I do not own anything, just my ideas!
Chapter 44
TRIS
I hardly ever finish anything I start. It is a bad habit I have developed over the years. Ever since my mom died, I could never find a reason to finish my artworks. At least, the ones I did on my own, in my own time.
I pull my hand into a fist and pound on the wooden door.
I never really knew why I could not finish the drawing of a skyscraper, or of an animal, or of a tree. I just never brought myself to do it. I can picture my room and the study back in Chicago with its walls mounted with half-completed artwork. Sometimes, I come really close, but I can never do it.
Caleb answers the door to the house. My house. His house. Our house. My old home.
"Hey," he says.
"Do you mind if I came in?"
"Please."
I walk into the house, and I can't tell if I am surprised or if I knew it all along, but nothing has changed. The little bench along the wall still sits with a chipped piece on the right side from where Caleb's ball hit it when he played football in the house. A group of hooks still hang on the wall. I used to have to look up at it, but now I do not have to. The rug that travels down the hallway still lies perfect, except for the small smudges of dirt that seemed to always stick. And I suspect that if I were to open the window in the kitchen, it would open with a loud screech.
While nothing seems to have changed, there is something different. Perhaps it is the way the room smells. When mom was alive, the aroma of lime and ginger danced through the air. Now, I can faintly smell specks of linen, but mostly metal consumes the air.
I look to Caleb. Judging by the way his hair lays uncombed and the pending silence that is the hallway and the house, Caleb is alone. Dad must be out of town; I normal occurrence, I assume. Even though it is a Saturday, it is early. I have always been more of a morning person for reasons that differ from my brother.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but what are you doing here?" He asks me.
"I thought I could go through some stuff in the attic." He gives me a look. We both know what is in the attic. Besides the dusty Christmas decorations and the small old furniture, mom's old stuff is hidden away in boxes. I am sure they have dust of their own.
"I'll help you."
"You don't need to do that. Don't you have something, anyway?"
"Yeah, I do." Of course he has plans. "But it's not till later. I can help you with that stuff. You shouldn't have to do it on your own."
We begin to walk up the stairs and towards the attic. I can feel my childhood pass me by as I reach for the door and the stairs appear before me. When we were much younger, Caleb and I would go exploring up towards the darkest and highest part of the house, but we would always chicken out before we could get all the way up there. One time, though, I welled up my courage and made it to the very top of the stairs and placed a finger on the attic floor before running back down stairs.
It was a small independent victory.
"So," Caleb says. "How's the internship going?"
"More paperwork, more phone calls."
"That's it?"
I don't want to tell him about what I found in the box he gave me. I don't want him to see or even know the gift my mother gave me. While I told him I have forgiven him, I do not quite trust him yet. No matter how pure and simple the truth may be, it is rarely pure and never simple.
"Yeah," I say. I remember my conversation with Caroline this morning.
"I swear, you workout more than any other person I know," Caroline says as I tie my shoelaces. Even in New York, I keep my habits of waking up early to go to the gym. Lucky for me, the apartments that David has set us up in have a gym on the first floor.
"You must not know that many people who go to the gym," I say.
"Please. I know more people than you could comprehend. And you workout almost as much as most guys."
"I don't doubt that."
"I guess I am meeting you there."
"No."
"What! You aren't coming with us to see the Statue of Liberty."
"I have already seen it enough times."
"So have I, but the boys haven't. Come on, it will be the four of us."
"Sorry. I have some… family stuff I need to take care of."
"Your loss."
"The others are doing stuff today. I wanted to come here do some things."
"What was that? Go through her stuff?"
"Yes." We reach the top of the attic, but we don't go to the boxes yet.
"Why would you want to do that?" He says, retreating from the offer of helping me he made just moments ago.
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Maybe because all it will do is open wounds that are too painful to even think about—"
"You don't have to be here if you can't take it."
"I can," he says, but it isn't very convincing. "I just can't understand why you would want to break this open. It's like you are trying to hurt yourself. You want to run with glass and it will break and the only thing you can do is go through the broken shards."
"And what? I'll cut my feet on some glass? I have kind of already done that. Scars don't scare me anymore." As I say it, I can feel Caleb's eyes falling on the mark that lies on my chest. I softly say, "It's rude to stare."
"Sorry."
"It doesn't hurt, not anymore. Besides, the deadliest wounds are the ones you barely see."
I walk towards a box that has a layer of dust on it. Clearly, no one has opened this box in years. I take it and peel away the lid. Inside is a pile of her clothes.
Caleb says, "I thought we got rid of all her clothes after she died."
"I guess not all of it. Maybe some of it is good enough to donate; she would want others to have it instead of catching dust bunnies in an attic."
"Are you sure? Her clothes?"
"You don't think she would want someone else to have them? Then you didn't know her."
"I knew her as much as you did."
"You seem to forget her easier, then."
"Sometimes forgetting is the best way to not feel the pain." I stare at him. "What?"
"You are the kind of person that looks at people and thinks that they are insane for dancing so wild and free."
"What does that have to do with any—"
"But you are the one who can't hear the music. If you shut things away, you'll never understand."
I continue to go through our mother's old dresses and shirts and pants while Caleb begins to open a new box. "This stuff is from her office."
My heart skips a beat. If I am going to find answers, that would be the place to start.
"What's there?" I ask.
"Some files and office supplies and different stuff she had on her desk. Hey! Look at this. Do you remember?"
He holds up a large picture frame and points to a picture in the middle. In it, Caleb and I are eating ice cream on the street. I remember the day so clearly. We had decided to go to the Fourth of July parade. The day was so hot, and then it began to randomly downpour. If that wasn't enough, the parade we waited so long for got cancelled. Mom and dad felt bad so they got us ice cream and took us all the way to Long Island.
"Yeah," I laugh to myself. "I remember."
"You got so mad; you almost lost your ice cream."
"That's not as bad as you who threw a fit because it was impossible to rain based on what the radar said that morning on the news."
He laughs, and then steadies his voice. "We should go there again. Together. I miss it."
"Me too."
"… Why did you leave?" He says softly, as if it was the wrong thing to say. "When did you stop caring?"
"When did you notice?" He doesn't say anything. I continue to run my fingers through mom's old clothes and reply, "I didn't have a choice. It was the only way to save myself from drowning."
"I could have…"
"No, you really couldn't have done anything. And I think I know why." I can feel the bitterness rising. The part of me that forgives Caleb pushes the bitterness down. But the anger that lingers keeps bringing it back up. "Because when you try to fix a broken person, you have to be careful. You may cut yourself on their shattered pieces."
He begins to walk away. I say, "Caleb, wait. I didn't mean it like that. For reasons I don't understand, you were shattered yourself in ways you wouldn't show."
"No, I know what you meant."
"No you don't. What I mean is that it is not easy, for anyone. I just wish you would show something. Show me that you are willing to try. It's stupid and crazy and in your mind unreasonable, but…"
"You don't need to say anymore." I can't read the expression on his face. It's odd. I normally can read people better, especially my brother. But for the longest time, my brother wore a mask. And maybe he has changed, but maybe all that has changed is a mask has fallen off. I can't tell what's better.
"I have to go," he says. "You can stay and go through the stuff. I don't know when I will be back, just… don't feel like you need to ask to come here."
"Okay."
He walks down the stairs and right when his head is about to disappear, he turns and says, "No one has touched your room since you left, if you want to go in there."
I hear his feet bang against the wood as he descends the stairs. I continue to go through the clothes and fold them. When I reach the bottom, I find some that are even my size. I come across one dress in particular that I fall in love with the second I see it. I bundle up the different clothes to take with me and I stare at the other boxes.
I can't decide if it is a good idea to go through those now, so I listen to Caleb and go to my old room.
When I come to it, I can see Caleb is right. Nothing has been moved. The door opens with a screech, similar to the window downstairs, and I can tell it does not open often. If at all.
I walk to the window with its grey curtains that shimmer in the sunlight. But they don't shimmer now. Besides the dust that has collected, the sun is not shining outside. It is cloudy, as if a storm is approaching. The wind has picked up since I was outside and shadows are almost nonexistent.
The walls were bare, but right before I left, I turned it into a canvas. My father was out of town too much to notice and Caleb did not care enough to say anything about it.
A mural of running lines and bending colors climb the walls. Every inch of the walls has been covered with my paintbrush or my pencils or my markers. One spot in the corner catches my attention. It is partially covered by my mirror, but I distinctly remember it being completely covered.
Even in my own room, there were things I was ashamed of.
I was ashamed of who I was.
I pull the rest of the mirror out of the way and a poem is revealed on the wall. The perimeter is decorated with flames, but the closer you get to the bottom, the flames distinguish and turn to ash.
I am the ashes on the forest floor. I once made dashes when the fire soared.
I am the ashes from the raging fire. My arms made lashes before it was dire.
I am the ashes under the bare trees. The flames made gashes when they were free.
I am the ashes that could have been anything. After constant crashes, I am now nothing.
I want to feel sorry for the person who wrote those words. That person had to have been in a bad place; they must have felt as if they were nothing. The words feel so familiar, like they are imprinted into my mind.
Because they are my words.
I can feel the ache in my soul as I read the desperate words the old me etched into the wall—a broken scream from my lifeless existence. The feeling feels a lifetime away, but I can feel it breaking my heart all over again.
But it is different this time. Instead of hating myself and feeling nothing expect pain, I feel sorry for my old self. She was so unhappy, and she loathed life. And I hate myself for becoming that way, for letting Peter turn me into that kind of person.
And now, all I can do is love the new life I have made. My hate for myself and the world blinded me from the good. I have come to know that depression brings a wealth of questions. Most of them are one word: Why? And the worst part is, there is almost never an answer.
So what is the point of obsessing over questions that will never give me answers?
I go to one of the drawers in my desk that contains my paint. I take some white that matches the original color of the walls, and I splash it across the last line of the poem. As it dries, I go through the shoebox of photos that I hid at the bottom of my closet.
The family together on Christmas. My awkward third grade class photo. Caleb and I in front of Niagara Falls. My mother holding me in the hospital for the first time.
I get up with a paint brush and dip it into black paint.
I rewrite the last part of my poem and add life to the flames and even the ashes at the bottom.
I am the ashes on the forest floor. I once made dashes when the fire soared.
I am the ashes from the raging fire. My arms made lashes before it was dire.
I am the ashes under the bare trees. The flames made gashes when they were free.
I am the ashes and I thought there could have been more. Life is made of crashes, yet somehow I am reborn.
I am careful with each stroke, making the new last line the best it can possibly be. When I am satisfied with my work, I turn away from it. It is my little secret—part of me summed up in a few words. And that is all I need in here.
I stare at my bed. That is where it happened, I think to myself. For the longest time, I couldn't even sleep in that bed. I took a blanket and a pillow and spent my sleepless nights on the floor.
Just like how flowers bloom after winter and ships settle after a storm, we learn that things will be okay.
But when you are surrounded by something that causes you so much pain, you get used to it. And one night I found myself climbing into the bed. I guess Caleb is right about one thing: forgetting is best way to avoid pain. We survive by remembering, but sometimes we survive by forgetting.
But it does not make the pain go away.
After all, the nightmares never went away.
Not until I left.
There was one dress of my mother's that I really loved. I remember my mother wearing it often, and it looked so beautiful on her. It doesn't feel weird wearing the clothes of someone who is dead; it feels like I am living life with her in mind.
I know—it's weird.
It has a grey background, but small floral patterns wrap up in waves throughout the dress. I even pull my hair out of my face with a small bun. Even with my new short hair, I manage to hold it all up. Caroline was the one who added a small flower to the top of the tiny bun.
Next to Caroline, I look almost average. She has the pencil skirt and the high heels and the tucked in collar shirt. It is professional, yet flashy. The eyes tend to linger one her, which is fine with me. I want to be like my mother as much as I can, and she was the one who stayed in the background as the base.
Important, but not in a flashy way.
We find our separate working places when David appears in front of us. Since that first day, he normally keeps from us. He talks to his assistants and other people that are higher than the interns. (All we do is comb through files and answer calls and put stamps on letters.) But today he comes straight to us for the first time.
He looks at all of us, me last. But when he does, his eyes widen in a subtle way. I don't think the others caught it, but he looked me in the eye and I saw something there.
"… We are switching some things up today. Caroline and Zane will be going to the courthouse and doing some things there. Tris and Matthew will be coming with me to a small rally."
We all stand and Caroline and Zeke go one way to go the courthouse. I can see the green on Zane's face growing. David leads Matthew and me with him. There is something odd, because one of the assistants gives David a weird look, but gets waved away by David.
We follow him to a car and we get in along with a few others.
"Where is the rally?" Matthew asks.
"It is on the lawn of a local high school. It won't be anything too big, but you two will be backstage doing a few jobs."
I feel David's eyes on me, but I avert mine out the window. In just a few minutes, the nice downtown turns rough. I can tell we are passing through a bad neighborhood. I can't help but wonder why we are going through such a bad place with someone like David in the car. I am sure there is a much better way to travel than this route.
I number of times I see the word Kavolo spray painted on buildings and on streets. I don't recognize the name, and it is so scattered and repeated.
"What is Kavolo?" I ask.
"It is more who is Kavolo," David's assistant says.
"Huh?"
"He is a drug lord who owns these streets."
"He is a myth," David says. I look at him. "He is just a scary story. Kavolo supposedly is the king of drug dealing in the northeast. And he will kill violently to get where he wants to get."
I don't remember that name growing up. I try to rack through different memories to make any connection. I try to remember my mother's words. There are bad people doing bad things. Is this what she meant? This supposed myth person that was told to scare people. But it doesn't feel that way. It feels… real.
Then the letter my mother wrote me. She said something bad was going to happen… Could this be it? Who am I kidding? There could be hundreds of things that she could be talking about. I am not doing myself any favors by jumping the gun on every little possibility.
Still, the idea sticks to me. It is like an annoying bug bite. No matter how much I ignore it, the itching will become too much. Or, the other option would be to put itch cream on.
I am intrigued at the idea, and I say, "I think my mom once mentioned it."
David gives me a look. I can't read it. I say, "What?"
"You just… are so much like her. I mean, today when I saw you, it took me a second to realize it wasn't her and was you."
I know it was not meant to be in insult, but part of me hurts from his words. "Well, it's her dress. I saw it the other day and I… I have always wanted to live up to her. Live like she did."
"She really was a good person."
"She really was." I can't help but cringe at the use of past-tense. Like as if every passing second takes me further and further away from her.
David's assistant continues to scroll on her phone. She pipes up when she comes across something. "Oh, Mr. Mortem, don't forget you meeting with Mr. North."
She says it like she doesn't know this Mr. North very well. In fact, she ac—Wait! North? Like when my mother said look to the North in her letter. Is it the same North? Could it? Maybe I am still jumping to conclusions. But the thought doesn't leave the back of my mind.
"Of course. How much longer until we arrive?"
"We will get there in fifteen minutes."
The fifteen minutes pass fast. Fresh flowers and glowing trees race down the sidewalk and the median. It is not the usual for a city school area, especially so close to the bad neighborhood. But we are getting closer to the east side.
When we arrive, Matthew and I go straight to the tent that is supposed to be backstage. There are tables and papers everywhere. We get little name tags and badges. Scattered around are different televisions.
Like David said, we get little jobs. If you ask me, it is not too much different from what I have been doing all along, but in a different place. Still, it is nice to be somewhere else.
One thing does catch my eye.
As I go through a few files, one thing catches me eye. The word North, several times, shows up in several parts. I never really noticed anything like it before, but now with it stuck in my mind there is no forgetting it.
When I check the clock, it says I have been here for hours.
All around me, papers and files lay on the ground and pinned to the walls. It has become an obsession. After the rally and we were released for the day, I went straight to my old house. To the un-open boxes that awaited me in the attic. And since then, the attic has become home base for my operations.
Operations for what? I ask myself.
It feels stupid, but there is something. I can feel it. I can feel something slithering around and nothing will break me from a bubble that I feel entrapping me until I find something. So far, I have traced different money accounts that are associated with North.
And they send me in circles. Constant money transfers and sentences with North, but it is all a constant circle: no ending and no beginning. I feel like I have been staring at the same thing and going in the same circle.
Until I reach for the bottom of one box and find my mother's work computer. I open the laptop, but I don't know where to start. I have never been much of a technical person. Tobias is, but not me.
Tobias.
I miss him so much. I wish he was here to do this with me. He could do so much to help me. Not just going through the files, but being here for me. But I need to do some things on my own. I need to do this without leaning on others for support. I need to stand on my own.
I decide to go to her email. Maybe there is something there that will tell me something about her last few days.
Most of it is meetings and conversations with colleagues. My mother was right; they were in the middle of an intense case. Something that has to do with drug dealers and money loitering. And then I see it: Kavolo.
Someone mentions the infamous myth, and after that there is nothing more. No more emails on the matter, no more conversations about any of the cases. There is one other long conversation that catches my eye.
It is between my mother and David.
And the last one is dated the day she died.
Natalie: I am afraid of what I believe is true. We are getting close, though. And I do not know if that scares me or makes me proud. But Kyle is dead and he was the one to bring it up; he was the one who connected the dots to where we are now. And David, your name came up as well. We have known each other too long for you to lie to me.
David: You should have come with me that day. You should have accepted the offer I gave you. You are leaving me with not that many options. You need to stop. You will get yourself killed.
Natalie: No. I didn't want it and I never will. You know I could never lose my values or betray my family. My family means more to me than anything.
David: If that is true, you need to stop. You have to stop before it is too late. They don't even know what you are doing. What if something were to happen? They will never know.
Natalie: They will. Everyone will know soon enough. I am taking the files to Craig tonight. He and the FBI will be joining us. It is so much bigger than we thought which is why I wanted to warn you. We have been friends for a long time, and I know sometimes you wished it was different, but I am happy with my choices.
My mom wasn't going to a Broadway show that night—the tickets were a cover-up. She was going to the authorities. She was going to tell them what she found, whatever it was, and she hoped the dead of night would hide her endeavors.
And the only person she told was David.
The only one who knew where she was going that night was David.
Author's Note
The poem I used in this chapter was one that I wrote. I wrote it my freshman year and as I was cleaning out the papers in my room, I found part of it. The original was better, but I could only find some of it. I wrote it when I was at a sad place, like Tris in the story.
On a happier note, today is a special day. Today is the one year anniversary of this story! My oh my, how so much can happen in a year. Thank you to all the loyal readers who have been with me since the beginning and everyone who has joined this crazy ride! In honor of the special day, below I have some fun fact trivia about the story.
Be brave, everyone!
QUOTES
1). Yeah, well... It's too long for long hair. –Insurgent, book
2). I've written this letter a thousand times, but I could never find the right words to say. –The Game Plan, movie
3). I cling to the memory and savor it, experiencing the flavor of a first spark. I shake my head, and I shove the memory out of my mind. I send it down the vast cavern of might-have-beens. –Don't Look Behind You, book
There are two (television show, person) quotes from this chapter.
Which chapter was written first?
7: Chapter 6 was the first chapter I wrote for this story. It was when Tris and Tobias made the bet. (Tris would go to the football games until they lost.) I was pondering the idea of a girl with a dark past and a scar to prove it and what would her secrets would be. Then I thought of one of my favorite characters: Tris. Who would she be in that situation and what about Tobias?
Which chapters have been read the most?
Here are some chapters that have some of the highest "views" numbers compared to chapters around them:
1: Prologue
6: Chapter 5
12: Chapter 11
22: Chapter 21
27: Chapter 26
30: Chapter 29
35: Chapter 34
38: Chapter 37
This story has had almost 180,000 total views! Thank you so much!
Which chapters have the most reviews?
42: Chapter 41
36: Chapter 35
35: Chapter 34
23: Chapter 22
38: Chapter 37
41: Chapter 40
22: Chapter 21
What chapter was the most enjoyable to write?
I have had a lot of fun writing a lot of chapters. I can not choose one, so I will pick three (in no specific order). 21: Chapter 20 which was Homecoming. I liked the idea of Tris not going and it really set her relationship with Tobias in motion. 32: Chapter 31 which was the first part of Tris' trial. I had some of the best anti-writer's block with that chapter. Everything flowed together. 42: Chapter 41 which was the school shooting. I loved the quotes I chose for that chapter and the messages and playing with the different emotions.
I love writing the flashbacks. Sometimes I surprise myself with some of the back story. I always have an idea, but it seems to go deeper whenever I get writing. (What has been your favorite chapter?)
