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Coral got married when she was nineteen.
In District Four, there’s nothing strange about that, especially for the people working out at sea, whose boats capsize when it storms. It’s common for someone to get married as soon as they age out of the reaping.
But Coral is a victor, so nothing about her story is common.
She’s been married to her wife Isla for fourteen years, and she hasn’t regretted it for a second. Isla always says they were lucky to find each other, and Coral thinks she’s right about that. She is lucky that a pretty girl from District One won just three years after she did, and the Capitol decided they had enough of District Four for a while.
So she came home and got married as soon as she could, and nobody tried to stop her.
“Are we going to make breakfast?” Isla asks as she presses a kiss to Coral’s bare shoulder one early morning. “Or are we going to lay here in bed all day?”
Coral hums. “I’m happy to lay here with you.”
“What if I said I was hungry?”
“Then I’d have to kick you out,” Coral responds solemnly, relishing in Isla’s laugh. Her wife’s curly dark hair fans out against the pillow, tousled from sleep but looking as beautiful as ever.
They do get up eventually, working together to make the bed. It’s one of Coral’s favorite parts of her day.
“Nerissa’s daughter Cordelia is getting married,” she says conversationally.
Isla raises her eyebrows. “That’s finally happening? I thought Nerissa didn’t want her to marry a fisherman.”
“She doesn’t.” Coral puts the pillows back on the bed, fluffing them up so they look soft and inviting. “But I guess she decided it was a compromise she had to make if she wanted a relationship with her daughter. Some things just aren’t worth fighting about. We only have so much time here.”
Isla nods. Her gaze holds none of the pity that Coral would expect from saying something like that. That’s one of the things she appreciates most about Isla. She just treats Coral like a person, not a victor or a porcelain doll. “You’ve known them for a while, haven’t you?”
“I used to babysit Cordelia, if you can believe it,” says Coral. “Nerissa was going through a lot when I won. Her husband had died the year before, then she had two young kids to look after. I don’t know how she managed.”
Isla smiles. “It sounds like she had some help.”
“I don’t know if it helped her or me more,” she admits. Those early months are hard for any victor. Coral’s never the first to volunteer to babysit, but Cordelia liked her well enough, and it had given her something productive to do. “I can’t believe she’s getting married. How old are we again?”
“You don’t look a day over sixty,” says Isla with a grin, and Coral nudges her shoulder. “Well, it’ll be fun. It’s been a while since we’ve had a wedding here.”
“Yeah,” Coral says, huffing a laugh. “And we’ll probably have another one soon.”
“Seriously? Who?”
They sit next to each other on the bed, now made. “Finnick and Annie. You haven’t noticed that?”
“Finnick and Annie,” Isla echoes, disbelieving. “I guess they’re friends.”
“Do friends take their boat out every day, just the two of them?”
Isla blinks. “No?”
“Exactly,” Coral says. She can tell Isla’s just going along with it, but it’s nice of her to do. “I’m not saying it’s happening any time soon, but it will happen.”
“When it does,” Isla says, leaning in closer, “I will be the first to say you were right.”
Victor’s Village has a tradition where the victors rotate who makes dinner for everyone else each day. It’s as much for community as it is for convenience, according to Mags, who designed the system. There are seven days of the week and nine victors, so don’t ask Coral how the math adds up.
When it’s her night, she invites everyone over to her house for a dinner that they share. Why should she take the time to deliver the food to their houses when they can come to her? And if they share a meal then play games together afterward, well, that’s her prerogative. It’s her house.
The Victory Tour is coming up in just two weeks, which doesn’t usually faze Four’s victors. This year, though, the victor is one of their own. Everyone’s trying valiantly to not talk about it.
It doesn’t go so well.
Coral’s heading towards the kitchen to grab more drinks when she overhears something she probably shouldn’t listen in on. Call her nosy, but she stays. News travels fast in the Village, and she would just end up hearing about it anyway.
“I can’t,” Annie is saying, and it doesn’t take a genius to guess what she’s referring to.
“Yes, you can,” says another voice. Finnick. “If you can’t trust yourself right now, can you trust me when I say you’ll get through this?”
The conversation stills. “What if I never get better? What if I’m never going to be the person I was before?”
“You won’t be the person you were before. None of us are,” says Finnick, and it somehow sounds okay when he says it. “But you are getting better. Remember last month when I cut myself chopping carrots and you patched it up with no problem?”
“Yeah,” Annie replies, but she doesn’t sound happy about it. “That was last month, and now I can’t even look at a knife without freaking out.”
“Because you’re in a situation that’s not allowing you to heal. That’s not your fault.”
A beat of silence passes before Annie stifles an awkward laugh. “Did you steal that from Mags?”
“Not all of my wisdom comes from Mags, you know.”
“Okay,” says Annie, and they retreat back into the living room before Coral can hear the rest of the conversation.
Her head spins with questions. How long have they been in the ‘sneak away together during a group gathering’ stage? Still, she’s glad Annie has someone to talk to who can give her some much needed perspective, and she’s glad Finnick has someone who gets what he’s been through.
The living room is bustling when she gets back with more lemonade. As a general rule, they don’t drink alcohol very much, but lemonade is probably the Village’s favorite drink. They’ve just finished up one game and are waiting for another, so Coral steps in.
“We’ll need teams for this one,” she says. “Finnick and Annie, you can be a team.”
The two of them try to hide smiles, and neither of them meet her eyes.
There’s nobody that Coral trusts like she trusts Nerissa.
Isla’s always been great, and she and Dylan have had a few too many heartfelt talks, but when Coral has a problem, it’s Nerissa she goes to. Even when she doesn’t have a problem, she goes to Nerissa. She’s pretty sure she’s not the only one who goes to their mentor. Dylan and Nerissa cook dinner together every week, and she’s caught Callie and Calder reading in silence together on more than one occasion.
Unlike Dylan, she doesn’t have a scheduled time to meet with Nerissa. She stops by when she feels like it, and if it bothers Nerissa, she hasn’t shown it in the decade they’ve known each other.
They’re sitting on Nerissa’s porch, sipping iced tea idly while the sun goes down. It’s not so oppressively hot now that winter is approaching, or whatever passes for winter in Four.
A flash of movement flickers in her periphery, and Coral catches sight of Finnick and Annie walking side by side to the docks, hands dangerously close to touching. “I can’t be the only one who sees it,” she tells Nerissa.
“What, Annie and Finnick? Of course not.”
Coral feels oddly gratified. “So you think they’re together?”
“I don’t know what they are, and I don’t think they know either,” she replies. “They’re probably just trying to make the most out of their time here before they go back to the Capitol.”
Coral nods. The Victory Tour is just a few days away now. “Do you wonder what it would be like? Dating another victor?”
Nerissa considers this carefully. She always takes Coral’s questions seriously, no matter how invasive they may seem. “I suppose there’s some benefit to being with someone who understands that aspect of your life. But we both know how helpful it can be to be with someone who’s not involved in it at all.”
That is true. Isla’s been a good voice of reason more times than Coral would like to admit. The arena can warp the way your mind thinks. “So there’s benefits to both.”
“Sure,” says Nerissa. “Although the Tour is coming up, which may change things. Never underestimate the Capitol’s ability to distort a situation. Who knows where they’ll stand when they get back.”
“Nerissa,” says Coral, scandalized. “Are you gossiping?”
Her mouth twitches into a smile. “Maybe you’ve taught me a few things.”
“Have you noticed Finnick and Annie aren’t spending time together anymore?”
The unfortunate person to be subject to Coral’s conjecture today is Dylan. She’s helping him plant flowers because he needed another set of hands, so the least he can do is listen to her speculation. “They only got back from the Capitol a week ago,” says Dylan. “You remember what that was like.”
“They’re not even taking the boat out,” Coral says, shaking her head. “They used to love doing that.”
Dylan’s hands pause. “You know, you’re awfully invested in this.”
“Like you’re not curious,” she retorts. Honestly, it’s not like she’s the only one who cares.
“I’m curious because I care about them,” he says after a beat of silence. “You’re curious because you’re nosy.”
His words don’t bother her. They don’t come from a place of real contempt, because they rarely ever do with Dylan. He’s just teasing her. “Tell me something I don’t know,” Coral says, because she may as well own it.
“Maybe we should talk to them,” he relents. “Just to make sure nothing’s wrong.”
They just got back from the Capitol. Of course something’s wrong. She keeps that part in her head because the Capitol is the last thing Dylan likes to talk about, so instead she says, “I should talk to Finnick. And Annie might like to hear from someone who’s not a Career.”
When she finishes up at Dylan’s house, she knocks on Finnick’s door.
He answers after almost a full minute later. Whatever beauty treatments they’d done to him in the Capitol have been reduced to disarray, either from neglect, lack of sleep, or whatever’s going on inside his head.
“Mags sent you?” he asks, surprise bleeding into his voice.
“No one sent me.”
Wordlessly, he swings the door open to let her inside. She sits on his couch and Finnick slumps down next to her, his head falling into his hands. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
So they’re skipping the pleasantries. Cool. “Then why’d you let me in?”
“Because you’re relentless.”
“Thank you.”
She waits a bit for him to untangle the thoughts in his head. “I just can’t do it, okay?”
“You can’t be with Annie?” she clarifies. He sends her a mournful look at the sound of Annie’s name. “Why not?”
“Don’t ask me that, Coral. You know why.”
This is why she wanted to be the one to talk to Finnick. “Look, I get it. But do you really want the Capitol to taint every relationship you have? You’re just letting them win.”
“There’s no relationship to taint,” he says shortly. “And I’m not letting them do anything. I’m trying to protect Annie.”
“Does Annie want your protection?”
Finnick grumbles something unintelligible. “Will you stop asking me questions?”
“Sure. I’ll tell you something. Annie’s an adult. And she’s a victor, which makes her tough. If she wants to be with you, and you want to be with her, then you have every right to pursue that.”
“Nobody can know,” he says, voice gravelly. “It’s different for you. You married Isla after you were done. I’m not done, and I won’t be for a while. I’d just be putting her in danger.”
“I get that it’s not the same,” she concedes. “But you think I don’t worry about Isla every day? That Nerissa didn’t worry about her husband? And look at what happened to Dylan’s son.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?”
“I’m trying to tell you that you’re not alone,” she says. “You’re not the only one they have leverage over. But ask any one of us, and we’ll tell you we never regretted it. You think never being with Annie will be easier than losing her, but it won’t be. We’re all going to die someday. Try to at least live first.”
Finnick’s jaw tightens. “I really hate that you’re right.”
Coral places a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I get that a lot.”
Coral knows something’s wrong when she snaps at Isla for asking how she’s doing.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. Now that the weather is colder, memories of her arena start to crop up everywhere. It’s in the smallest things, lurking in the corner of her vision. A blast of cold air conditioning. The clink of ice against her teeth. The moment when she turns the faucet on and cold water rushes over her hands.
Her default reaction to stuff like this is anger, which isn’t exactly ideal. Most people would assume that Coral wants space, but her wife knows that being alone is the last thing she needs right now. Nerissa would say it’s a trauma response—hiding alone in a cave for two weeks leaves a person with an aversion to isolation.
So when Isla asks if she can invite the other victors over, Coral agrees readily.
It happens to be Callie’s night to cook dinner, so she arrives at Coral’s house with a bowl of warm stew and fresh bread for them to share. The others arrive with other small offerings; a new homemade bracelet or a pot for her newest plant. The gifts themselves don’t make her feel better, but the thought behind them does. The other victors are smart. They know what it means when they get invited to Coral’s house with no warning.
They eat and play games and talk, and it feels so normal that it tricks her brain into thinking that everything’s fine.
She’s not even alone when she retreats to do the dishes. Just as she turns the water on, letting it heat up a bit first, Annie steps up to her side.
“Hey,” Annie says awkwardly. “I wanted to thank you. Dylan told me what you did for us.”
Coral huffs a laugh. “I need to have a talk with him about subtlety.”
Annie shrugs. “I thought it was nice. I guess we just needed another perspective on it.”
“I’m glad it helped,” she says honestly. All thoughts of the dishes are abandoned. “So are you and Finnick…?”
“We’re together,” she answers. “We thought you should be the first to know.”
Coral smiles. Sure, there’s something so validating about being right, but mainly she’s just happy that Finnick and Annie managed to find some peace with each other. It’s about as much as any of them can hope for. “Well, I’m honored. And I’ll try to keep it a secret.”
“Thanks, but the other victors will know soon enough,” Annie says casually. “So if you do happen to tell someone, we wouldn’t mind.”
She hadn’t noticed it before, but the tension that’s been buzzing in her head for the past few days has begun to settle down. Her nerves don’t feel like a live wire anymore, and her thoughts feel easier to control.
“It might be more fun to see how long it takes the others to figure out,” Coral comments. “But seriously, Annie. I appreciate you telling me.”
Annie nods, and together they work on the dishes.
Cordelia marries her fiance Ronan on a beautiful spring day. It’s warm but not stifling, and Coral watches as Nerissa’s face splits into a proud smile.
The ceremony is private but beautiful, but the party afterwards is the main event. With so many victors in attendance, it’s private too, but that doesn’t stop anyone from having a good time. Coral walks around and talks to anyone who will respond. Isla, who had stuck by her side for the entire ceremony, has gone to talk to Calder about their shared love of writing.
“How are you feeling?” Coral asks Nerissa, who’s picking at a plate of food distractedly.
“Like it was worth it,” she says, and Coral grins.
Annie and Finnick are watching the newlyweds dance with matching wistful expressions, so Coral heads to their table.
“When I was a kid, I learned all the steps to the wedding dance,” says Finnick, his voice deceptively casual.
“Yeah, weddings are great,” Coral says. “But they don’t tell us anything we don’t already know.”
“What do you mean?” Annie asks.
“Cordelia and Ronan got married because they love each other and they wanted that to be recognized,” she begins. “But you don’t need a wedding to be a serious couple. And you definitely don’t need a wedding to love each other.”
Finnick reaches for Annie’s hand under the table. “You don’t think you needed to marry Isla?”
“No,” says Coral honestly, surprising even herself. She’d been so quick to get married when she was younger, thinking that being in a real relationship would repair what the Capitol had done to her. But it hadn’t been the wedding that helped her heal. “I wanted to marry Isla, and I know how lucky I am to have gotten to do it. But nothing would be different for us if we never got married. We’d still love each other anyway.”
“Thanks, Coral,” says Finnick.
She gives them both an encouraging nod. “Of course.”