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When Annie Cresta is thirty-four years old, her husband of five years dies.
He had been her best friend, her partner, for seven years now. She can’t imagine life without him.
Finnick Odair, meanwhile, has been trying very hard to live a life without Annie Cresta. He hasn’t seen her since that book event five years ago, and he’s determined not to dwell on her, even if he has to delete his Facebook and Instagram accounts to avoid compulsively checking what she’s up to. Because Finnick Odair is no longer a part of Annie Cresta’s life.
Even though he really wants to be.
So he buries himself in his work—his publisher wants a sequel to Pyrite Boy, and he aims to deliver—and tries to push all thoughts of the one girl he’s ever loved out of his head.
It works, sort of. In the five years since Pyrite Boy came out, Finnick has published if not a sequel, then a companion book (he doesn’t know what the sequel is yet), a small book of poems, and—in his first foray into a different genre—a post-apocalyptic story about a boy forced to fight for his life in a gladiator-style death match.
Critics love it. It gets optioned for film rights.
And then, two things happen.
- Annie Cresta’s husband dies (although Finnick doesn’t know this yet), and
- Finnick gets an email from someone named Primrose Everdeen.
The email itself is simple enough. It goes something like this:
Dear Mr. Odair,
My name is Primrose Everdeen, and I’m the younger daughter of Corvin Everdeen. A few months ago, my mother passed away after a long struggle with cancer. When we were going through her things, my sister and I found your name and contact information.
Our father died when Katniss and I were very young, but it turns out that a few years after his death, a woman came to our house looking for him. She said he was her son’s father. My mother told her that Corvin had died, but they exchanged contact information, in case your mother ever wanted to get in touch.
She never did. But having just found out we have a brother, we’d really like to meet you.
If you don’t want to meet us, we completely understand. I’m sure you have your own family, your own life, and we don’t want to intrude where we’re not wanted.
But just in case, I’ve written my phone number below, and of course you have my email address.
Sincerely,
Primrose Everdeen
Finnick just stares at the computer screen for a good long while after reading Primrose’s email.
He stands up. He sits back down. He goes for a walk.
When he gets back, he reads the email again, and then quickly pulls up Google and types “Primrose Everdeen” into the search engine. Her Facebook profile comes up, as does her Instagram. She has privacy settings on both, but Finnick can see that she’s a high school student, a freshman at a STEM magnet school in New York. She plays the flute, and she takes ballet lessons. Finnick doesn’t know much about ballet, but she looks pretty good.
Finnick also looks up the sister. Katniss Everdeen has a Facebook, no Instagram, but her privacy settings must be stricter than her sister’s because there are no public photos that he can see.
He can’t figure out what school she goes to either, or anything else about her, really. There is a Katniss Everdeen who won a marksmanship competition earlier that year, but that can’t possibly be her.
He does comb back through Primrose’s Facebook after, this time carefully reading the captions, and finds a photo of two girls, maybe three or four years apart in age, heads together, smiling. They don’t look very much alike, really—Primrose has blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, whereas Katniss has dark hair, olive skin, and strangely piercing grey eyes. But if he looks a little closer, underneath the surface level differences there is a sort of similarity in the set of their faces; they have the same nose, the same sharp, pointed chin.
The caption says: “Best. Sister. EVER!!!!”
Finnick feels a tightening in his chest.
He switches back over to his email, and hits reply.
When Annie Cresta opens the door to find Johanna Mason standing on her porch holding a casserole, she bursts into tears.
Johanna immediately comes inside and hugs Annie, the casserole dish tilting towards the floor precariously.
The two go into the kitchen, where Annie starts to pull mugs off the shelf to make tea. Johanna rolls her eyes at her.
“I’m supposed to be the one making you tea, remember?”
She nudges Annie aside with her hip, and Annie slides into one of the tall chairs arranged around the kitchen island.
“Or would you prefer a piece of homemade casserole?”
Annie just shakes her head. “I’m not hungry.”
“Just as well.” Johanna shrugs, dumping the casserole dish unceremoniously on the counter. “I can’t cook for shit anyways. It’s probably inedible.”
Annie half-laughs at that, which is probably the first time she’s done so since her husband died.
The two stay up all night, catching up over their cups of tea (chai for Annie, black, early grey with cream and sugar for Johanna), then moving onto the couch in the living room, where Annie wraps herself in a veritable cocoon of blankets. Annie doesn’t want to talk about her life, so they talk about Johanna’s instead. Jo tells her all about her job as a foreign correspondent. She says she actually doesn’t spend that much time in England, she’s so busy traveling.
“That sounds amazing,” says Annie, truthfully. “No wonder you never come back to England; your life is so exciting!”
Johanna hesitates. “Actually,” she says. “I just got a job offer. In New York City. Same gig, different home base.”
“Are you going to take it?”
“I’m still thinking about it. But—“
“But?”
“When I was looking for possible apartments in Manhattan, I saw this.” Pulling her phone out, Jo swipes it open. Annie leans closer to see the screen.
It’s an advert for a job opening. For a paleontologist, at a renowned museum in New York City.
“I don’t know, Jo…”
“You don’t have to decide anything now. I just thought I’d let you know. You have options.”
“I don’t know, Jo. I like it here. And…”
And this is where he and I met. This is where we were happy.
Jo looks at her as if she can hear all the thoughts Annie’s left unsaid.
“I know. Just think about it, ok?”
They agree to meet at a diner, in an area of Queens Primrose says is close to her school. The diner has one of those fluorescent signs declaring its name: Greasy Sae’s.
It’s sort of a grimy looking diner, old-fashioned. There are red vinyl booths, high swivel stools at the counter, and even a beat-up jukebox in one corner that Finnick highly doubts still works.
Finnick gets there early. He slides into a booth with a clear view of the door and orders a milkshake from the old woman who comes to take his order. Greasy Sae, presumably.
He’s nervous. Absurdly so. He’s never met anyone in his extended family before. His entire life, it’s just been him and his mom, and her rotating wheel of drunk and abusive boyfriends. Then, of course, there was his grandmother. Who he’d basically neglected.
Suffice it to say, Finnick didn’t have the greatest track record when it came to family.
Just as he’s running through all the possible ways this could go wrong, the bell above the door chimes.
Two girls step through, one dark-haired, one light-haired. Finnick recognizes them immediately. They look just like their photos, except in person they’re even tinier. Frail, almost, as if they haven’t been eating enough.
They look around the diner before spotting Finnick in his booth. He lifts his hand in greeting.
The two girls head towards him. The younger one looks excited, she’s smiling—Primrose. The older sister, by contrast, looks grim; her expression clearly communicates that she thinks this meeting is a bad idea.
“Finnick Odair?” Primrose asks hesitantly, as she approaches.
Finnick nods. “Primrose Everdeen?”
Primrose smiles and nods, sliding into the seat across from him.
“And you must be Katniss.”
Katniss gives what could more properly be termed a grimace and slides in after Primrose.
“It’s so nice to meet you!” Primrose is practically beaming at him, and Finnick feels some of his tension ease. She just looks so happy to see him. It’s been a while since anyone looked at him like that. He smiles tentatively back.
“It’s nice to meet you, too.” He darts a glance at Katniss. “Both of you.”
Katniss still doesn’t say anything. It could not be more obvious that this entire endeavor was Primrose’s idea.
“I didn’t even know I had sisters.” Finnick feels the need to get this out in the open. He’d already told Primrose in his email, of course, but he thinks it’s important to say this in person.
“We didn’t know we had a brother. Mom didn’t tell us anything about you, and Dad never knew.”
Finnick, for his part, had been going over and over his memories for anything his mother might’ve let slip about his father. Nothing came to mind, except at one point he remembered her saying that he’d liked music.
Finnick wracks his brain trying to think of what else to say, when he’s saved by Greasy Sae, come to take their order.
He gestures for them to go first. They both order the cheapest item on the menu—a plain burger, with a side of fries. Frowning, Finnick puts in his own order.
“And a basket of onion rings for the table,” he says, handing his menu back.
When Greasy Sae disappears, Finnick and his sisters go back to staring awkwardly at each other across the table.
“So—"
“When—"
He and Primrose both say at the same time. They laugh a little. Finnick gestures for her to go ahead.
“So do you live in New York?”
“No,” says Finnick. “I’m from California originally, and I lived in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, in high school, but for the past five years I’ve been traveling a lot. I go back to California in between trips, but I don’t actually have a permanent place there.”
“Oh,” says Prim.
“What about you guys?”
“Well, we used to live in this tiny town in southern New York, in Appalachia, but after mom died we moved here. For the schools.”
“Oh,” says Finnick eloquently. “I’ve heard the schools here are good.” That is true. Loads of kids from Brown seemed to have come from one of a handful of selective public schools in New York City, or else from a similarly ubiquitous collection of elite private schools.
Silence falls at the table again. Finnick grasps for something to say. “So, are you staying with family now?”
The two girls exchange glances.
“No, we don’t actually have any family in the area. It’s just us.”
“Oh.” Finnick’s brow wrinkles. “But I thought…”
“Enough about us,” says Primrose hurriedly, cutting him off. “What about you? I read that you’re a writer? That sounds so exciting! What’s that like?”
And so Finnick answers her questions, all the while double and triple checking the math in his head. Primrose is thirteen. Katniss looks like she’s at most seventeen, which is still a year away from being an adult. If what they said is true, and they’re not staying with anyone else, then that can’t possibly be legal. Not to mention safe.
They stay at the diner talking for hours. Well, Primrose—Prim, she tells him to call her—and Finnick talk. Katniss mostly just sits there glowering at her milkshake. If Finnick had to guess, he’d say she’s a very protective big sister, and doesn’t want to get her little sister’s hopes up about some random stranger, which is fair.
Eventually, Greasy Sae comes over to tell them they’re closing. When Finnick hands over his card to pay the bill, both girls protest—Katniss actually tries to shove money into his hand—but he waves them away.
“It’s not every day I meet my long-lost sisters.”
Finnick also walks them to their metro station.
“So, are you in town long?”
Finnick honestly hasn’t considered it.
“For a bit, yeah.”
Prim looks happy. “So, we’ll see you again?”
“Yeah, just give me a call anytime.”
There’s an awkward moment where none of them know how to say goodbye, whether they should hug or shake hands or what. In the end, they settle on overly enthusiastic smiles and head nods (well, Prim and Finnick do anyway, Katniss’s nod is decidedly less smiley and enthusiastic).
He heads back to his hotel, a surprising lightness in his step.
After much internal debate, Annie decides to interview for the paleontology job in New York.
Johanna is thrilled. “We can be roomies! Again.”
“I haven’t got the job yet, Jo.”
“You will.”
She does.
Finnick meets Prim and Katniss several more times, often at the diner, but other places, too. He learns more about the Everdeens.
For example, he learns that Katniss has basically been taking care of the two of them since their father (his father, too) died six years ago.
“Our mom,” says Prim. “Couldn’t really handle things after that. Just sort of checked out.”
Apparently, Katniss kept them alive by hunting in the backwoods of their small town—their father had taught her how to shoot, apparently she was the Katniss Everdeen who won the marksmanship competition—and working two jobs after school. It all seems like something out of a novel to Finnick.
When their mother died, a little over a year ago, Katniss moved them down to New York City, because Prim would have greater opportunities.
“Also,” Katniss confesses to him later. “It’s easier to get work here when you’re underage.”
Katniss had dropped out of high school in order to fully support her sister—food for the two of them, rent, the cost of school supplies, and ballet fees—none of which was cheap. The amount of responsibility she’d shouldered was staggering to Finnick—he remembers what he was like at that age: cocky, self-centered, cheating on his girlfriend, ignoring his grandmother. Concerned only with his own upward trajectory. Katniss is the complete opposite.
It takes months, but Katniss eventually warms to Finnick. It’s directly traceable to an incident that happens about three months after they first meet. Finnick has been staying in the same hotel he checked into when he first came to the city; at the end of every week he just keeps extending his stay. One day, Katniss calls Finnick—as a last resort, Finnick’s sure—and tells him Prim’s forgotten her flute at home, and she has a big rehearsal tonight. Katniss has to work, could Finnick possibly pick it up and bring it to Prim? Finnick, whose job as a writer basically leaves him free to do whatever whenever the need arises, readily agrees. He swings by the restaurant where Katniss works during the day, picks up the keys, then goes to their apartment to pick up the instrument. He’s shocked by where they live—it’s a shoebox of an apartment, and in a none-too-safe neighborhood—but he dutifully retrieves Prim’s flute and delivers it. Afterwards, he doubles back to their apartment, swinging by the grocery store on his way, and restocks their fridge. He knows this is probably crossing some sort of line, but he’s their brother. He can’t very well let them live off of stale bread and microwaveable macaroni and cheese, can he?
He thought he had been relatively sneaky about stocking foods that had already been in the fridge, albeit in dwindling numbers, so that maybe his reverse-theft would go unnoticed, but later that week Katniss corners him and Finnick admits what he did.
“How’d you know?” he asks, somewhat sheepishly.
“I keep pretty close track of all the food we have, so I know if we’re getting close to running out. Then I know when I need to pick up extra shifts so we can buy more,” says Katniss, matter-of-factly. Then she rolls her eyes. “Also, the apples you bought were organic.”
Annie takes a long time moving into her and Jo’s new apartment. It’s a two bedroom, two-and-a-half bath in the West Village—the kind of apartment Annie could’ve only dreamed of when she was in high school.
“How many books do you own, exactly?” Johanna frowns as she lugs yet another cardboard box across the threshold.
“Not that many.”
“Ha!”
With rather more enthusiasm than is entirely necessarily, Johanna slits open the box with her Swiss Army knife and starts taking the books out and piling them on the floor. About halfway through the task, she pauses.
“You still have this?”
Annie glances over to see what Johanna is talking about. In her hands is Finnick’s book, the one Jo had given to her all those years ago.
Annie looks away, concentrating on the long-stemmed wine glasses she’s currently unwrapping.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Annie shrugs. “Just didn’t bother throwing it out, is all.”
“Annie.”
“What?”
Johanna just gives her look. Annie gives up pretending to unpack the glasses.
“I don’t know, Jo. I just kept it, alright? I don’t know why.”
Johanna flips through the book quickly, pages blurring under her fingers.
“You didn’t just keep the book Annie. You’ve read it, a lot. The spine is broken. There are chocolate smudges on the pages. And some of them are all crinkly. Did you drop this in the bath?”
Annie huffs. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
“It’s relevant because you’re clearly still hung up on him.”
“I am not!”
Johanna just raises an eyebrow, proffering the book in her hand as if offering damning evidence.
“I’m not,” Annie insists. No reason to tell her about the copies of Finnick’s other books she’d bought over the years—no reason at all. “It’s just…it’s not every day, is it, that someone writes a book about you, for you?”
“No…”
“I just….Finnick was a big part of my life there for a while, and even though he kind of sucked a lot of the time, sometimes he was really…..lovely. And I don’t know, when we broke up, I was devastated, I thought I’d imagined the whole thing, that everything had been one-sided….and after a while, I accepted that, I moved on. I became my own person. But I don’t know, when he published that book, it was nice to know that those years meant something to him, too. That it wasn’t all just in my head.”
“So…..you obsessively re-read a book written by someone who broke your heart, who is, by the way, clearly still hung up on you, too, because it makes you feel…..what? Vindicated?”
“Something like that.”
Johanna sighs. “Well, I still think it’s weird. On the other hand, I guess I kind of get it. Must be sort of a heady thing, being someone’s muse.”
Annie laughs. “I’m not sure I would go that far.”
Thoughtfully, Johanna pages through the book again, this time slower. Annie knows Jo’s read the book before—she was the one who told Annie about it, after all—but Annie realizes she’s never actually asked Jo what she thought about it.
“You could have worse books written about you,” Johanna answers her question before she has a chance to ask it, tossing Finnick’s book playfully at Annie, who catches it, laughing.
And thankfully, Jo drops the topic after that.
Finnick finally buys an apartment in New York. He’s been staying at that hotel for months now, and while Finnick isn’t exactly hurting for money—far from it, actually, his books had really taken off by then, and there was that feature film adaptation of one of them scheduled to be released soon on top of that—but even still, it was getting a little ridiculous. His new apartment is right by Lincoln Center, which yes, he partly chose because Prim loves going to see the ballet, so it’ll be easier for her to do now that she doesn’t have to trek all the way down from Flushing and back.
By now he’s become a fixture in the Everdeens’ lives, shepherding Prim to and from after school activities when Katniss has to work, attending ballet recitals and high school orchestra performances. He reads over Prim’s essays before she submits them and makes her after school snacks. She particularly likes his peanut butter and pickle sandwiches, and those giant gooey chocolate chip cookies from a bakery in the West Village.
Katniss is harder for him to help, mostly because she seems dead set against accepting help from anyone. On the one hand, Finnick can understand this—there was a time in his life when he was exactly the same way. But Katniss isn’t Finnick, and he wants her to know that she isn’t alone.
He eventually realizes that it’s consistency that counts with Katniss—if he sticks around long enough, she’s bound to like him eventually. He tries to establish regular routines, like cooking dinner every Friday and Saturday night—the nights when Katniss has her longest, most draining shifts at the bar. He also keeps trying to stock their fridge on the sly, although he’s pretty sure Katniss is onto him.
Finnick specifically bought an apartment with three bedrooms, and he tried to decorate them each according to what he thought Prim and Katniss would like, respectively. He told them it’s so they would have a place to crash when they come into the city to visit him, although actually he’s trying to work out a way to ask them to move in. He doesn’t like that they still live in that decrepit apartment building. He once asked Katniss how they were even able to rent it, what with her being underage and all. She told him that the landlord, Haymitch Abernathy, was a drunk who wasn’t all that concerned with little things like laws, and he let them rent the apartment without any official paperwork. He also sometimes signed forms for Prim’s school, when they needed an adult signature; Prim told everyone he was her uncle.
On this particular day, Finnick is trying to figure out for the fiftieth time a way to broach the subject of moving, when Prim swans in, dropping her backpack on the floor by the door and slipping her shoes off. Katniss follows close behind her, scowling.
“You’ll never guess what happened today!”
“What?” Finnick can already feel the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile. He always enjoys hearing about Prim’s day—Katniss’s, too.
“Katniss got asked out on a date.”
“Oh?” Finnick raises his eyebrows at Katniss.
“I did not.”
“She did, too.”
“By who? That boy at the butcher’s shop?”
Katniss still works two jobs, one at a restaurant, and one at a bar. In her job at the restaurant, she’s often sent out to retrieve groceries for the kitchen—including regular trips to both the butcher and the baker. Finnick knows from Prim’s previous stories that a boy who works at the butcher shop—Gale—has a friendly rapport with Katniss.
“No. By some guy at the bakery!”
“He didn’t ask me out.” Katniss’s arms are crossed defensively across her chest.
Prim shoots a conspiratorial look at Finnick. “While she was waiting for the order, he asked her if she wanted a cup of coffee. Then he wrote his number on the coffee cup.”
“That counts.”
“See!” Prim points victoriously at Katniss.
“I do not see anything.”
“....Or do you just not want to admit it, because you actually like Gale?”
Katniss throws her hands up in the air. “He doesn’t like me either!” She turns around to get food from the fridge.
Behind her back, Prim mouths at Finnick: Denial. Finnick grins.
“Anyway, I don’t see how it makes a difference that Peeta gave me his number, because—”
“Hold on,” says Finnick, raising a hand. “The guy works in a bakery, and his name is Pita?”
Katniss rolls her eyes. “It’s Peeta, spelled P-E-E-T-A. Anyway, that’s not the point—”
“Also, how do you even know his name? Did he write that on the coffee cup, too?”
Katniss looks flustered. “He and I talk, sometimes, when I go to pick up the orders.”
“You’re blushing,” says Finnick delightedly.
Prim jumps in with what seems to be a rather comprehensive pro-con list of dating each boy, which Katniss endures with a martyr-like expression. Occasionally, she interrupts Prim to dispute a certain point, or to again posit that it doesn’t matter, because she doesn’t like either of them.
Finnick smiles as he listens to Katniss and Prim banter back and forth, answering when they occasionally ask him for his opinion on something.
He’d almost forgotten what it was like to have a family.
“I saw Finnick the other day.”
“What?”
Annie, who is entirely unprepared for this segue, almost drops the pan of blueberry muffins she’d just taken out of the oven. When she glances up after setting the tray carefully down on the kitchen counter, she sees that Johanna is watching her closely.
“I wasn’t sure if I should say anything to you, but I thought if he’s moved here, you should probably know.”
“Has he? Moved here?” Annie asks, voice carefully neutral. She’s pretty sure she’s not fooling Johanna with her false calm.
“I don’t know. I didn’t exactly ask him. I mean, he doesn’t even know who I am.”
Annie nods, keeping her expression smooth. She had resisted looking Finnick up all these years because she knew the moment she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop. Sure, she’d read everything he’d ever written, had a small stack of Finnick Odair books on her bedside table, but that was the extent of it. She couldn’t help it if they were always displayed front and center in bookstores.
“Where’d you see him, anyway?”
“At a grocery store on the Upper West Side. I had an interview there, and I popped in to get a snack afterwards….” Johanna hesitates.
“What?” Annie asks, trepidation clear in her voice.
“He was….with someone.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” Johanna nods uncomfortably. “I saw them together; they were standing at the fish counter. She seemed…..young.”
“Guess Finnick hasn’t changed,” Annie remarks sourly.
“I’m sorry, Annie.” To Johanna’s credit, she genuinely looks it.
Annie shrugs it off. “Who cares? I got over him ages ago.”
Finnick does, finally, work up the nerve to ask the Everdeens to move in. Prim actually screams in excitement when Katniss says yes, giving both her sister and Finnick bone-crushing hugs.
The following weeks are hectic, filled with cardboard boxes and packing tape and trips to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Katniss and Prim don’t have much stuff, but it’s still a bit of an endeavor, moving two teenage girls across New York, especially since Finnick has never been a teenage girl himself. He doesn’t know what they need. He builds Prim a desk and gets a mini fridge to put in Katniss’s room. He buys posters and bulletin boards and fluffy-looking pillows and uber-soft blankets. Eventually Katniss tells him enough already, they’ll let him know if they need anything else.
There’s also the matter of promoting Finnick’s latest book. He wrote it over the course of the past year, as a sequel to his dystopian story about the teenage boy forced to fight to the death. The film adaptation of the first book is slated to come out soon, so his publisher says the timing couldn’t be better.
This latest book, though, rather than picking up right where the first one left off, centers around a teenage girl in the same terrifying, post-apocalyptic world. Her name is Laurel, and she ends up in the same precarious situation as the previous book’s protagonist, but in her case it’s out of a desire to save her sister, Lily. The response to the second book is even more positive than the first, with critics writing that the dynamic between the two sisters gives a strength to the story that the previous book lacked.
“Finnick,” Katniss says one day, completely out of the blue. “Did you base the character of Laurel on me?”
Finnick looks at her in surprise. He hadn’t been aware she’d read any of his books, much less the latest one.
“Yes,” he admits eventually.
Katniss is quiet for a minute, and Finnick is worried that she’s angry. He probably should’ve asked her before he went and wrote a book (loosely) based on her. But Katniss surprises him by leaning over and giving him a fierce hug.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
Taken aback, but pleased, Finnick pats Katniss’s back. “No,” he says sincerely. “Thank you.”
It’s pure chance, that Annie runs into Finnick just a few weeks after Jo told her he was in New York. She’d gone to see ABT’s performance of Giselle, and on the way out of the theater she literally bumps into Finnick, so absorbed in reading the program that she doesn’t see him until it’s too late.
“Sorry!” she apologizes automatically.
“No, it was my bad!”
It’s then that she registers who he is. She blinks several times as she tries to process what she’s seeing. Her high school ex-boyfriend, in dark dress slacks and a white button-down—a combination that looks unfairly good on him—is standing there with a camera and a program of his own.
“Finnick!”
“Annie?” Finnick looks, if possible, even more surprised to see her than she is to see him.
“What are you doing here?” They both ask at the same time, and then laugh awkwardly.
“I just like the ballet,” Annie says. She thinks this should be fairly self-explanatory; she used to take dance lessons in high school, after all. And she made Finnick watch all those YouTube videos of ballet dancers when they were together.
“Right,” says Finnick nodding. “I remember. I meant, what are you doing here, in New York? Or America, I guess. I thought you lived in England now?”
“I moved.” Annie did not feel like getting into the specifics of her dead husband with her ex.
“Oh,” says Finnick eloquently.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m here with my sisters.”
“You don’t have sisters,” Annie says automatically.
“Well, I do now.” Finnick shrugs, elaborating about as much about his new family as Annie did about her move.
Annie’s about to ask a follow-up question when she hears a girl’s high, clear voice over the crowd.
“Finnick!”
Annie turns to see a tiny blonde girl bounding towards them. Her hair is in two neat plaits, and her blue eyes are positively sparkling with happiness.
“Hey, Prim!” Finnick’s face breaks out in a real grin, and Annie feels a slight pang at the achingly familiar expression.
“That was amazing! That part with the jumps—it looked like she was flying!”
“It was very cool,” Finnick agrees.
“Can we see it again?”
“Sure.”
Prim claps her hands, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“Ok, but next time let’s eat before the show, alright?”
Annie startles. So caught up had she been in watching Finnick and Prim interact that she hadn’t even noticed the approach of a second girl. Slightly older, this girl has darker hair and tanner skin than Prim, and her eyes are a rather intimidating shade of grey. Other than the difference in coloring, the girls have similar features; both have the same slight build and high, sharp cheekbones. With a start, Annie realizes that this might be the girl Johanna had seen Finnick with earlier.
Finnick laughs. “OK, Katniss, where do you want to eat?”
The girl—Katniss—deliberates for a moment. “Can we go to that place with the stew, you know, the one with the lamb and the plums?”
“‘Course.”
For the first time, Prim and Katniss seem to notice Annie.
“Hello,” Prim smiles charmingly at her. “Do you know Finnick?”
Annie shoots a glance at Finnick, who seems equally thrown by this line of questioning.
“Er….yes, I do.”
“How do you two know each other?”
“We went to school together.”
“Did you used to be a ballet dancer?”
“Yes,” Annie answers, surprised. “How did you know?”
Prim shrugs. “You just look it. The way you carry yourself. You’re very graceful.”
Annie is taken aback, but pleased. “Thank you.”
For the next few minutes, Prim and Annie chat about the ballet. Annie registers, out of the corner of her eye, that Katniss has gone to stand beside Finnick. They’re talking, but she can’t make out what they’re saying. She does catch Katniss’s eyes flick towards her momentarily.
“So do you want to come to dinner with us?”
This question, coming at the tail end of a description of Prim’s last role in her ballet academy’s production of Cinderella, catches Annie totally by surprise.
“Oh! Um….” she glances at Finnick to see her expression once again mirrored on his face. “I don’t think so….I mean, I should be getting home, my roommate will be worried….and I don’t want to intrude….”
“Roommate?” asks Finnick sharply.
Shit.
“Ah...yes.” Annie twirls one of her curls between her fingers, a nervous habit she thought she’d grown out of. “I’m-I’m actually living with my friend Jo at the moment.”
Finnick’s eyes go straight to her left hand, where Annie still wears the ring her husband gave her.
“Oh,” says Finnick softly.
Katniss is looking between the two of them, as if just now picking up on the tension there.
“Well, it was nice meeting you.” Annie abruptly turns to go. “Bye!”
“Annie—"
But she’s already gone.
“So…..what was that?”
“What was what?”
Katniss narrows her eyes at him. “You know exactly what. Did you run over her cat or something?”
“Or something,” Finnick mutters.
“Did you two used to date?” Prim asks bluntly.
Finnick hesitates. “Yes. A very long time ago.”
“How long is a very long time?”
Finnick does the math in his head. “Eighteen years.”
“Wow,” Prim looks impressed. “That is a long time.”
“I was an asshole.”
Katniss just looks at him evenly. “You aren’t anymore.”
The second time Annie sees Finnick, she’s starting to think the universe is playing some kind of joke on her.
It’s in a bakery in the West Village, and although Annie won’t admit it, she’s secretly glad she’s wearing her green sweater that accents her eyes so nicely.
“Annie!” Finnick’s face lights up when he sees her, and dammit that’s unfair. He’s not allowed to look like that, not when he was the one who broke her heart.
“Finnick.”
Finnick runs a hand through his hair, which Annie recognizes as a nervous tick of his. “How have you been?”
“You mean in the past two weeks, since I saw you at the ballet?”
“Uh, yeah, since then.”
“Well I can’t say anything much has happened.”
“Right.”
“What are you doing here?”
“This bakery has the chocolate chip cookies Prim likes,” Finnick says, like it’s obvious.
Annie watches him carefully, eyes searching his face, for what she isn’t quite sure.
“What?” he asks self-consciously.
“You’re just.....different.....than how I remember you.”
“.....Oh.”
“It’s a compliment.”
Finnick’s eyes flicker to the side, and Annie can tell she’s made him uncomfortable. Well. He can deal with it.
They stand in silence for a few seconds longer before Annie decides to throw him a lifeline.
“So, you never told me, how did you end up with two little sisters?”
“Oh!” Finnick’s expression brightens. “Prim emailed me after their mother died....apparently she left behind information about my mother, who came to see her about our father. They were curious and wanted to meet, so....” Finnick trails off with a shrug.
They had reached the front of the line. Finnick turns around and orders a half dozen of their chocolate chip cookies, and a slice of tart cherry pie. His favorite, Annie remembers, and then is promptly irritated with herself for hanging on to that tidbit of information all these years. After the clerk has boxed the pastries up, Finnick turns to Annie with a tentative smile.
“It was nice seeing you, Annie.”
“You, too.” To Annie’s surprise, she actually means it.
Quickly, Finnick turns and exits the shop, and Annie steps up to the counter to place her own order. But when she goes to hand the clerk her card, he just shakes his head.
“The customer in front of you paid for yours, as well.”
Surprised, Annie looks out the glass door, but Finnick has already disappeared.
Finnick takes to visiting a variety of different museums with Prim and Katniss in tow. Every Friday afternoon, after Prim gets off from school, he chooses a museum from an alphabetical list he’s compiled, and they spend several hours walking around said museum, ostensibly for its educational benefits but really in the hopes of running into Annie. Finnick always makes sure to take the girls out to dinner afterwards, so it’s not entirely self-serving. This effort gets him a big eyeroll from Katniss every time.
“Why don’t you just look her up on social media and send her a direct message, like a normal person?”
“Because,” Finnick says heatedly. “That would be like stalking. I don’t want to be a creep.”
“Yeah, because methodically visiting every museum in New York City just because Annie said she works in one isn’t stalker-like behavior at all.”
“I resent your sarcasm.”
“I think it’s romantic,” pipes in Prim, who has been a whole-hearted supporter of the entire endeavor.
“I think Finnick is an idiot.”
But Katniss always comes with them, anyway.
After a tour of a not insignificant number of museums in New York, Finnick does eventually run into Annie at the Museum of Natural History.
“Finnick!” Annie exclaims, surprised to see him.
“Annie!” Finnick can’t quite control the extent of his beam.
“I didn’t realize you were interested in natural history.”
“I’m not,” Finnick admits. “The girls and I have just been going to a different museum every week, you know, as a family activity....I didn’t expect to run into you!”
Next to him, Katniss snorts. Prim elbows her in the ribs.
“Oh,” says Annie. “That’s nice.”
“He was absolutely looking for you.”
“That’s ridiculous. He was not.”
“Was too.”
“If he really were looking for me,” Annie argues, wiping down the kitchen counter after dinner. “Don’t you think he’d look me up online, and just send me an email or something?”
“Maybe he wanted it to be organic,” Jo suggests.
“How organic can it be if he’s going to every museum in New York City looking for me?”
Jo shrugs. “I just said that was a possibility, not that it was logical.”
Annie rolls her eyes.
“Well?” prompts Jo.
“Well, what?”
Jo just gives her a look. Annie lifts her eyes up to the ceiling.
“We’re getting drinks at a bar on Saturday.”
When Annie sleeps with Finnick for the first time in eighteen years, it’s different than she was expecting.
For one thing, he’s gotten a lot better at it since high school. A lot. And he wasn’t exactly terrible before.
Second, it’s different because Annie absolutely did not intend to do it.
When they were in high school, Annie had had plans. She’d meticulously plotted out when and where and what time they would have dinner, what drinks would be served with the meal, how long until they would move to the bedroom, etc. On top of which, she and Finnick had been officially dating at the time.
This time.....things just kind of happen. The bar they’d initially planned on going to was too loud, so Finnick and Annie end up in a cozy pub down the street instead. And Annie finds herself slipping back into that easy intimacy that they once had—even though it’s been years, even though their relationship had not ended on good terms, still, there was no denying the shared repository they’d built up, years of stories and experiences and knowledge of each other, despite all the ways they’d changed in the time in between.
One thing leads to another, and Annie finds herself leading Finnick back to her apartment, holding one finger up to her lips as they tiptoe across the threshold because she doesn’t want to wake Jo.
The whole time, Finnick’s kissing a line down her neck, running his hands up and down her sides, giving her chills.
Later, when they’re lying in bed together, and Finnick is playing with a strand of her hair, Annie whispers, “I don’t remember it being like this.”
He rests his forehead against hers, the light from outside the window illuminating the green of his eyes, a familiar counterpart to her own.
“Me neither.”
The night after they sleep together, Annie ghosts Finnick.
She doesn’t mean to, exactly. But whenever she stops to think too long about Finnick and how she feels about him, her thoughts get all muddled and confused and she can’t help but remember high school, and everything that happened then.
So she just...ignores him. She knows that’s not a mature way to handle the situation, but she makes excuses to herself—she needs to prepare this upcoming exhibit for the museum, and make cookies so Jo can pretend to have made them for her office bake sale, and go over her notes for that guest lecture she’s giving next week....
She’s not purposefully ignoring Finnick. She’s just busy. Honestly.
“Just call her already.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Why not?” They’re sitting at the kitchen table, and Prim is trying unsuccessfully to cheer Finnick up.
“Because. She clearly doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“But—”
“Prim,” Katniss shakes her head at her little sister. “Leave it.”
Prim sighs, but does as her sister says, carting her backpack off to her room to start on her homework. Katniss slides into the seat Prim just vacated, directly across from Finnick.
She’s regarding Finnick with that peculiar look unique to Katniss—like you’re a puzzle, or, more likely, a target, and she’s trying to figure out how to put you together and/or take you down in one shot.
“So, do you want to get back together with Annie or not?”
Katniss had never been one to beat around the bush.
“Yes. Of course I do.”
“Then why aren’t you?”
“Because I don’t think she wants to.”
Katniss is quiet for a moment, thinking.
“Why do you think that?” she asks eventually.
Finnick meets Katniss’s eyes across the table. “Because she left the morning after our date without saying goodbye. Because she hasn’t answered any of my calls or texts. Because...”
“Because last time you dated, you broke her heart, right?”
Finnick gives Katniss a look—a really-do-we-have-to-go-over-this-again-look. But then he sighs.
“Yes, I broke her heart.”
“Even though you were in love with her.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re still in love with her.”
“Yes.”
“If I were Annie,” says Katniss thoughtfully. “I’d be pretty scared right now. I’d be worried you were going to hurt me again, even if I really liked you.”
Finnick stares at his sister in frank astonishment. Katniss is not typically a font of emotional intelligence.
“What?” Katniss shrugs. “The girl has commitment issues. I can relate. But....I’m working on it.”
Katniss had, to Prim’s delight, recently gone on dates with both Gale and Peeta. Although both dates went well, she told Finnick and Prim that she and Gale had agreed they would be better as friends. But she’s still seeing Peeta. Katniss told Finnick that if they’re still dating after one month, she’ll invite him over for dinner so Finnick can meet him.
“My point,” Katniss continues. “Is that I don’t think she’s going to reach out to you. You have to go to her first.”
“Well, well, well,” Finnick smiles at Katniss, gently teasing. “Looks like my little sister is all grown up. You’re smarter than me now.”
Katniss sniffs. “I was always smarter than you.”
Finnick decides to take Katniss’s advice. She’s right—Annie is likely, justifiably, gun-shy to jump back into a relationship with him. He knows there isn’t anything he can do, really, to reassure her, much less to make up for how he’d hurt her in the past, but still, he has to try.
He finds Annie in the cafeteria of the Museum of Natural History. She’s in line at the coffee counter, paging through a file while she waits, eyes flicking quickly back and forth across the paper as she reads.
“Annie!” he calls out.
Head snapping up, Annie’s eyes dart around the cafeteria until they settle on him. Hesitantly, she leaves the line, walking several steps towards him. She stops when she’s still a little ways away.
“Finnick.”
Finnick can tell she’s about to apologize, so he starts talking before she has the chance. Annie doesn’t owe him anything, least of all an apology.
“I understand if you don’t want to be with me.”
“Finnick—” Annie’s eyebrows pull together. The expression is so familiar to him, Finnick feels a pang go through him at the sight of it.
“No, I get it, I really do. I was a complete asshole to you. I was a piece of shit. I lied, and cheated, and was...just...a terrible human being.”
Finnick takes a deep breath. This is so, so much harder than he thought it would be. Annie looks like she’s about to say something, though, so he pushes on.
“I wish I could take it all back—I would if I could, trust me—but I can’t. And I had resigned myself to living my life without you in it; it was what I deserved, and I wanted you to be happy. You deserve to be happy.
“I know that a lot has changed. But-but if there’s any way that you can forgive me, any way at all, that you could give me a second chance....I swear you won’t regret it. I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy.”
He stares at Annie, and Annie stares back. He can’t read her expression, and that, more than anything, terrifies him.
He remembers that first time they were re-united, at an event for his very first book tour, when he was feeling so lost and he thought Annie was the one who could find him, could tell him who he was. He knows that’s wrong now—even if she had known, even if she could’ve told him, it’s not fair to put something as large as that on someone else—he had to find out for himself what kind of person he was. And it had taken six years, three books, two long-lost siblings, and a lot more confusion than high school Finnick could ever have imagined, but he had done it. He knew who he was now.
Finally, Annie speaks.
“You don’t know me. Not anymore.”
“But I want to.”
Hesitantly, Annie stares at him, at this man who was once a boy who was once the center of her world. Annie had once told him that if they ever got back together, he would destroy her. And maybe that had been true once. In fact, Annie feels certain that if they had gotten back together then, he would have destroyed her. Her identity would have been subsumed by his, swallowed up like someone drowning in deep waters, until she could no longer tell where Finnick Odair ended and Annie Cresta began.
But he’s not that boy anymore. Annie’s definitely not the same girl whose heart he broke.
She reaches out and takes his hand.
Finnick’s typing on his laptop at the dining room table when Annie comes down the stairs. She’s been sleeping over at his place more nights than not; he’d set aside more than half of his dresser for her clothes, and more than half of the closet space, too. She has coffee mugs in the cupboard that she likes to use, one of which she pulls down now, going to pour a cup from the pot Finnick already brewed.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” he teases her. He always wakes up earlier than her, apparently a leftover habit from years of having to get up for swim practice at the crack of dawn. Annie is more of a night owl, herself.
“Morning.” Annie comes around behind him, kissing his temple before dropping down into the chair next to him. “What are you working on?”
Finnick turns fully in his chair to face her. He has on the rectangular glasses he always wears when he’s writing—Annie finds it unfair the way they serve to make him even more attractive.
“My publisher always wanted me to write a follow-up to my first book, Pyrite Boy. But I never could figure out what to write.”
“Pyrite Boy? The book you wrote about me?” Annie teases.
“Yes, that book.”
“So?” Annie prompts him. “Did you finally figure out what to write? Is that what you’re working on now?”
Finnick smiles at her, a full, loving smile that warms her right down to her toes. He takes her hand and kisses the inside of her wrist. “Yes, that’s what I’m working on now. It’s the sequel.”