Dead in the Water | An Odesta Fanfic

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Finnick Odair had been called many things in his life. A son, a friend, a fisherman, a tribute, a victor, a mentor, a murderer, a lost cause, a hopeless case, the capitol darling, a lover, a whore, a traitor, a slut – the list was endless. But none of those names hurt so badly as his new title.

An orphan.

Could he really even be called an orphan? Orphan was a term for children, for kids who were helpless and lost and destitute without any parents to provide for them. Not for a nineteen-year-old, who hadn't even dared to show his face at home in two years.

But he missed his mom and dad like he hadn't been gone a day.

Finnick cried as if they had never argued, as if they had never thrown him out.

The ache and emptiness in his chest would have been just as painful if he were five, if he were ten, if he were fifty or one hundred years old. Finnick was nineteen, but he still needed his mom. Finnick was nineteen and more alone than he had ever been in his life.

Bay still came over, knocking at his door every day and barging in with his spare key when Finnick didn't get up to let him in. He got Finnick out of bed, sent him on walks, tried to get him sailing again and give him some reason to wake up in the morning. Mags sent over warm meals nearly every night and sometimes even came to cook them herself. But it wasn't Finnick's mom bustling around the kitchen. It wasn't his dad coming to pull him out of bed for a day on the ocean. It felt wrong to have anyone else there.

Finnick spent his days sitting around the house, moving from chair to chair, trying to find some place that didn't feel so painful. But he was surrounded on every side by memories. There was his mother's favorite vase, sitting empty in the kitchen. There was a spare set of his father's crutches leaning against the wall. Everything was right where they had left it, expecting to come back home. It still felt as if his parents might come around the corner or walk through the door at any moment, and Finnick spent every day waiting to see if they would.

But he had seen their bodies. He had stood over their coffins and watched as they were buried together in the ground. They weren't coming home. He knew it was true. Finnick just didn't know what to do with the emptiness in his chest that seemed to be waiting for them.

He would have given anything to get his mind off of it. He had tried drinking, until all the bottles of whiskey in the cupboard were gone. But it had left him with nothing more than a throbbing headache, an angry Bay keeping any other bottles out of his house, and more hatred for himself than he'd had before. He went swimming, he went sailing, he went running, he stared out his window from sunrise to sunset waiting for something to change, but nothing could drown away the guilt.

It was his fault, of course. Bay and Mags didn't even try to deny it. They knew how Snow worked. Snow, with his plastic smiles and white roses, crushing away the innocence and hope of anyone who dared to step in his way. He could still hear the cold congratulations in his voice when Finnick had been called into his office at the end of the games.

"She's alive – you told me you'd keep her alive if I got her out." Finnick had said, standing his ground in front of Snow's desk.  "I kept my end of the bargain."

"So you did." Snow replied. "And did an impressive job of it. I thought she nearly killed you, but you can be quite stubborn, can't you?"

Finnick was still dripping wet and shaking from the arena, but he'd had enough of Snow and his games. If he hadn't already been furious enough, a second trip into the arena had sent him over the edge. "What do you want, then?"

Snow narrowed his eyes at Finnick, but a smile spread across his face. "I only wanted to offer you my congratulations on your victor, Mr. Odair. It was well-deserved."