𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐒 ❦ The Hunger Games Third Book

N i n e

CHAPTER fifty-six|TO FALL IN LOVE

Khalid~ Talk
❝Can we just talk? Talk about where we're going, before we get lost.❞

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I RAN DOWN the corridors of District Thirteen like my life depended on it. It was like my epiphany had driven my mind into some chaotic frenzy that could not be stopped, but I could not find a way to stop the blood from rushing to my cheeks and fingers as I tried to find the room that Finnick was staying in. It was a deep rooted need, nothing about it was planned or thought through but perhaps that was why it was so good- that was the reason that it made me feel just a little bit more like Lorna as I continued to run.

I didn't overthink whether it was the right time as my feet pounded to the same beat as my racing heart, and I didn't try to plan a big speech so that I would get him back. All that I knew was that I was not the problem anymore- I was not what was wrong with us- and that was all of the power that I would need to find Finnick and do something terribly reckless. When I turned the next corner I stumbled right into Haymitch as he was walking past, but I managed to stop myself from hurting him by hitting my shoulder lightly into the wall instead. He looked bewildered by my speed and the rosy colour in my normally pale cheeks, but he did not seem worried by it.

"Lorna, where are you going?" Haymitch asked as he dusted off his jacket. I wanted to shout it at him, tell him that I had so much to say that it was falling out of my mouth in puddles of diamonds but I had no time, so instead I smiled so that he could see my teeth for the first time in months. It took him by surprise; I was already gone by the time he asked me what that even meant.

His room was held behind a black door that was bolted into the wall with silver plated hinges, but I could tell it was different from the others as I slowed down to a stop in front of it. As my chest continued to rise and fall so that I could catch the oxygen that I needed I took a moment to examine the door and why I knew it was his. The varnish was perfect, but there were indents by the handle that could only belong to Finnick's long nails when he wanted to wrip the handle off of the door. They were the same marks as the ones outside his own bedroom door- I gently placed my smaller fingertips in the prints as I thought about it.

I had seen his room three times, but each time I seemed to somehow find another layer of him somewhere in the mess. As I grew to understand Finnick more I saw his soul within the pile of dirty socks that he had in the corner and I found the little cup stains on his drawer more and more important. They were the parts of him that I only noticed the third time I went in, because by then I knew that he didn't wash socks so that he had an excuse to meet me at the laundry drop off, and he left glasses on the drawer so that he could have a glass of water there every day when he woke up.

I knew that, because I knew him.

My knuckles lightly tapped against his door, one knock, then another two, before I took a step back in anticipation of the large swing he normally did when he opened the door. I knew my hair must of been a mess, and I knew that my clothes were more than wrinkled as I pulled the sleeves on my shirt over my wrists- and yet as he opened the door I had no problem looking him in his beautifully blue eyes like I was supposed to be there. It didn't matter that little strands of my now blonde hair were falling pass my shoulders, because he only looked into my eyes when he realised who had come to see him.