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“Wait, how do you know which notes are which when all the keys look the same?”
Annie laughs. The thing with trying to teach Finnick piano is that he’s a lot smarter than he lets people believe. He’s humoring her, giving her a chance to explain and feel like she has a grasp on something. She’s a little miffed that it actually works, but she’s not turning down any chance to feel good about herself these days. “It’s muscle memory. And pitch recognition, too. You just kind of learn after a while.”
Finnick looks over at her and grins. The piano bench isn’t very big, so she can feel his shoulder nudge against hers. He settles his hands over the keys and plays a discordant melody. “Like that?”
“That’s one method,” says Annie, biting back a laugh. “Here, can I move your hands?”
Finnick nods, and she adjusts his fingers to produce a sound that won’t make her neighbors assume the piano fell down the stairs. Finnick tries again, eyes bright. “I don’t care what anyone says. I’m basically a professional already.”
Well, at least one of them is. It’s a month before Annie’s Victory Tour, which means that she has roughly a month to figure the instrument out. She’s been playing for a few months already, and simplistic melodies are about as far as she’s gotten. Sometimes, it’s like she can’t bring herself to do something even if she wants to. Annie wants to try more complicated music, but whenever she sits down to do it, her fingers hover over the keys uselessly. It doesn’t make sense, she knows that, but it’s frustrating anyway.
“What’s on your mind?” Finnick asks, after she’s spent a few quiet seconds with her eyes fixed at the keys.
Annie shrugs. “I just feel like I’m not getting anywhere.”
“Hey, don’t worry about that. There’s no benchmark you have to meet, they just want to see that you’re trying,” he assures her. “But if you want to try something new, you could always talk to Callie. Her talent is singing. You guys could work together.”
“I’ve heard Callie sing. Trust me, we are not in the same league.”
Finnick shrugs, and it jostles Annie’s shoulder. “Come on. You think Callie was great when she first started? Do you think Dylan grew beautiful flowers on the first try? No. I, on the other hand, am amazing at whatever I attempt—”
The somber mood breaks, and Annie nudges him back, a smile twitching at her mouth. “You’re really good at being humble, too.”
“One of my many talents,” Finnick agrees. “But seriously, think about it. I can talk to Callie if you want me to.”
“No, it’s fine,” Annie says, shaking her head. “I should do it on my own.”
She takes Finnick’s offer to heart partially because she needs something new to do and partially because Mags is always trying to coax her out of her comfort zone. Which, since the arena, has become unfortunately small.
Annie paces around her kitchen on the day Callie is supposed to arrive, and resists the urge to fiddle with a knife. She’s not nervous, but she can admit she’s a little intimidated. Callie trained at the Academy like she did, but didn’t fall apart in the arena. Annie wasn’t around for Callie’s early recovery but she’s willing to bet it was a lot prettier than hers.
A knock on her door seems to echo through the house, and Annie inhales sharply before swinging it open.
“Hi,” says Callie. She’s holding a box that she sets down on Annie’s coffee table, dozens of sheets almost spilling out of it. “I hope you don’t mind that I brought some music over. A lot of it is the instrumental part of songs I know.”
“No, it’s fine,” Annie says, coaxing some life back into her voice. “Thanks for coming.”
She doesn’t know how to make the conversation less stilted, so they silently agree to begin working on music. The Capitol provided Annie with an instructional book full of basic melodies and rhythms, and on the very first page is the Panem anthem. She may as well rip that page out because it’s not like she’ll ever play it. Annie settles on a Capitol nursery rhyme that comes with the vocal part and begins to play.
Despite the simplicity of the song, Callie’s voice is enthralling to listen to. She makes it sound easy, but that’s probably because it is easy for her. Annie gets through her part without stumbling very much. They continue like that for a while, working through some of the music Callie brought, which turns out to be music from Four.
When Callie goes to sip her water bottle, Annie fiddles around with the keys, her mind falling back into a familiar melody. There’s no way she can replicate it, but she does her best.
“What song is that?” Callie asks, and Annie jumps a little.
“Just something my mom used to play,” she answers softly. “I really can’t play much of it.”
It’s an old memory that she’s pulled from the recesses of her mind, but her mom had been the reason Annie picked piano as her talent in the first place. Before the Academy, before Annie’s life was consumed by the Games, she used to sit on the piano bench next to her mother and listen to the music.
“You’ll get there,” Callie says. She settles awkwardly on the couch, and after a beat, Annie joins her.
Annie huffs a disbelieving laugh. “Yeah, that’s what Finnick says.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“It’s not that,” she says. It’s a hard feeling to put into words, but she might as well try. “I’m just frustrated I’m not already there. I know it’s stupid.”
Callie hums in consideration. “It’s not stupid. You know, nobody’s standing behind you waiting to dock points every time you mess up. Nobody’s keeping score here.”
Annie’s breath catches in her throat. Obviously she knew she wasn’t being tested, but that’s a big part of what she’s been feeling this whole time. Since she got out of the arena, even. Academy habits die hard.
“There’s really no consequences for messing up in music,” Callie continues after a beat of silence. “That’s what I like about it.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugs. “If you’re cooking and you mess it up, you have the food and the dishes to deal with. If you’re doing some kind of art and you decide you don’t like it, it’s a waste of materials. But if you’re playing your piano and you mess up a note, nothing changes. The stakes are so low they’re practically nonexistent.”
“So I should just relax and play what I want?” Annie asks, barely able to keep the skepticism from bleeding into her voice.
“Trust me, I know it’s not that easy,” Callie says. “Especially when you’ve spent the last ten years being told that if you’re not the best, you’re nothing at all.”
There’s no second place in the arena. Yeah, Annie’s heard that enough for a lifetime.
“How do you fix it?” she asks.
Callie leans back into the couch cushions and sighs. “I don’t think you can really undo it, but you can improve it a lot. You can practice and practice as much as you want, but it’s not going to matter if you don’t give yourself permission to mess it up a little. Maybe just try to get used to making small mistakes, just so you can convince yourself the world won’t come crashing down when you do.”
“You’d be a good mentor,” Annie says impulsively. She’s worried she broke some unspoken rule of victor etiquette, but Callie only gives an amused smile.
“Maybe, but I think mentoring would just bring it all back. That’s why I don’t do it—I’ve spent enough time trying to detach myself from the Games as it is.”
Annie nods. She can understand that. She won’t mentor either, not unless District Four goes through a brutal dry spell.
With nine victors, Four always has people to cover the job. Mags and Nerissa do it most often, with Calder stepping in when he feels a connection. Kai mentored with Mags until Nerissa won, and took over again when Nerissa had her kids. But there are plenty of victors who don’t mentor at all.
“I think that’s the hardest part of it all,” says Annie slowly, still trying to find the words. “It’s like unlearning everything you’ve ever known.”
“Yeah,” Callie agrees with a soft laugh. “But you’re learning a lot of new things too, and you’ll feel a lot better once it all starts to sink in.”
Annie’s hands work automatically, rolling the cookie dough into even spheres. It’s one of the days where she can focus on a task for a while without getting distracted, so she enlisted Callie’s help in making cookies. It’s easier when she has something to occupy herself with, especially with Tour getting closer every passing day.
She doesn’t want to talk about the Tour, but she can’t stand going in unprepared, so she makes her voice as casual as possible and asks, “How much will the Capitol expect me to play piano on the Tour?”
Callie glances over, eyebrows furrowed. “It depends. They might ask you to play at your party in the President’s mansion, but not in the districts.”
“I don’t know if I can,” she admits, keeping her focus on the cookies in front of her. “How did you do it? Just give them a part of yourself like that?”
“That’s the tough part about picking a talent you actually like,” Callie says. “You have to keep some of it for yourself. Luckily, it’s the Capitol during the second most festive time of year. Even if you wanted to, you won’t have their attention for very long.”
That’s reassuring, but it doesn’t completely stop Annie’s stomach from churning. “How do you keep some of it for yourself?”
“Well, you could decide not to play any songs from Four. Play Capitol music only and they won’t know the difference.”
Annie nods. She can work with that. And Callie’s right—when has the Capitol cared about her? Even at the Academy, they learn that the Capitol doesn’t want people. They want tributes and then victors. In a way, this is no different than the endless lectures on presentation and showmanship she had to sit through.
“If it makes you feel better,” begins Callie as she slides her cookies into the oven, “you’re not the only one to deal with this. It happened with Calder, too. His talent was writing, so the Capitol wanted to see it. There’s still a book of his poems floating out there somewhere.”
Annie knows she probably shouldn’t, but she laughs a little. “What about you? Did they ever ask you for anything?”
“I used to perform a bit,” she answers. “They wanted me to release my own music, but they gave up on that when they realized I wasn’t much of a performer.”
As good as she is, Annie can’t really imagine Callie performing her own music at a concert hall full of adoring fans. It doesn’t seem possible. “I just keep worrying they’re going to ask too much of me.”
“They already have, and you got through it,” Callie says with conviction. “Whatever they ask now, you can get through it again.”
Annie nods, trying to convince herself. She really hopes Callie’s right about that.
When she opens her eyes, she’s in the bathtub.
In situations like these, when her mind goes fuzzy, Annie tries to take stock of her situation. It’s the night before her Victory Tour starts, and she’s in her dry bathtub, the coolness of the porcelain seeping into her skin. She hasn’t eaten dinner yet, if the hollowness of her stomach is anything to go by.
Footsteps creak in the hall outside, but Annie can barely bring herself to shift into a more comfortable sitting position.
The bathroom door swings open, and she’s met with Finnick’s focused face that quickly bleeds into a look of relief. “Hey,” he says casually, like they meet each other in the bathroom all the time. (They don’t, by the way.)
“Hey,” Annie echoes, and it comes out hoarse.
“Mind if I sit?” Finnick asks, not even questioning why she’s in the tub. He slumps into the bathtub next to her, his long legs hanging off the rim. The bathtub is big enough to easily fit three people, but even with the extra space, it feels oddly intimate.
“Sorry I disappeared on you,” she mumbles.
Finnick shrugs. “I just needed to find you, and I did. No harm done.”
“It’s just—tomorrow.” She doesn’t elaborate, but it’s clear she doesn’t need to when Finnick gives an understanding nod.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he asks, and the vulnerability in his voice is enough to divert Annie from her own oncoming panic. Wordlessly, she nods. “I barely slept on my Victory Tour. My prep team basically had a conniption when they saw the bags under my eyes.”
There’s a joke about Finnick Odair not being pretty somewhere in there, but Annie’s not really in the mood. “Seriously?”
“Yep,” he says simply. “Every victor before you has struggled with the Tour, and every victor after you will struggle with it too. Even if it looks easy for them, it’s not.”
That does make her feel better, in a way. “We still have to do it, though.”
Finnick gives a sad smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “You do. But after this, you don’t have to do anything else. You’ll be officially retired from the Games.”
“Retired at eighteen,” Annie says with a laugh. “Lucky me.”
“Come on,” says Finnick, standing up. He reaches out a hand to pull her up. “Let’s go get some dinner.”
She follows him downstairs, dragging her fingers through the knots in her hair. It’s long overdue for another wash. Before she can make it to the kitchen, she passes her piano to see a lone piece of music sitting on the lid.
At first, Annie thinks it’s something she was using and forgot to put away, but a closer look tells her she’s never seen the music before. She’s gotten a lot better at sounding it out in her head, and tears prick in her eyes when the melody starts to fall into place.
She’s brought back to her earliest memories with her mother at the piano, playing her favorite song. The song that Callie has somehow found the sheet music for, and that Annie can start learning how to play.
There’s no note with it, but the message is clear. It’s a gift that says she’ll be okay, that she’ll make it home and learn to play this song, and she won’t be alone when she does it.
“You okay?” Finnick asks, hovering in the doorway.
Annie doesn’t release her hold on the music as she walks into the kitchen. She gives Finnick a teary nod, and together they get started on dinner.