Enchanted; A Finnick and Annie Fanfic ♥ (Currently Revising/Editing)

Chapter 2: Do You Want Some Help?

I guess since my mother knew Finnick's family, I could've asked her where he lived, but I still worried that since I had ran off into the woods by myself that she wouldn't tell me. A few days after we had met, on my way home from the candy store in town, I saw Finnick and a couple of other boys, and they seemed to be heading towards the beach. I ran home as fast as I could and threw on a bathing suit and sandals before running back to the beach to look for them. I found them almost immediately, sitting on a couple of towels close to the water, so I ran over to them. Panting from all of the running around I had done, I said, "Hey Finnick!"

Finnick looked at me weird, his eyes just as pretty as they were before. "Do I know you?"

The other boys gave me the same weird look, which I didn't understand. And Finnick wasn't making any sense. "Well, of course you know me! I'm Annie! Remember, we met in the woods the other day and you tried to teach me how to swim even though it didn't go so well, and I almost drowned. I was hoping you could try again, 'cause you said you would!"

"Why would I ever say that?"

"'Cause we're friends now, remember!"

Finnick and the other boys all laughed hysterically at me, and when Finnick was finally able to control himself, he said, "We aren't friends! We'll never be friends, you're just a little girl!"

"Girls have cooties!" one of the boys said.

"Ewww, cooties, cooties!" the other one taunted.

I started to cry, and they kept laughing at me and telling me I had cooties, and I got one last look at Finnick's eyes before I ran back home.

I started seeing Finnick everywhere with his real friends after that, but I never actually talked to him anymore. I guess he must've just been acting weird because his friends thought I had cooties, but I didn't! Still, I couldn't work up the courage to talk to him again.

I stayed back and only watched Finnick until one night, he went to the beach by himself. He stood in the shallow water throwing something I couldn't see clearly out then pulling it back. Throwing it out, pulling it back. Over and over until he eventually threw it out and dove under the water.

I expected him to come back up, but quite a bit of time passed without him returning to the surface. I started to walk over to him, even though I thought I might just get laughed at again. I was about to call out his name when his head appeared above the water.

And he screamed.

I ran to where he was, and I could see that the water was turning dark red in the pale moonlight. I helped him onto the sand and saw he had some sort of trap caught on his leg. I went to pry it off of him, but he just continued to scream louder.

"Shh, Finnick, calm down," I said in the most soothing voice I could manage. "You have to calm down. If you calm down, I can get it off."

He firmly nodded and pressed his lips tightly together to keep from screaming, and after about three minutes I eventually loosened it enough to slide it off his leg. I took the towel he'd left on the beach, shook it quickly to remove the sand, and tied it tightly around his wound to try and stop the bleeding. "What were you doing out there?" I asked.

He took a deep breath and said, "Trying to rig the cage so it'd be easier to pull it up every night."

"But why?"

"Why do you think?" Finnick's voice started to get louder and fiercer, and he looked like he was trying really hard to hold in tears. "I was trying to catch shellfish."

"But there are plenty of fishing boats that bring in plenty of seafood. Let them worry about it."

"You don't get it. You're only, what, seven?" I sat next to him on the sand. He looked really sad, like he could burst into tears any moment. "And you don't have any siblings. You wouldn't understand."

"Well, you could try explaining it to me," I said in a quiet voice.

After a moment of silence between us, he took another deep breath to steady himself, and said, "My brother...he's turning twelve next week. My parents are making him sign up for tesserae. It means we get grain rations from the Capitol."

"That's doesn't sound so bad."

"No, it's really bad. For every grain ration, he gets another entry to the reaping for the Hunger Games, so he'll be entered five times this year. Next year, it'll be ten times. And if he makes it that far, in a few years it'll be thirty."

"Thirty's not so many. There's thousands of kids in District 4, and some of them must be taking tesserae too."

"Like I said, you don't have siblings, so you don't get it."

"Sorry," I whispered. I didn't know what to say. I just wanted him to feel better. "How was this cage gonna help?"

"I figured if I could catch a little shellfish each day, he wouldn't have to take tesserae, or at least not as much."

"Oh." Now it all made sense, and I thought it was really sweet of him to want to do that for his brother. I figured I might as well try and help make things even better, so I asked, "Do you want some help?"

"Help?"

"Catching shellfish, I mean."

"You'd help me with that? You don't even know my brother. And we're not exactly friends. But you'd help me?"

"Sure." I paused for a moment, thinking about what to say next and worrying it would be wrong. Still, I continued, "I'm still up for being friends if you are." I was really hoping I wouldn't have to follow him around quietly anymore.

Finnick sighed. "Not tonight. I should get home and have my mom check this cut out." I frowned and stood up, wondering if I'd ever get to be friends with this boy. I was about to start walking home when Finnick said, "But could you meet me here tomorrow night?"

I turned around and looked at him. "You mean it?" He nodded. "Sure!"

I helped him to his feet and we smiled at each other for a minute before running off in opposite directions towards our houses.