The music still echoes behind you, soft and syrupy, leaking from the ballroom like a perfume that clings too long.
The Capitol party is still in full swing, a blur of color and laughter and teeth too white to be real, but you’re outside now. Alone. Not because you left—but because he did.
Finnick.
You lean against the marble railing of the terrace, hands wrapped around the stem of a drink you don’t remember picking up. It glows faint blue in the low light, bubbles rising like promises that never reach the surface.
You’re not cold, but you shiver anyway.
You knew this would happen. You always know. It’s the same story, just a different room.
He sees you.
He pretends not to.
He glances past you like you're fog on a mirror—something to blink away, smooth over, forget. A gesture here. A nod there. Enough to make it all plausibly deniable.
Because Finnick Odair does not belong to you in public.
Not where it counts.
He doesn’t take your hand. Doesn’t call you darling, or love, or anything at all. Not when the cameras are watching. Not when the Capitol’s claws are curled around his pretty throat.
And you know—it’s not his fault.
But still…
Still, the way he looked at you tonight.
Like you were nothing.
Like you’d never even kissed.
Like your hands hadn’t been tangled in the sheets of his bed just the night before, his name soft on your lips, your laugh pressed into the curve of his neck.
It shouldn't matter. But it does.
The door clicks behind you.
You don’t turn.
His voice is soft. “I figured you’d be here.”
You let the silence stretch.
He walks up beside you, leans on the railing just like you do. His sleeves are rolled back, collar undone, eyes a little glassy from the Capitol wine. But not drunk. Never drunk. Not enough to forget how he looked through you for the last three hours.
You still don’t speak.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
That gets your attention.
You look at him.
He’s not smiling. He’s not teasing. He’s not playing the golden boy with the perfect teeth and the practiced charm.
Just Finnick.
Quiet. Tired.
A little hollow behind the eyes.
“I wanted to touch you,” he says, “and I couldn’t.”
He laughs under his breath, bitter.
“Do you know what that’s like? Wanting to go to someone—not just want, need—and not being allowed to? Like they’ll take something from me if I do.”
“They already did,” you say. Your voice is low, steady. “A long time ago.”
He flinches. Just a little.
“Then don’t let them take this, too.”
And it’s not fair.
Because you are the one who’s invisible. You are the one who stands in the corner while he smiles for cameras and wraps his arm around strangers’ waists and leans in for whispers you aren’t allowed to ask about.
You are the secret.
You are the cost.
But somehow, you’re the one asking him to try.
He looks away. Down. Up. Anywhere but you.
“They love me,” he says, and his voice cracks. “And I hate them for it.”
You don’t answer.
“They’ll never let me love who I want.”
“I’m not asking them to,” you say. “I’m asking you.”
That’s when he looks at you.
Really looks.
The kind of look that hurts.
And slowly, slowly, he reaches for your hand. No Capitol eyes here. No stage. Just the night, and the music, and the sound of your breathing.
He laces your fingers together.
His skin is warm.
“I’m not cold on purpose,” he murmurs. “But sometimes it’s easier. If I pretend you don’t matter, maybe they won’t take you, too.”
You don’t say it, but he’s too late. They already have.
And still.
Still, when he brings your hand to his lips and presses a kiss to your knuckles—gentle, reverent, aching—you let him.
Because you love him.
Even when it hurts.
Even when it’s lonely.
Even when you have to pick up your own heart off the floor after every gala, every smile that’s not for you.
You love him.
And tonight, he stays a little longer.
Just the two of you.
On a terrace soaked in moonlight and silence and all the things he still doesn’t know how to say.