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Annie can’t remember the last time she left her bedroom.
That’s not saying much. Time is transient these days, and she’s losing lots of it. Mags warned her this would happen, so maybe she shouldn’t be surprised, but it still hurts to know that she worked hard for ten years to win the Games and now she’s spending her time curled up under her covers like a small child who’s terrified of the dark. The upcoming Victory Tour is wearing on her mind, which everyone says is normal. It doesn’t feel normal.
Her tongue is dry, stuck to the roof of her mouth. A dull ache spreads through her jaw at the tension. She should be relaxed, but sometimes it feels like the only time she lets her guard down is when she’s sedated.
Her muscles clench involuntarily at the sound of footsteps in the hallway. The floorboards creak a bit, then there’s the frustrated hiss of someone who’s trying to be quiet but failing. The footsteps stop. The pause lengthens. Then a knock sounds at her door.
“Annie?”
Whose voice is that? Her brain catches up and her muscles relax a bit. “Come in,” she calls, voice hoarse.
She knows she looks terrible. Her hair hasn’t been brushed in days, and it tangles around her shoulders. The skin around her eyes is puffy and irritated. Finnick, standing in her doorway like he’s afraid to come in, doesn’t seem to notice.
“Hey,” he says, voice soft. “How are you?”
She glances down at herself then back up at him. “Great.”
His eyes seem to sparkle in amusement. “I was wondering if you wanted to come to the beach with us tonight. Victor’s Village only. It’s the new year, and we do a little thing to celebrate…”
“I don’t know,” she says doubtfully. Leaving the room feels impossible, and being confronted with how much time has passed since her victory sounds terrible. It’s the new year already, and she’s still like this.
Finnick ventures into the room cautiously. “Would it help if I told you it was Mags’s idea?”
“Not really.”
“Okay,” he says simply, but makes no move to leave. His fingers twitch restlessly at his side. He looks strangely uncomfortable. “What’s stopping you?”
Annie clenches her jaw shut. How can she begin to explain what’s stopping her when she can’t even understand it herself? Outside her window, through the small gap in the curtains, she can see the sun beginning to set.
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” he offers, which helps more than he realizes.
“I can’t—I don’t want to leave the room,” she begins.
Finnick nods slowly. “Because you’re worried something might happen?”
She nods. Annie knows it’s illogical. If something were to happen, there’s nothing stopping it from happening in her bedroom either. But it just feels different.
“Well, all the victors will be there,” says Finnick. “We’re just going to be on our private beach, so there won’t be any civilians around. And if anything does happen, I’m pretty sure Nerissa can handle it. You know that rumor going around at the Academy that she wrestled a shark? I’m pretty sure it’s true.”
The image brings an unbidden smile to her lips, but it fades quickly. “I don’t want it to be the new year.”
“Is it about…” he trails off and coughs awkwardly into his hand.
“You can say it.”
“The Victory Tour?”
Annie pauses. That would be the reasonable thing, wouldn’t it? But she doesn’t think so. “No. I think it’s because if it’s the new year, and I’m still like this…it means I’ll be this way forever.”
Finnick is silent for a second. “I know it feels like some huge thing. But it doesn’t have to be. And we won’t be watching any of the live Capitol coverage or anything. It’s just us and a picnic and the ocean. It’s just another day.”
“Okay,” says Annie, mostly because he looks so earnest that saying no feels cruel. “Just let me brush my hair first.”
Finnick waits patiently as Annie does her best to get ready. She decides that her hair is hopeless and ties it back into a braid. She exchanges her pajamas for fresh clothes and a jacket. It feels better to look a little more like herself. If only she could have done all this on her own, without the support of Finnick or anyone else.
“Ready?” asks Finnick as Annie emerges from her closet.
She gives a resolute nod.
They walk through Annie’s house and out the front door, heading towards the victor’s private beach. “Most of them will be there already,” says Finnick as they walk. “I told Mags I’d be fashionably late.”
“Because of me?”
“No,” he says, which makes her feel a little better. “Because apparently I ‘don’t have a strong grasp of time.’”
Annie muffles a laugh. She doesn’t have a hard time believing it.
When they get to the beach, she’s struck by the amount of people. She fights the instinct to turn around and shut herself back in her house. There’s all seven of Four’s remaining victors, even Kai who rarely leaves his house. Then there’s Isla, Coral’s wife. Nerissa’s two kids, Murphy and Cordelia, who are now grown.
Nobody seems surprised to see her there. Dylan is the first to spot her, waving her over. “Hey, Annie.”
She waves and takes a spot between Mags and Callie. She can say at this point that she’s sort of friends with Callie. They’ve played music together before, and she’s the closest in age to Annie besides Finnick. There’s a picnic basket and a blanket that everyone is sitting on, chatting idly. Annie takes a piece of seaweed bread and begins to rip it apart slowly, just to have something to do with her hands.
“Mags is keeping the time, so we’ll know when it’s midnight,” Callie explains to her. “We’re not watching any of that Capitol TV live coverage.”
Back when she was at the Academy, that was how they celebrated the new year. In her final year, each of the Seniors got a chocolate bar—it was the first time she’d ever had chocolate—and they watched Capitol TV and speculated about who would be the volunteer. Was that really only a year ago? It feels like a different girl and a different life.
Annie’s eyes stay fixed on the shoreline. The waves crash on the sand like they always do, like they did last year and like they will next year, too.
Finnick sits down on Mags’s other side, accepting her one armed hug. “Time is weird,” he concludes like he can read her mind, and much to Annie’s relief, everyone else nods.
She chats with all of the other victors at least once. Nerissa introduces Annie to her kids. She and Dylan chat about flowers. Coral and Isla want to hear about Annie’s piano playing. But nobody mentions her upcoming Victory Tour, and nobody mentions the Games. It shouldn’t be possible for a gathering of nine victors to not involve the Games somehow, but the only mention of it is in Annie’s own mind. It’s nice.
“It’s time,” says Mags eventually, once every trace of their picnic is gone.
Time for what? She realizes belatedly that Finnick never told her this part, and she trusted him too implicitly to ask.
“Come on,” says Callie, reaching for Annie’s hand. Her grip is surprisingly warm.
Everyone begins taking their shoes off, so Annie does the same. It’s cold, but not so cold that she's worried about it. Callie leads her into the ocean along with everyone else. The water rushes over her feet, and they stop when it gets to their knees.
“Ten seconds,” says Mags, and nobody says anything but Annie can tell without looking that they’re all keeping count in their heads. Nine, eight, seven.
It’s Nerissa at her other side, and she leans over to Annie. “Imagine anything you’re burdened by being carried off to sea right now. We’re starting the new year fresh.”
Annie closes her eyes and tries to imagine it. The sea is rushing by and taking with it her fear, her instability, her shortcomings as a victor. It takes the pain she can never get rid of, the itch to hold a knife in her hand again. The image of Caspian’s head rolling towards her feet. The ocean takes it all, and Annie imagines all of those things sinking so far below the surface that no human will ever find them again.
Annie knows the ocean isn’t really doing those things. She knows when she wakes up tomorrow, she’ll be the same person with the same problems. But right now, she catches Finnick’s eye with a smile. She feels light.