Disclaimer: I don't own the Divergent series. The title and lyrics are from the song "Spanish Sahara," by Foals.
Notes: Massive spoiler for Allegiant. Do not read further.
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Forget the horror here,
Leave it all down here,
It's future rust and then it's future dust.
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Guilt, guilt, so much guilt.
Guilt envelopes me like the dark wings of a raven.
I'll see you soon.
It was a promise. A statement etched stone. I would see her again. I did see her again, skin cold, frosty; like snowdrops. The warmth, the heat I had carefully memorized and swallowed whole with my aching soul, with all the bitter pieces... It was gone.
Today is... A day. I don't know what day. I don't know the time, other than the sun is shrouded by thick clouds.
Flecks of white pepper the ground. The sky is gray, lighter than Abnegation gray. Almost white, but not quite.
Guilt. I can't handle guilt.
Shatter. I know what the word means. I feel like I belong in Erudite, feeling the definition, my fingers grazing the glossy pages of a dictionary. I've seen glass explode, the shards scattering. I will not shatter. I will not. I am not damaged. This won't damage me. It won't.
I am not damaged.
But I am not whole. Not anymore. Not today, or yesterday, or tomorrow.
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There's a ghost in my bed. I feel it.
I feel her. I tangle my fingers through the sheets, my hands seeking... Always seeking now, but never finding, or discovering any memory of heat, or any sensation.
The bed is empty.
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I love you.
I love you, too. I'll see you soon.
What is "soon," really? How soon? Does one count the expanse of time in death? There is a funeral in my head, the white roses blossoming beneath my skin. Where is she? I saw her in this "soon." I had achieved peace without the memory serum, and I returned; I found her, but she had leapt into darkness, her eyelids closed.
Is she waiting for me there? Wherever there is?
Can I follow her? I will not die. I feel death in my blood, my veins, but I am alive.
Amar is alive. George is alive, but Tori is dead.
Is that was "soon" is? A surprising revelation? Surprise, Tris is alive! We would embrace, and she would laugh, and then sigh.
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Zeke could have waited. Chicago could have waited. My mother, Evelyn, and my father, Marcus. They could have waited. It could all have waited. Cara is pragmatic. Logical. She could have negotiated, and I could have been with Tris.
Sometimes I am tempted to enter my fear landscape.
She is there.
But she is there as she is here. Dead. Red, all red. Soaked in red.
I hate the color.
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I wake up on fire, the sweat coating my skin.
I'm forgetting her. I forget the exact curve of her jaw, or the sound of her voice, the precise pitch of her tone when she is shouting, or when she speaking. She had scars. How many?
She is dead, but if I forget her, all of her, she is worse than dead.
But if I forget her... I am not longer a phantom wandering the halls, my shoulders slouched, my thoughts listless. I am a person who was never in love; a man who has never felt a small, but willowy woman in his arms, her hair as soft as silk.
Is it greater to love somebody who is dead, or love nobody? Are they not the same?
I do not know.
I want to know.
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No. I'm not a coward. Christina is right.
I am brave. Dauntless. I flirt with death. I flirt with life.
I loved a woman, and she is now a ghost haunting my mind, the echoes of her laughter bouncing off the walls; the imprint of her image consuming me at night. The bed is too big. Or is it too empty? I don't know anymore.
They look at me with pity in their eyes.
I don't know want your pity, I'm tempted to yell, but then I realize somewhere in this Soon I had promised, Tris is chastising them as well.
The thought makes me smile.