls into her home for a bowl of cereal. The old Victor pulls her aside and asks if she wants to collect her family's bodies at the Justice Building.

They get dressed, and when Mags reminder her that Davy's funeral is today, Nerissa packs an extra set of clothes for Coralie and neatly folds them in her brother's old messenger bag.