I just...I just miss him. And I hate being so alone.

But it's Posy, Gale's five-year-old sister, who helps the most. She scoots along the bench to Octavia and touches her skin with a tentative finger. “You're green. Are you sick?” “It's a fashion thing, Posy. Like wearing lipstick,” I say. “It's meant to be pretty,” whispers Octavia, and I can see the tears threatening to spill over her lashes. Posy considers this and says matter-of-factly, “I think you'd be pretty in any color.

So that's who Finnick loves, I think. Not his string of fancy lovers in the Capitol. But a poor, mad girl back home.

The idea of being strong for someone else having never entered their heads, I find myself in the position of having to console them. Since I'm the person going in to be slaughtered, this is somewhat annoying.

Just the sound of his voice twists my stomach into a knot of unpleasant emotions like guilt, sadness and fear. And longing. I might as well admit there’s some of that too.

You can tell by the way the girls whisper about him when he walks by in school that they want him. It makes me jealous but not for the reason people would think. Good hunting partners are hard to find.

My time in the arena made me realize how I needed to stop punishing [my mother] for something she couldn't help, specifically the crushing depression she fell into after my father's death. Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them.