“You really love me?" she asked wistfully."The devil!" he exclaimed, looking over his shoulder. "Did I forget to say it? The thing I came to say?”

“He stared at me. "She liked you, boy." The intensity of his voice and eyes made me blink."Yes," I said."She did it for you, you know.""What?""Gave up her self, for a while there. She loved you that much. What an incredibly lucky kid you were."I could not look at him. "I know."He shook his head with a wistful sadness. "No, you don't. You can't know yet. Maybe someday..."I knew he was tempted to say more. Probably to tell me how stupid I was, how cowardly, that I blew the bestchance I would ever have. But his smile returned, and his eyes were tender again, and nothing harsherthan cherry smoke came out of his mouth.”

“How do you know me?" she says.He looks at her through his narrow eyes. "I was," he says."You were what?" she asks."I was," he says again. "And now I'm not.”

“The truth is that she told me she couldn't love me. When she said goodbye, she was saying goodbye forever. And yet.I made myself forget. I don't know why. I keep asking myself. But I did.”

“Really, the combination of the scabs and the ointment looks hideous. I can't help enjoying his distress."Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?" I say."It must be. The sensation's completely new. How have you managed it all these years?" he asks."Just avoid mirrors. You'll forget about it," I say."Not if I keep looking at you," he says.”

“I remember once I came into his room alone, when no one was with him. It was a bright evening, the sun was setting and lit up the whole room with its slanting rays. He beckoned when he saw me, I went over to him, he took me by the shoulders with both hands, looked tenderly, lovingly into my face; he did not say anything, he simply looked at me like that for about a minute: "Well," he said, "go now, play, live for me!" I walked out then and went to play.”