A Softer World
'I realize that if we had both chosen differently, we might have ended up doing the same thing, in a safer place, in gray clothes instead of black ones.'
– Divergent, Veronica Roth.
Tobias Eaton knocks into me in the street. He's not walking very fast, so he doesn't knock me down, but I still spin and stumble. I'm facing his back as he walks away from me, and I have to turn around to continue in the direction I was originally going.
The next time I see him, I stop.
"You knocked me."
He looks down at me. The strap of his satchel is too loose, so the bag hangs down by his knees. He is handsome, tall, long-limbed: long arms, long legs.
"It's self-indulgent to require an apology when none is volunteered," he says.
"It's self-indulgent not to apologise and admit your culpability."
His eyes, dark and blue, clear all of a sudden. I realise I wasn't really seeing their colour before. "Beatrice Prior." He's two years older than I am, eighteen, so it's not like we share any classes. That's why it took him a while to place me. "You live across the street."
"You don't come over when you're invited."
"So invite me again."
.
He knocks into me again, but this time he stops. He stands in the middle of the street with a little twist in his spare upper lip, and even though it isn't selfless to play games with boys, I retrace my steps and knock into him. Our shoulders bump. His slides over my concealed collarbone.
"You didn't come over."
"I wasn't invited."
I'm very aware of him, to the point where I forget the plain houses and the plainly dressed people surrounding us. "My parents invited you and your father –"
"I didn't say have your parents invite me."
This is not a conversation two Abnegation should be having.
Tobias steps closer to me. He catches hold of a stray strand of blonde hair which has escaped the knot at the back of my head. His fingers are long and narrow, and linger on my forehead after he's smoothed the strand back into place.
"Invite me again," he says.
"No," I reply, because his touch makes me shiver.
.
I get off the bus early. I tell Caleb it is self-indulgent of me to take up space which could be used by another passenger, and tell him that I will see him at home. For once, he looks proud of me, which should make me feel even guiltier about the lie.
It doesn't.
It doesn't because Tobias Eaton is waiting for me a few feet away from the stop, and I am beginning to recognise his smell.
"What did you want to talk about?" I ask. When he doesn't answer, I am not selfless, and don't allow him to be silent. "You invited me here. What do you want?"
"Who says I want to talk about anything?"
"Then what do you want?"
Only Dauntless move as fast as he moves, and his body is against mine before I can speak, before I can think. He bends his head, and presses his lips to mine. I am falling. My stomach lurches as if I am falling. My heart pounds. My hands shake.
"I don't want to talk to you, Beatrice."
"Okay."
Fin.