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Like usual, I sit on the sand.
Today it’s warmed by the sun.
The waves roll onto the beach but stop a few inches before my toes.
Annie sits right beside me as we watch the boy in silence.
We often go to the beach, even though neither Annie nor I ever go into the water, but the boy loves it here.
He’s only four years old but already an excellent swimmer.
He loves the water just as much his father did.
Fin had accepted early that his mother wouldn’t play with him in the waves.
She tried when he was younger but she never over came her fear.
He never stopped trying with me, though.
I’ve managed a few steps into the water over the years, but the second the waves hit my ankles, my body reacts before I can think.
I back up. Every time.
Nonetheless, Fin always tries to lure me back into the water.
He’s always trying to fix something he didn’t break
If I were four, I’d probably believe I could fix most things too.
I always try for him.
Always try to overcome my fear.
That part matters.
I want him to grow up knowing that fear doesn’t mean weakness.
That you can be scared and still come far in life.
But there are limits and the ocean crosses mine.
I can deal with still bodies of water.
Taking a bath isn’t a problem anymore, but showers, on the other hand…
Given that it’s already been five years since the war ended, I don’t think that will ever change.
I glance over at Annie.
She’s staring at the horizon, eyes unfocused.
I know the signs.
She’s drifting away, not gone completely, just far enough that the present isn’t fully holding her.
I take her hand in mine, because I know it helps her find her way back.
It works. Slowly.
Her fingers tighten around mine, just a little, than she looks at me with a distant smile.
By the look in her eyes, I can tell that her mind was far away, but is slowly coming back to reality.
After all these years, I’ve gotten good at this. At grounding her.
I'm not perfect, but good enough.
Almost as good as Finnick was.
Her gaze drops down to our joined hands, then back to the water where the boy emerges from the waves.
Fin runs to us and then flops down on my lap, his skin cool to the touch after being in the water for so long.
He smells like salt and seaweed.
He smells like the ocean.
“Hi, little fish.” I say, as I let go of Annie’s hand and wrap my arms around his small body.
He gives me that cheeky grin his father once had perfected.
I think about Finnick more often than I admit. More than Annie probably realizes.
I think about how proud he would be of his kid.
About how he would swim with him.
About how he should be sitting here with Annie, not me.
It’s always strange to think about him.
Losing him hit different.
After they took my family, Finnick became my friend.
I didn’t trust him at first, but somewhere along the way, he became important.
More important than I ever would’ve admitted out loud.
And then he was gone too, and I was even more broken, but for the first time in my life, I was free.
Not only me, but our whole nation.
I could have gone back to Seven, to my trees, to everything that once meant something, but Annie refused to go there.
All she wanted was to go back to where she and Finnick had lived.
And all I wanted was to protect her.
One last favor to an old friend.
I owed Finnick that much. Maybe even more.
So I went with her.
Because I know Finnick would have done the same if the roles were reversed, if I had died and there had been someone left who still mattered to me.
Some days I don’t know why Annie insisted on living close to the water.
Waves still scare her, and when they are heavy after a storm, she looks at them truly terrified, like they would grab her and pull her back into the ocean with them.
Those days are hard and the nights are worse.
But then, when the waves are calm and softly rolling onto the beach, she has this smile on her face.
This smile that tells me she feels at home, maybe even at peace, thinking about Finnick and the little things that hadn’t been awful ever since she won the Games.
I’m happy for her, but sometimes I’m envious.
The ocean doesn’t bring happiness to me, and the forests were almost completely cleared for the fishing industry.
The few trees that are still standing may be similar to those back home, but at the same time they feel very different.
Sometimes I catch myself smelling the bundle Katniss made for me in Thirteen, but the scent is long gone, and so is the feeling.
Though they were never my woods, they felt like home when nothing else had.
But I’m not sure if the trees are really at fault or if I have changed.
Maybe the trees aren’t the problem.
Maybe I am.
Because now, when I think about home, I don’t think about woods, about the tall pine trees or the sawdust but a red-haired boy and his mother.
And that’s enough to keep me where I am.