VENUS《 FINNICK ODAIR

Chapter 60. IGNITE THE MATCH.

T/W: themes and mentions of rape/sexual abuse, riots, and brutality.

HOW CAN I EVER WALK AGAIN WHERE I'VE RAN WITH YOU?

Memories are just memories aren't they.

They are not tricks of the eye, from water droplets still clinging for dear life on the outside of a train window.

They are not the dull taste of wasted champagne on a bitter person's tongue.

And they do not hide some sort of answer to get you out of this Edith.

He broke up with you, whether forced or not. He ended this. And the man you love would've fought and put his entire life on the line if it was the right option.

Finnick would've saved this if he could. If this was a situation able to be saved.

But he didn't.

Was that an unfair judgement to make? Maybe, but Edith was done with playing fair, playing fair meant abiding by rules that were never explicitly made public to her. She didn't even know what was real anymore over these past years, and that was that.

Finding the truth, however much she wanted it, was like picking at an already scabbed over wound; tediously self sabotaging. Her body felt weak already from the shock, hunger and delusions of alcohol, and the pain was only ebbing from each moment she stayed in her seat, watching the minuscule mountains and withering willows dance under speckled stars. Dust collecting on her chipped shoulder and cobwebs forming under reddened eyes.

Memories were sifting through her hands like a sive, she clutched her necklace unconsciously like it was as dire as breathing. As if clutching it tight would at least keep the better memories of him tight between the calloused grasp of her palm.

The memories not yet tainted. She wouldn't let them not be real.

August, card games, ice skating, running in the streets, the taste of his lips between rain, the scent of his shampoo, the texture of his hair, the press of his skin under fresh linen covers, sea glass collecting, crude jokes, long talks, dancing in the sand, the meanings of flowers and a discarded wire ring now somewhere in the streets of the Capitol.

"I wonder where it fell," Edith breathed, forgetting how to speak, almost.

Her breath warmed the condensation on the train window, it was chilly from the air conditioning and dawn rising. But it was the ring that was speckled like frost in her mind, a picture preserved like a imprudent tattoo.

She blinked, glancing down to her own necklace, green and shining like the sun rippling through saltwater.

The one he made.

In that second, she felt the urge to smash the window with the near empty bottle of champagne and throw it out into the weedy abyss.

Within a blink, Edith shoved it back underneath her shirt and pulled her jacket around herself tighter.

The sun was rising.

And the train kept humming. She kept thinking about the good memories with him, that August in 72', the flowers in his lapel, the masquerade ball, Johanna and Jira to complete their quartet, jokes to keep her laughing longer than their shorter calls, Eddy and Fin, the feel of his hand in hers, his lips against her neck, that genuine toothy grin and the sound of those foul words leaving his mouth.

"I will never love you Edith Scotch."

But you could've.

No, you did.