CHAPTER PLAYLIST: Free Fallin' by John Mayer

POV's: Four, Tris

CHAPTER TEN

FOUR

From a distance, I can only barely make out the shapes but I see that someone is carrying someone. Only then did I realize; Uriah and Tris. They approach, and I can see that Tris has begun to stir. They're only a few feet away from us, and the whole class appears to have noticed them to. I see Marlene glaring at them, but I also see some guys shooting daggers at Uriah. I turn and notice that Tris is now awake and has jumped out of Uriah's arms. The moment, though, that she is on her feet, she stumbles and Uriah has to grab her waist to keep her from face planting into the grass.

Part of me was happy to know that she was no longer being carried by Uriah, but now seeing his arm around his waist, anger is pulsing through me as well as another feeling.

Wait; am I actually jealous of Uriah?

Before I could ponder more, Tris has made her way to the coach and starts explaining what happened. Coach Ben excuses her then proceeds with telling us our activity for today. I wasn't paying attention because I was staring at Tris. Her eyes are still the most amazing grey blue colour I have ever seen and they act like magnets, drawing me to them. When Coach tells us to go warm-up, she hurries to the changing room and emerges seconds later and joins us.

I keep my eyes glued to her as she stretches. Her blonde hair fans her face when a slight breeze passes and my breathing hitches, seeing how effortlessly beautiful she is. We were finishing with the warm-ups when I see her suddenly start tipping sideways and before I know it, I have wrapped my hand around hers. I feel a sudden pulse of electricity run through me at the point where our skins meet. Flames were licking my arm and as soon as I have made sure she was steady, I let go of her.

"Uh, you okay?" I ask feeling like an idiot. Obviously, she's not. She almost fainted again, and I dare ask her that? Idiot. I mentally scold myself.

"Yes," she manages to say.

"Good catch, Four," Coach Ben says, glancing at me. "I think you need to sit down, Ms. Prior. Don't want to faint while doing 'em hurdles now, do we? Have you eaten?"

"Uh, yes." I know she's lying but I just raise my eyebrow but I just let it slip. She returns to the changing room and I find myself hoping that she'll come out.

She never does.

TRIS

I wake up and see that I am with Four. I immediately feel a flaming, igniting feeling by my hand and I look down to see Four's hand is intertwined with mine and I smile to myself. We are on our backs, just staring up into sky when Four suddenly turns to me and smiles. But his expression changes and suddenly those deep blue eyes of his turn into empty, black pits. He yanks me up so both of us are in a sitting position. I begin to panic, not knowing why there is sudden anger set on his mouth.

"Fo…four? What's the problem?" I ask, shaking. He doesn't answer me but instead, yanks up my sleeves, revealing scars. Tears well up in my eyes and I turn to Four, willing to explain but he cuts me off my slapping me. I feel the searing pain on my left cheek. The tears are now running loose down my cheeks.

"Don't even dare try to explain. Stay away from me," Four hisses, obviously disgusted. Suddenly, a thousand Four's appear with the same disgusted expression, all raising their hands ready to strike again.

I jolt awake before anything happens further. I turn the lights on and rush to the bathroom. I look at my reflection in the mirror and my hand flies to my left cheek where Four slapped me. There was no hand print or any redness at all but I can still feel the ghost of an imprint his hand gave me. I go back to my bed and just toss and turn. Clearly, I won't be able to go back to sleep and it's only 3:03 in the morning.

I know the nightmare was telling me something. The nightmare was one of my fears. After the years of self-harm I went under, the cuts have healed but the scars are still there; permanently etched into my skin.

That was actually part of the reason why I got tattoos. The deep ones have left permanent marks and I asked Tori to ink them over. I didn't have a problem with the not-so-deep ones since most of them are on their way to fading. I feared that if someone found out about them, or me, they would be disgusted at me. Only Robert fully understood and accepted me so it appears that I just have to deal with this. Suck it up Tris, you have to accept this and deal with it.

When morning comes and I 'wake up', I make sure to eat something; I did NOT want the fainting incidents to be a norm in school for me. Caleb confronted me about it when we got home. He said that I had low blood sugar or something like that and he knew I wasn't eating lunch. How? I did not know. It is true, though. I have never eaten lunch during my whole stay in Five Factions High School. I just sit there and read, sketch or, write. So before I go to school, I manage to eat a croissant and gulp down a cup of tea.

When the lunch bell rings, I have made up my mind. The whole morning, I kept on dodging "how are you's" and "are you okay's" and kept thinking about not appearing in the cafeteria for a few days to make the fainting incident issue die down. So, instead of marching into the cafeteria, I loiter around the school premises, ever-avoiding the cafeteria.

After a few minutes of skating, I stumbled upon a shed that looks long unused. Curious, I entered the shed and saw a table lined up with knives and at one end of the room are targets. Target practice. With knives? And they just keep it lying around? I shake my head and decided that my knife-throwing abilities need some oiling up.

Last summer Tori's husband, Bud, started teaching me self-defence. The first thing he taught me was how to shoot a gun. I asked him why and he said (and I quote) "You are far less likely to soil your pants and cry for your mum if you're prepared to defend yourself. And who knows, one day you night get attacked and you have a gun in hand. Do not waste the opportunity of having a gun."

And with that, we spent hours practicing and after about twelve rounds, I have successfully hit the centre of the target.

The next thing he taught me was how to win a fight. After the first day he taught me how, my body was aching everywhere and I knew for sure that bruises were forming on my legs from kicking (to no avail) the punching bags he set up. Though after a few days, I got used to it and in the end, even knocked out Bud. The last thing he rushed me to teach was knife-throwing. He showed me a technique wherein I pattern my breathing with my throwing of knives. So every time I exhale, I release the knife. At first, I practice without the knife, just trying to find the right stance and learning the right arm motion. After a few minutes, every knife I throw hits the target.

And that was how I spent my last summer in Britain.

Back to the shed, I pick up the knives and follow what I did at first back in Britain; just practicing without the knife and after five minutes, with the knife. Surprisingly, I hit dead centre every time I throw a knife. At least I know Bud's teaching wasn't a waste of timeI think to myself as I leave for Gym.

The school bell rings once again and I get up and head to the door when Uriah, Marlene and, Christina intercept me.

"Tomorrow's the band show case and we should practice," Christina deadpans.

"Oh, right. So any proposals as to where to?" I ask while we were walking towards the school parking lot.

"We can't go to Christina's since she wasn't able to ask permission from her parents. Marlene's is off limits since her brother has invited some friends over for a group project or something and definitely not my place since that is where Zeke and the others are going to practice. So we were wondering if we could practice at your house," Uriah muses and the three of them look at me with hope in their eyes.

"Oh, yes. Sure, sure. Wait, let me make sure," I pull out my phone and dialled John's number. I wanted to make sure that mum and dad weren't at home, and thankfully, they weren't.

"Who was that?" Marlene blurted, not seeming to be able to stop herself.

"Oh, that was just John. Our valet," I said as their eyes went wide. I cleared my throat. "We better get going then."

"Right, right. I'll just go get my car," Uriah says.

"Wait for me there. You need to follow me, unless you know where my house is," I say raising my eyebrow.

"Uh, no. It's near the oval. Mar, Chris, let's go," and with that the three of them headed supposedly to where Uriah is parked. I get into my car and drive to the oval. As I get out, I see that Four, Zeke, Lauren and Shauna conversing with Uriah, Mar and, Chris. I walk to where they are.

"Hey. You guys ready?" I asked facing Uriah, Marlene and Christina.

"Ready for what?" Zeke asks, looking at me.

"Oh, uhm, band practice at my house," I answer.

"You're going to her house?" Lauren gasps.

"Yes," Uriah answers.

"Meaning you're going to the White House," Zeke mutters. Caleb appears behind me and says

"Rubbish. The White House is only eighty-two acres. Our house has ninety."

They stare at us blankly.

"He was kidding," I say.

They still continue staring at us.

"All right, he wasn't kidding. Let's go, shall we?" They weakly nod as Caleb chuckles and Mar and Chris climb into Uriah's car. I lower my speed for them to be able to follow me as we exit the school gates.