Novo Amor // Katelyn x Opal

Opal couldn’t remember the last date she had been on. Did the fake date with Justice count? If it did, it had been ten years ago. And before that… well before that was the one date she had gone on with Potato before he had died. Her stomach did a flip. Fuck. She was thirty-six years old and she had been on one real date, she was thirty-six years old and had no real semblance of a romantic life, and now she could really understand why Ky had tried so hard to get her to date. Why he had hinted and nudged and informed her of the men and women who were hitting on her. She had no idea what she was doing.

The squeeze of her hand, made her jump, allowing her train of thought to be disrupted. For that, she was thankful. It did not halt the unease, and nervousness that now pooled in her stomach. A date. They were going on a date. Opal was dating. She didn’t know how to do this. She held more tightly onto Katelyn’s hand, she knew Katelyn had experience with dates because of The Bachelor, but she wasn’t sure if those really counted. She had seen Katelyn after each episode, she had seen what they had done to her. A date wasn’t supposed to leave you feeling more and more hollow.

So really, they both were a little bit clueless. Opal grinned, at least she wasn’t the only one.

”Opal, congratulations on getting Ridley home,” Katelyn said and Opal cringed inwardly. She hadn’t been a part of that, she hadn’t helped get the young girl home, Opal hadn’t even met the newest district one victor, she-

“Uh, forget I said that tonight shouldn’t be about the games.”

Oh thank Ripred.

Opal did not want to talk about the games. Not right now, probably not for a long time. It was a sore spot for her, it made her stomach writhe with guilt and anger. “Place says they make sandwiches. What do you think? I skipped dinner earlier…” Opal looked in the direction that Katelyn indicated, the shop was a typical Capitol convenience store, and she honestly didn’t mind. The food wasn’t really the focus point of the evening for her, it was the woman beside her.

”Sounds good to me, I haven’t had dinner yet as well, let’s grab some sandwiches. How about I grab a few,” she said, before she walked inside the shop, moving towards the section with the sandwiches. She grabbed a selection of all different sorts, chicken, beef, egg, salad, ham. There had to be some there that both of them would enjoy. She made her way back outside to where Katelyn was, loaded with sandwiches and a few other snacks she had snagged on the way out.

“There’s a really nice place by the river we could go. Do you know the one near the docks? The space with the grass and playground?” Hopefully it was still there, she hadn't been in the Capitol for a very long time.

She listened as Katelyn spoke, as she moved deeper and deeper into her story Opal’s hurt heart more and more. It threatened to overwhelm her as the guilt pushed against her resilience. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t make this moment any worse by placing her anguish at what could have been over what had happened to Katelyn. She would just have to live with the choices she had made. It was just like what she had told Ky before they’d come to the Capitol. It was the only thing they had, the choices they could make, whether they made you suffer, whether they punished you or rewarded you.

Katelyn hadn’t known that her choice to name an orphanage her guide her tributes would put such a large target on her back. She had been doing her best, trying her best. They were vastly different people. Everything that Katelyn said was another blow to Opal’s heart, and she realised that she could never compare to the woman that she was sitting beside. Katelyn tried so hard for everyone around her, she was tortured and experimented on for standing up for what she believed in. Opal was the complete opposite, she had allowed her pain and suffering to guide her into selfish decisions of abandoning her tributes, abandoning Katelyn and all of her other friends. The only reason she had returned was that they’d threatened Ky. Another desire to meet her own needs.

“I found that inner fire again eventually, and I did something bad.”

Something bad? How bad could it have been? After everything she had been through what did Katelyn define as so terrible, it left her in pain? Opal’s gaze drifted away from Katelyn, trailing over the green grass. As Katelyn finished speaking, she pulled her knees to her chest, the pain of what she had spoken about too much. It was so much information to take in, Opal thought. It was a lot. She didn’t really know what to say. There wasn’t anything she could say to begin to mend those wounds or make it feel better. She felt responsible for them.

She didn’t know what to do.

The food Opal had purchased seemed to lay forgotten for a long time. She took a deep breath, the sound of the waves lapping against the dock filled the space between them. An apology wouldn’t work, not here, not now. It wouldn’t truly mean what she wanted it to, it would be poisoned, once again, by her selfish desire to ease her own pain. This wasn’t going to be as easy, or as simple as she had first envisioned when they had walked out of the training centre. There was too much pain and a whole lot of history that remained untouched. Opal wouldn’t run away from this. She wouldn’t let the Capitol scare her away.

There really wasn’t anything Opal could say. But then, she realised, there are moments when you just simply want to be heard. Where your heart is at bursting point, and you want to let it all out. It was a release. And even if she did not have the right words to say to make it better she could listen, and she would. Opal moved closer, until she was sitting right beside Katelyn. She stretched her arms out until they were wrapped around her, and she held her. 

She held on tightly, the two of them in a raging sea, as the winds howled around them, as the boat rocked and threatened to capsize around them. She held on, even as the howls echoed from within their ship and the rocking came from the woman in front of her. She held on. It was one of the only things she had ever learned how to do, you just had to ride out the storm. There was nothing more you could do. Katelyn rocked against her embrace, the tears and cries a release that felt as if they had been waiting to escape her body for a long time.

Before she knew it she was being whisked away, once more into a world she hadn’t touched since Potato. Lips against hers that felt like home, arms that held her body and made her heart warm. The feelings felt almost foreign to her, like cobweb coated antiques that had yet to be dusted off and used once more. Katelyn was there, wiping those cobwebs away with each kiss, each hug, each moment. She remembered this feeling, the twist in your stomach as you kissed another person, the way it made you worry about silly little things.

When Katelyn pulled away, there were tears glistening in her eyes. Within moments she was being pulled into another tight embrace, Katelyn’s arms wrapped around hers once more. The next words that came out of Katelyn’s mouth allowed for the storm to calm, a drop of peace whilst the world around them raged.

Alone. Opal’s lips parted, the word almost falling from her lips. Loneliness could kill a person, she knew that. She’d danced with it, danced with it every night of her life for sixteen years. Felt it in her hands as she’d reached to the other side of the bed to find it empty. Seen it in the mirror, or beneath the sun that kissed her skin in the garden. She knew Ky felt it too, it was a big house for two. She saw him run away most mornings, disappearing into the forest or the streets that lined their neighbourhood. She saw it haunt them, a figure that followed them through their lives. She couldn’t fix that part of him, just like he couldn’t fix this part of her.

Perhaps it was selfish to compare that emptiness to the moment before her, she had Ky, she had someone in her life. But there was a line, between the needs he fulfilled and the ones she craved.

It was so easy to imagine a morning where she could reach over and know that Katelyn was there beside her. She didn’t feel like she had to be so afraid of being alone anymore. It’s like pieces in a puzzle you haven’t finished. Here Katelyn was, sliding in the remaining pieces, pushing them together until it was whole.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get to feel like this again,” she murmured, pressing her head into Katelyn’s shoulder. “It’s funny, I knew that it was there -the loneliness, but I’d never really acknowledged it.” She buried her head a little deeper, seeking the comfort of Katelyn’s warmth, of the feeling of her arms around Opal’s body. “Thank you, Katelyn,” she said.