'Where have you been?' Beatrice's voice is quiet, but I don't make the mistake of overlooking her fury. Abnegation do not get angry; but when they do, they do not need to raise their voice in order to show their anger. Beatrice is no exception.
'Out,' I say. Does she need to know what I've really been doing? She will be furious at me, even more furious than she is now. Logically, I should tell her the truth now; if it comes out later, it will cause even more trouble. But I can't tell her where I have been. If it comes out later, I'll deal with it then.
'Out?' she repeats angrily, and I feel a twinge of regret. I don't like lying to her.
'Yes,' I say as calmly as I can. 'Just… just out.'
'It was your turn to prepare dinner!' she says. For a moment, I am surprised by the anger in her voice, but I realise that she's not angry about that. We cover for each other all the time, especially when preparing meals. Our parents don't know and wouldn't approve, but we don't tell them. We are not in Candor.
I wince. 'Damn, I forgot about that.' I try to sound as sincere as possible, but judging by the look she gives me, she doesn't believe me. I didn't forget; I remembered after barely half an hour, but I relied on her to cover for me. 'I was out, alright?' I just want her to believe me.
'For two hours,' she says, and I am so surprised I say nothing. Was it really that long? It can't have been. I was only with Emily for… less than two hours. It has to have been. The look of realisation on her face shocks me. 'You were with Emily, weren't you?'
I say nothing as she continues to talk. 'God knows what you were doing.' I open my mouth to reassure her - I wasn't doing anything bad - but she cuts me off. 'I don't even want to know. She's an Erudite, Caleb.' I know that. 'Nothing good can come out of this… whether you love her or not.' She adds the last part almost trying to sound like an afterthought, but I know that she has been thinking about this for a while; too long.
'It's platonic,' I reply, instantly regretting my choice of words. Stupid, I think; using words I learned today in my advanced language classes will not be a good way to stop an argument. 'Not romantic or sexual,' I add, but my voice sounds too patronising and condescending.
The outcome is exactly as I thought. 'Stop with all the long words. You're beginning to act like an Erudite,' she says bitterly. The insult hits the intended mark, and I involuntarily flinch.
'Look, I'll take over the dinner, okay?' Defensive, too defensive. My tone of voice will aggravate her even more.
'No, it's okay,' she replies sharply. 'You can do it tomorrow.'
'Thanks,' I say, and then flinch. Abnegation never say 'thanks'; they say 'thank you', in a polite tone of voice. I clench my fists and hope that Beatrice is too angry to notice; she is, and I begin to back out of the room. 'I'll… I'll just get on and do my homework.' When she raises her eyebrows, I add, 'Advanced classes. Lots to catch up on.' She says nothing, and I feel a flash of guilt sharper than anything I have felt before. Lying to my sister… that is low, by any faction's standards.
It doesn't matter, though. I'll make it up to her later.
'Today's homework will be page two hundred and twenty one, exercise B. I want you to read the paragraph properly before you start to answer the questions - I don't want anyone coming to me tomorrow and telling me they didn't understand because they only skim-read the page, okay?'
Our teacher's voice is drowned out by the class talking as I write down the page numbers. I am the only one who does this; everyone else remembers, but we have had so much homework recently that I don't trust myself to remember. Making a good impression on the teacher is much more important than showing off my memory capacity to the others in my class.
'What've you got next?' Emily has walked up to me without me seeing; I jump at the sound of her voice, and she laughs softly. Then she takes a closer look at my hand. 'Too much homework to remember?' she asks.
I look at my hand; it is covered in black writing listing all the homework we have and the dates that they are due for; and nod, laughing slightly.
Emily frowns. 'Isn't that bad for your skin?'
'No,' I say. 'Well, not really. It's only bad if I use a permanent pen; they have xylene in them, and although that's only usually harmful if it's inhaled, it takes quite a lot of xylene to harm someone. And most permanent pens use an alcohol-based substance, I think; which isn't as bad. I researched it last week.'
Emily grins at me. I frown. 'What?'
'You just sounded like an Erudite,' she smiles. 'Never thought I'd see the day when an Abnegation acted like an Erudite. Anyway, are you using a permanent pen?'
I open my mouth to reply, but my brain is working at top speed. The way she talked about me being like an Erudite… it was almost like a compliment. I remember Beatrice last night; 'You're beginning to act like an Erudite.' It was meant to hurt, and it did. But this… Emily seemed… almost happy. It wasn't an insult… unless she was being sarcastic? But she doesn't sound sarcastic in the slightest.
'Oh… um… no, I'm not using a permanent pen. It's just one that I found in my house; we don't have any permanent pens.' I know why; it is because Abnegation believe that nothing is permanent, and that generic pens work just as well as permanent pens. I am doing nothing wrong, a statement that would be questionable at the least if I had used a permanent pen.
I am doing nothing wrong.
'So what class do you have next?' asks Emily. 'I was going to ask earlier, but you distracted me.' She is smiling, I notice. I try not to notice how close she is standing to me; barely eight inches away; and instead focus on her words.
'Um… Advanced Maths,' I say.
'Lucky,' she says wistfully. 'I've got Faction History. Want to meet up afterwards? As a reward for surviving today?' We both have relatively uninteresting lessons today, though, being Abnegation, I should not admit that.
'Same time, same place?' I ask hopefully.
She grins and nods. 'See you there,' and I feel a rush of excitement; the thrill that comes from doing something strictly forbidden. It isn't just that the Abnegation and Erudite are supposed to hate each other, or that the Abnegation must be home earlier, or even any of the thousand other reasons that I could think of for why I shouldn't be with Emily any more than is strictly necessary; it is the fact that I am doing something I love with someone I trust. Does it matter that I am not supposed to be doing it?
Of course it does, says the little voice in my head.
I know that it is only my mind being logical, but I turn my thoughts to the only thing that can calm me down. We have a maths test today; what do I need to know?
Slowly, I mentally recite the rules and equations I need to know, and my mind slows down. I know that I cannot avoid thinking about Emily, nor do I want to, but I have to stop thinking about her.
'Caleb!'
An excited female voice cuts through my thoughts. Beatrice? It can't be Beatrice; she knows that she must not use that tone of voice, no matter where she is or that no one recognises her here.
Emily, then.
Her excitement is infectious, and I find myself grinning back at her. 'Emily! Come on! No time to waste. I've told Beatrice that I have an extra class,' it's not a complete lie, after all, 'I think she believes me, but I'll have to get back as fast as I can. She's already annoyed at me as it is.' Shut up, Caleb. Stop rambling. I ramble when I get nervous; it is a trait that I share with my father, and one that I detest.
Emily laughs breathlessly; she has obviously been running; and I follow her to the place where I have been going since I met Emily.
The Erudite library.
It is a spectacular place; so big I could lose myself in there for hours. There are books lining every space possible on the walls; there are ladders available to reach the highest books. There are more rooms, more floors than I can count; Emily tells me that the authorities had told the Erudite that they had to stop expanding the library, because they were taking up far too much space, but then someone had the bright idea of building underground. The authorities could find nothing wrong with this, and had to allow it. Ever since then, the library has been continually expanding.
But the thing I love most is the stillness and the quiet. I know that I could find exactly the same level of noise in Abnegation, but in Erudite, it is different. The atmosphere is energetic and… the only word I can think of is uplifting. It is a place I have fallen in love with, a place that I feel I could spend my life in. Everyone in the library is amazing; they are clearly so passionate about their studies, and it is somewhere I feel I could belong, somewhere where knowledge is power, and encouraged; somewhere where I can take out as many books as I want and can read them for hours without being teased as a know-it-all.
These forbidden thoughts are becoming more frequent.
I must stop thinking about them.
I cannot stop thinking about them.
It was Emily's idea. I mentioned in passing that Abnegation only have a very small library, and I have read every book in there more times than I can count. She described her library to me, sounding so passionate that I knew I had to see it, no matter what it took. We compared libraries; where Abnegation can only take out one book at a time, Erudite can take as many as they want. Where Abnegation must not read too much, for fear of being reprimanded or scorned, an Erudite will only be reprimanded or scorned if they do not read.
I wasn't surprised when we agreed that Erudite's library came out on top.
Erudite is big enough that no one in the faction can know everyone. Emily gave me her brother's clothes, and for a few hours, I fell in love with Erudite's library. I knew that I could not do this more than once; but I also knew that I had to.
When Beatrice shouted at me for being just out, I knew that I had to take whatever insults she threw at me, because I was in a place where I had no right to be.
When she told me I was beginning to act like an Erudite, I knew that although she didn't mean it as a compliment, I took it as one.
When she didn't believe me when I told her about how much homework I had, I knew that she was right; I wanted to lock myself in my room and read for hours. Homework could wait.
I do not know what I am doing; but I know that it has to stop.
A/N: I am surprised at this chapter. To be honest, I think it's one of the best ones I've written. What do you think? Although the jury is still out on my opinion of Caleb, I absolutely love getting into his mind and writing about him. I wanted to explore his fascination with the Erudite that could have ultimately led to him leaving Abnegation; I'm still not sure what's going to happen with Emily, though.
Also: another subtle Sherlock reference; this time a little harder to get. Couldn't resist... and for any non-Sherlockians, near the start of chapter 25 (Caleb: Conflict) the teacher mentions 'Caleb, John, Molly, Mary, and Greg' as those who are new to her class. The latter four characters are characters from BBC Sherlock, which is an awesome show that I would recommend to everyone :)
What do you think? Thank you SO MUCH for all the reviews, follows and faves; they mean more than I can say, and they really keep me going. :) Also, suggestions welcome! Next up will probably be Zeke; who do you want after that? :)
