Chapter 4: Status Quo
"The status quo sucks"
– George Carlin
He was unremarkable in every sense of the word. A boy in blue with pale hair, light freckles, and washed out green eyes. She was what anyone expected. Tall, slender of build, dark, hair, and deep brown eyes that beheld the world in black or white. He understood the gray of it all. She epitomized remarkable strength and courage. They were the opposite of the status quo of their respective factions and they both hated it.
"William!" His faded celery green eyes refocused on the teacher in front of him and in seconds he realized the folly of his inattention in class. Forcing his gaze downwards at his book and the bottom of his Erudite blue tunic, the unremarkable boy pretended that he was ashamed of not being interested in studying. "Do you have anything to say for yourself William?"
The boy hadn't meant to speak up and at age fifteen should know better by now than to break the definition of normalcy for Erudite but something inside him made him do it anyways. "It's Will."
His teacher glared down at him from under her horn-rimmed spectacles and her mouth quickly formed a thin line. "What did you say?" Ms. Peterson spat as she tapped her #2 pencil on his knuckles before removing her calculator, this was advanced math after all, and smacking it on the boy's desk. "Keep in mind that the probability of your answer being satisfactory is less than 1%." The whole class tittered away at that, that's what happens when you get a bunch of Erudite blues all in one classroom and a math joke is made. Erudite blue minus two, there was a girl in black and white and a boy in gray too. In all reality, the Candor girl was only in there because she was finishing a test for another math class and there were a few Amity kids and one Dauntless but they were out of class for a myriad of reasons. At the time, the Abnegation boy laughed rather selfishly at the joke but the Candor girl did not.
In the meantime, Will continued to stare down at his lap in real embarrassment and mock shame of his inattention. "I'm sorry Ms. Peterson." He mumbled sticking to the status quo expectations for all Erudite. Not that he belonged there; in fact he wondered if he'd ever belong anywhere due to the fact that he didn't fit in with his own faction. Learning was great and all but there was only so much a brain can learn before it reaches the extent of its patience.
"Is he lying?" Ms. Peterson barked the question as she whirled around to glare at the Candor girl who had been staring at him and now was quite observantly taking in the details of a rather uncomplicated math problem on the test in front of her. "Christina!" The math teacher roared her name and the Candor girl sat up straight in mock surprise. Her muddy brown eyes widened making the whites of her eyes stand out light against her caramel skin as she feigned shock, this made her a very good liar if she could even control her body language. This alone was odd because she was from the truth-telling faction, she shouldn't be a good liar in any circumstance. With the girl's attention fully on her, Ms. Peterson stabbed the eraser end of the pencil into the girl's sternum causing her to lean backwards so fast her plastic chair creaked in annoyance in response. Now this was just over the top, Will decided, but Ms. Peterson wouldn't know any better, she hadn't been forced to take psychology in years and wouldn't recognize the display rules and micro-expressions that this girl, Christina, was allowing to slip through her act. "Me?" Candor girl asked which earned Ms. Peterson tapping her forehead with the calculator in exasperation and she rolled her eyes behind the glasses all Erudite wore. Speaking of glasses, he was surprised that he had not been yelled out earlier for not wearing his. Ms. Peterson still didn't care and instead was giving Candor girl a calculated glare as she finally managed to spit out her response, "No the other human lie detector in the room, yes you!"
His heart skipped a beat; he was lying. Will was not sorry for not paying attention in class in the least. What he was sorry for was being born into a faction focused on intellect when he cared about anything but. Seconds after thinking that, his stomach twisted into knots of shame as he thought of his family and he looked down at his lap in self disgust; it was not his mom or dad or his sister Cara who was to blame for his inability to fit in to the faction that they were born for. Once he had gotten over his shame enough to look up at his classmates, he searched the room desperately looking for her face. Suddenly he found himself realizing why eye contact was called contact when her dark chocolate browns found his pastel greens. As he tried to control his slightly racing heart, his brain continued to process the situation and kept asking, "Will she tell? Will she tell? Will she tell?"
Widening his eyes and raising his eyebrows he pleaded with her from behind Ms. Peterson's rather generous person and his eyes widened in fear. The girl from Candor looked at him closely as though she was memorizing every detail of his facial structure and reading him like one might read any book for deeper literary meaning. No Candor looked at anyone like that, they saw the world as simply being black and white but to look for deeper meaning revealed the gray. Not the gray of Abnegation, that gray was of selfless sacrifice of lacking in color, but rather the gray that was neither black and white and didn't fit in with truth or lie because it was neither one nor the other. It was beyond surface value.
That was how she was looking at him, no through him, and seeing beyond his surface value. This means that she knew that he was not Erudite to the core, that he would rather band his head against a wall than learn one more mathematics problem. "He has a name." Was all she said and Ms. Peterson leaned closer with a glare and a calculator pointed like an armed weapon at the girl's caramel unmoving nose. There was no leaning back, no outward motion of fear of the huge blonde woman threatening her with a calculator. He might want to take lessons from this much more courageous girl. "What did you say Candor?" She asked in a low terrifying voice that was making his body want to shake with fear from across the room. Instead he forced his spine to remain straight learning from the Candor girl's example. No matter the verdict that this girl gave Ms. Peterson he was going to take it as bravely as she took Ms. Peterson's anger and malice in check.
"He has a name and its Will." At those words, his heart leapt in his chest with respect for this skinny caramel skinned girl from Candor. Ms. Peterson was not of the same mindset. Instead her face grew a scarlet red and her thin blonde hair stood on end as she positively trembled with her rage at being undermined. One shiver sent her fake spectacles falling to the rosy red end of her round nose and then crashed to the floor in the breaking of the plastic lenses and the faux wire rims. Following the glasses, the calculator toppled to the floor as well as her tiny hands clenched into fists before she made an enraged squealing noise before lunging forward and grabbing the Candor girl's ear and dragging her across the room to his desk. Once there, Will was paralyzed with fear as the small pudgy woman threw her arm towards him and grasped his ear tightly in her tiny hands with those chubby fingers that were stronger than expected from gripping chalk sticks. Pulling him from his desk and tossing them out the door and into the hallway while screeching at the top of her lungs, "Principals office. NOW!"
Both fell on their butts and then were thrust tumbling forwards as the metal door slammed against their prone blue-clad and black/white-clad backs. Yelping they jumped forward and looked at each other before busting out with laughter. The sounds of Ms. Peterson wheezing from the exercise and her yelling from the other sides of the door only fueled the fire of their chortling. "Did you see her face?" He finally managed to choke out after a minute or two and she continued laughing as she nodded furiously. After she had calmed enough to breath and so had he, she rolled forward and into a standing position in one smooth motion before turning around and offering him a hand up with a real smile. "Alright Will, let's go see the principal. I've already finished my test anyhow and your Erudite faction mates aren't the kind of company that I prefer to keep. Ditto to that Stiff boy."
"Mine either. Thank you um…Christina, right?" He replied as he took her hand and they shook it Dauntless style. Neither of them could quite understand the reason behind this as it was neither of their traditional faction behavior but they didn't care. It felt like the right thing to do at this time. The status quo had been broken already and sucked from the onset as far as they were concerned. "Right, nice to meet you Will." Finally, the lanky boy with the celery green eyes allowed her to pull him up and the too stood face to face with their hands still clasped together before they let go simultaneously as they realized how awkward this contact was. "The pleasure is all mine."
Please enjoy and review! I know this isn't Tris/Four but the other characters deserve as much of a voice as they do. Keep in mind that reviews make for happier writers and if any readers are looking for a specific quote and/or pairing then please, Please, PLEASE review! Happy trails!