[Finnick Odair] The Trident and the Book Thief

Delta of Venus

Delia is asleep when Eleni slips in beside her. The broad-shouldered girl is wrapped around their comforter, hugging it as though it were a person. Eleni thinks it might be nice to be the comforter. She pulls it away from Delia and replaces it. She hopes she hasn’t woken her, yet the tribute stirs and she knows she has. She reeks of wine and whiskey and her fingers are numb like ice. He kissed her. It was no simple peck either.

“You were drinking with Finnick,” Delia says groggily. It’s a statement not a question and Eleni grunts as she’s rolled across the bed. “You have a drinking problem. You’re always drinking, just like him.”

“I’ve been drinking wine since I was eight and my father let me have some with dinner. I don’t have a problem… I just… like it.” Eleni says wistfully. Delia is awake now and there’s no recourse. She sits upright and balances herself on the pillows, her dark mud brown hair is a tangle around her shoulders. “Finnick has a problem. He gets the shakes if he doesn’t have a whisky. Like dad.”

“You say that like it’s aspirational.” Delia rolls her eyes. “What did he talk about?”

“It was me talking… mainly. He just listened.” Eleni says and she can feel her eyes glaze over. She’s replaying the kiss in her head, a thousand times over. She knows it’s meaningless to him, yet it’s everything to her. He was her first. “If I tell you something… you absolutely can’t tell anyone.”

“There’s a good chance I’ll be dead in a few weeks.” Delia says. Eleni flinches at her words.“I’m the safest person to tell.”

“He kissed me.” She barely believes her words.

“Oh.” Delia is silent for a while. Eleni bites her tongue as she waits for more words to fill the empty void of silence. She would bite her nails, but she has none of those left. “He’s an idiot. You let him?”

“Sort-of. It just happened. He said I needed to stop thinking for a second and that he could show me how. Then his lips were just… there.” Eleni recounts the event with as little details as possible, which Delia seems to find already too descriptive. She unfurls herself in the bed, like a blooming orchid. “It was nothing really… It’s not as if we’re having an affair. We were drunk and… it means nothing.”

“Don’t kiss him again.” Delia says firmly. “He’ll hurt you.”

“I’d need to love him for him to hurt me and I don’t. It was just a kiss. I’m not like Octavia, I don’t think the world shines out of his butthole. I admire him… I think… but I don’t have a crush….” It is as if she is trying to convince herself. She can still taste the whisky from his breath. It makes her feel warm inside, like nothing could hurt her, that nothing could even touch her. “No one has ever kissed me before. A few wanted too, but I never let them. I always said no. I wanted my first to be with the man I spent the rest of my life with, but Finnick took that from me.”

He’s eight years older than her and rough around the edges. She has never liked men like him before. He’s tall, exceptionally handsome and charming. He’s not bookish and quiet. He’s not silent and mysterious. He’s an open book, deliriously sarcastic and witty. She turns to Delia, whom has a look of displeasure plastered across her pox-marked face.

“I’m not worried about you falling in love with him.” Delia says after a while and Eleni is confused. “You don’t realize how lonely he is. Do you have any idea how easy it is to get attached to someone when you’re that lonely? I’ve been that lonely before. You’d give everything to the first person that smiled at you.”

“Finnick isn’t lonely.” Eleni thinks the idea is preposterous.

“You haven’t seen him like I have. I watched him, before I got reaped. He’s miserable. Back home, no one likes him except his dad and sister. Everyone thinks he sold out to the Capitol. They hate him because he has money and the girls that court him only want him to buy them things.” Delia says. “He takes long walks across the beach. He runs just to feel the wind in his face. He talks to Mags, but ever since the stroke she can barely formulate a sentence to respond. He sits on the cliff edge and sometimes I think it looks like he wants to jump off. He has this big house with fourteen rooms and no one to fill it with.”

“I’m his granddaughter. President Snow’s granddaughter-” She interjects yet Delia laughs her off.

“That doesn’t define you. We’ve known you for all of two months and all of us already know you’re nothing like him.” Delia takes her hands. “You’re funny. You make him laugh, like you make all of us laugh. You’re this breath of fresh air and when you walk into the room it’s so easy to forget how much ugly things are around us. You’re an anchor. He’s a ship, being battered by tide and waves-”

“A ship needs a harbour not an anchor.” Eleni says.

“Not in a storm.” Delia cuts her off.

Sleep doesn’t come easy that night. Eleni lies awake thinking of Finnick Odair and rough seas as Delia snores beside her.