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.

"Lorna, what are you doing here?" Finnick asked slowly. His voice was gravelly, almost like he had swallowed stones just moments before I knocked on the door.

He was so sad, his mouth arched down automatically as he gripped the handle of his door until his knuckles turned white. I hadn't thought this far- I didn't know what I was going to say to him yet, but I knew that I had to say everything in some kind of order. He deserved it, it was the very thing that he had been asking for since I had come underground and yet my stomach still protested against saying it. I was going too quickly, I could not see anything, or feel anything, for more than a fleeting second before my next action seemed to replace it and change the entire reason for my arrival. All I knew was that I had to start talking now.

"Finnick, you're wrong."

The words stumbled out of my mouth before I could think of something better; the corners of Finnick's lips seemed to sag down further as a result of my words before I could correct myself or think of something better. His dark eyebrows questioned if I had anything else to say, but I had come up short. What I said had to be perfect, it had to be the most beautiful words that I had ever said to him.

"Is that all? You came all the way over here to tell me that I'm wrong?" Finnick questioned as he went to close the door, but as he did I stuck my foot between the door to stop it from closing. I really was out of time, and the sadness that radiated off of Finnick made it impossible for me to think any longer without his mood clouding my judgement; I had to just speak, something that I hadn't done freely in years up until this point.

"When we first met, the first thing you told me was that I wasn't in the arena anymore, then when I left the Capitol you said that I'd only be able to remember you if you taught me how to swim. When Annie was in trouble you told me that you wouldn't of helped me if you hadn't already learnt how to stop panic attacks before and when we were in the arena, you told me that you thought that I had died before you could tell me everything." I began as I ran my hands through my knotted hair.

"Do you know what all those things have in comman?" I asked Finnick as my eyebrows furrowed due to my concentration.

"You were wrong about all of them. We never left that arena; I would of remembered you if you had only spoken two words to me; I know for a fact that you would of helped me no matter what when I was upset and I didn't die. You have been wrong about so many important moments in our friendship, and then you've done the same in whatever inbetween we've been stuck in since then because you never had the balls to actually ask me to be your girlfriend."

"I don't-"

"Please, just listen." I interrupted Finnick once I had found what it was that I wanted to tell him. I finally had a plan, and it made me smile wholeheartedly towards him as I took his impossibly warm hand from the door to hold.

"But you've been wrong about one other big moment. You told me that I might hate you- you thought that there was a single bone in my body that could be mad at you for something that you didn't even do because my brother told you that I might of been. That was wrong, because you shouldn't of listened to Remy and you shouldn't of looked at me like I was someone else with Lorna Titan's face.

I may have blonde hair, and I may have different skin but I am still the same girl that you met on that roof two years ago; the same girl that can't stop worrying about her family- the girl that got herself caught up in a rebellion because she cared too much. I'm still the same girl that you said that you loved in the middle of a death match and I promise you I'm exactly the same girl that said she loved you back."

Finally, I stopped talking so that I could see how well I was doing. Finnick's pink lips were no longer turned down- occasionally it twitched up into the saddest smile that I had ever seen as he watched me. When I sucked in a breath so that my collar protruded from my body he squeezed my hand in his, tears threatening him from the shallow sides of his eyes.

"So, with that in mind, I have to ask you something."

Gently, and without letting go of his hand, I bent a single knee so that I was crouched beside Finnick like I was my father all those years ago- like I was going to promise my life to him.

"I don't have a ring." I confessed as a watery laugh bubbled from my lip. "Finnick Odair, charming, patient, golden Finnick Odair- I could never hate you. I don't know how I've coped without you, and I don't want to do it again- it's too painful to bare and it makes my head go fuzzy all the time- so please, would you marry me?"

Finally I was done, and it seemed like I had managed to coax the smiled onto Finnick's face that I had been so desperately waiting for. He didn't say anything at first- it was so quiet that I could hear my heart in my ears and I could feel it in my hands- but he did speak eventually. Then he pulled me back to my feet so that he could press his chapped lips against my bitten ones, just long enough for a single tear of his to slide down between us. I still didn't feel anything other than love, the pure kind that can't be faked or made out of something impure or unreal. The kind of love that I wished would last a lifetime.

It was the kind of love that I was addicted to, because it was the kind of love that made me forget that we could both die tomorrow if we weren't careful. The two of us were just us.

A nearly husband with his nearly wife.

••••••••••••
1867 words.

I've been planning this proposal for a long time now, but I really really wanted Lorna to be the one that did it. She needed to take control back from the universe and there is no better way to do that than by doing something that she wanted so badly like this!

Also, I'm so sorry for the cheese but I wanted to look back at the crazy books I've made and really make it unique to them; hell I'd be a terrible author if I didn't at least remind you of Lornick's first moments. But, I still want to know what you all wanted from this proposal. Tell me what you think. X