𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘'𝐋𝐋 𝐉𝐔𝐌𝐏 𝐎𝐅𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐃𝐆𝐄 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑.
What District 2 victor, Saffron Creek, and prodigy, Finnick Odair, share is the very antithesis of what has been stolen from them. They test the edges of the rules that construct t...
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lemons can be sweet, too . . . . .
"Remind me," Saffron says, constantly, on the foggy days. When the haze is particularly potent, she will forget even basic things: her age or her parents' names. When Finnick is with her he will tell her the same stories again. Of the time he ensnared himself in fishing nets or when Mags made him sort the entire box of lures he had knocked over in a rush.
"You've told me that one," she'll interrupt.
"Shit," he'll reply, smiling. Then he'll start again.
Occasionally, she'll cry, whether from frustration or simply out of loneliness; or she'll become despondent. Her family is kind, and they do their best to be understanding, but they still try to lure her out of her head with food or activities. It's really only the other victors that know what it is to have one's mind spiral.
It is the worst in the weeks leading up to the Reaping. For farmers it is harvesting season, for her, it is madness.
Nonetheless, the 72nd and 73rd Hunger Games pass without excitement. District 2 welcomes two new victors into its pantheon: Cicero Helbor and Andesite Vander.
"He's built like Atlas," Saffron complains to Finnick. "And he's what? Eighteen?"
Helbor is obnoxious, and his pride is proportional to his physical size.
Finnick snorts and listens to her lamentations with an indulgent grin. "Oh, to have his pecs," he mourns, sarcastically.
Saffron throws a makeup brush at his head. "I don't want to hear it from you."
Together, they prepare for a wedding that begins in an hour. She has yet to meet the bride and groom, but she is celebrating their union at Finnick's request.
"I don't want to go alone, sweet" he had whined.
"I don't know these people," she countered.
"Neither do I," he admitted. They are friends of a friend and he is Finnick Odair. Of course he was invited.
"Bring Johanna."
He made this strange choking noise. "Try again."
"Bring Annie."
"She doesn't want to go."
"And I do? That's an unnecessary train ride. I have better things to do with my time."
"No, you don't."
"No, I don't. But I hate being bored."
"I'll come and get you."
"Really?"
"Really."
Saffron pursed her lips. She is twenty-three. She has known him since she was eighteen. Their entire relationship has been a series of in-betweens. The stolen moments between obligations. The tightrope between friends and lovers.
"I'll think about it."
She didn't, actually, because they both knew what she meant. So, they told the gossip tabloids that "Finnick Odair steals Saffron Creek away to District 4 for unknown getaway" and now they share Finnick's bathroom with its crisp tile floors and depth-lending wooden beams overhead. He is already dressed in a pressed suit, a light yellow—the color of lemon flesh—tie tucked beneath his collar.
"In the mood for matching?" she chides, gesturing to her dress of the same shade.
"I believe that you're copying me, if anything." He looks away, almost bashfully. But Finnick Odair is incapable of being bashful. This is the first time in months that they have found time to be alone together.
"Sure." She smiles.
His cheekbones glimmer thanks to the bronzer Saffron had patted onto his face. He leans against the wall watching her try to coax a curl into her unwilling hair. Foolishly, he grins at her reflection in the mirror while she growls profanities at each dark strand that releases from the curling iron straight.
It creeps upon Finnick before he realizes it, but then again things like this are a slow, sometimes devious, progression. He hoards memories of the woman before him. She occupies his thoughts perpetually.
"How do you know when you love someone?" he had nervously asked Mags when he was much younger and when he thought he was going to be dead before he saw the end of the week.
Her eyes said, "You will know."
His heart roars in his throat.
He approaches her so quickly she nearly drops the hot iron. "I'm going to kiss you," he says abruptly.
