When I'm not guiding our new initiates on the path to becoming full members of Abnegation, I am plotting my escape. Every night, I tend the oleander plant. When I'm done, I sit in the yard and go through my plans. I've made a mental list of everything I need to do and pack before I leave. One item at a time, I'm stealing enough donated clothing from a mix of factions that I will blend into the factionless sector. I'll leave Marcus's house while it's dark, jump onto a train, and change there. I've picked a new name for myself: Joshua Sandbourne. It's a Dauntless name, and since Dauntless has the highest percentage of initiates who fail, I'm less likely to raise suspicion showing up in the factionless sector by myself. Maybe I should pierce my ear before I leave, since I have no tattoos. I'm strong enough to work in one of the factories. I can't drive, but I could learn. Regardless of the work I find, I'll live, and I don't need much to get by. If nothing else, Abnegation has prepared me well for a life without luxuries.
The only thing besides initiation that keeps me from going over the edge and killing Marcus immediately is the anticipation of Caleb's return. I don't know what it is he has to tell me, but I'm never going to know what he wants me to know if I'm locked in a cell by the city council. Once again, I choose love over hate. I only hope I have the strength to sustain it.
Initiation is only three days from now, but lately every day has felt longer than the one before it. I'm avoiding Marcus not to keep him from hurting me, but to keep myself from killing him. I can't wait for Caleb. If he doesn't show himself or give me a clear explanation of what he wants in another note before initiation, I'm going through with my plan.
"Wash the dishes and get upstairs quickly," Marcus tells me as I start to clear the table. "Two other council members are coming over tonight. You are not to be in the way."
I put down the dirty plates. Something inside me prods a defiant answer. "What is it this time? Do I breathe too loudly and embarrass you?"
Out of the corner of my eye I see Marcus's water glass come flying at me. I duck, and it breaks against the wall. "Clean that up," he orders. When I stand, I find his fist aimed at my face. "You'll keep your tongue to yourself, boy."
His threat triggers my fight response, shattering what was left of my patience. I push him away and run into the kitchen. The large knife I use to cut vegetables is on the counter. I've held it for so many hours that it feels like an extension of my arm. I turn and point it at Marcus's face, backing him into the living room. My voice is calm and steadfast. "No. This ends now."
Marcus looks at me like he can't believe what he's seeing. "Tobias, what…what are you doing?"
"I am done," I state, "with you. You are never going to hurt me again." Every emotion I've hidden since Caleb left is rising. I push them all away. I have to maintain control.
He raises his hands, palms forward in a gesture of submission. "All right, everything's all right," he tells me. He's using his council voice, the one that makes people trust him. I want to fall for it too, want him to be a loving father for a second before I kill him. Extending one hand, he says, "Please give me the knife. We can talk this through."
Where was this willingness to talk things through all these years, I wonder. Except for his instructions the night before my aptitude test, I can't recall a single time he talked to me before inflicting pain unless it was to lecture about why I deserved what it was I was about to get. For all the times he told me he hurt me for my own good, no good came of it.
"Go ahead," I tell him, not lowering the knife. "We can talk. You start."
When he realizes I have no intention of handing over the knife, he puts his hands up again. "I know we don't always see eye to eye, but you're still my son. I'm still your father. At the end of the day, we're all we have."
My shoulders are starting to tighten, tension creeping up to the base of my neck, but the burn in my muscles only strengthens my resolve to keep the knife on Marcus. "We used to have Caleb." I can barely get his name out, not because I'm angry with him but because I can't help but love him. I don't care that he defected. I don't care what he said to me. He'll always be the person who stitched my wounds and inspired me to be as selfless as I could.
"I know, I know. I miss him too," Marcus says, and I almost drop the knife in surprise. Is my threatening his life what it took for him to admit that? If he thought I'd see him as weak for saying it, he was wrong. He was far weaker to abuse and berate me, to only let me see his anger instead of his grief. Until he admitted that he missed Caleb, I believed he never thought of him at all. "And I know… I know what he meant to you," he finishes.
That was the wrong thing for him to say. It brings back with full sound and color the memory of him beating Caleb the night before my Choosing Ceremony. "Everything," I say, my throat tightening around the word. "He meant everything to me. And now he's gone."
"It's for the best," Marcus says. The edge of wrath I usually hear in his voice when we speak is absent. "He would have left our home as soon as he could even if he'd chosen Abnegation."
I relax my arms, though I don't put the knife down. "Why do you say that?"
He shakes his head, and I can tell he's disappointed. "Because of you. He could see in you the same things I see: you're weak, you lack faith, you're disobedient, and you lie. Nothing I could do would ever change that. He couldn't live with you, having to look at you every day and knowing you don't belong in this faction. You couldn't see your own faults. You were never going to change."
When he says that, I'm back in the hallway with Caleb at Dauntless. Marcus's words could easily have come from him. I have to tighten my grip on the knife to keep from dropping it. I must be the only one who can't see all those bad traits in myself, if they're so obvious to everyone else. Caleb's words confused me, but Marcus's are igniting rage. If I am any of those things, it's because of him.
"Exactly how was I supposed to change?" I ask, furious. "You're my father! You were supposed to protect me and teach me and love me. Not hit me and lock me in a closet every time you got angry."
"What makes you think that I haven't been protecting you all these years?" The volume of his voice rises through his next sentence. "I've been protecting you from yourself!"
His words stop me. I am suddenly aware that my arms are shaking. I don't want to stab Marcus until I know what he's talking about, so I loosen my grip on the knife. "How… What…?"
Slowly, he lowers his hands and nods. I see relief in his expression, and resolve, but not sorrow or remorse. He is only glad that I am sparing his life in this moment. "I know you better than you know yourself, Tobias."
I want to shout that he doesn't know me at all, but I stop. I've felt the itch in my palms that makes me want to strike those who anger me. How many times did I want to yell at Caleb for sitting so passively, so patiently, as Marcus cut his hair? And how often in that bathroom did Marcus look at me over Caleb's head, warning me with his eyes that I was not to step out of line? Marcus knew I would be aware during my aptitude test, knew that I was uncertain about what faction I would choose, and did everything he could to crush it. Me. Somehow he knows what kind of evil I carry in my soul—what other words could there be for a son who is ready to kill his own father— and my awareness during simulations is a symptom of that.
Marcus speaks like I've exhausted him. "Ever since you were small I've seen it. You have been disobedient since the day you were born. You do not have the instinct for serving others. It had to be taught. You can't keep your curiosity to yourself. You are always in your own mind. Abnegation's ways could not change you. No matter how much I prayed, God could not change you. I could only hope to keep your irreverence in check until you learned to serve others with pure intentions."
In a twisted way, I start to understand him. No one is supposed to stand out in Abnegation. He is right: I am always in my own mind, looking inward while trying to fit into a faction that only accepts looking outward. I do lack faith. For all the religious services I've attended, I've only ever felt the sermons in my mind, not my heart. I was supposed to use the pain he inflicted as a reminder to think beyond myself. Instead, it became something that emptied me from the inside, an acid that ate away what little good I had in me. It only reinforced that I am someone who doesn't belong here.
"And the curse?" I ask. "The one that makes me aware during simulations. Is that another way we're alike?"
Slowly, he nods. "Yes. I have it, too. I know the work it takes for me to overcome it, and I don't think you have that kind of fortitude."
Though I wasn't expecting him to be kind about the curse, I see him in a new way when he says that. I feel like I understand him just a little bit better. His lack of faith in me is not exactly comforting, but maybe it's not unwarranted. Even when he told me about my aptitude test, I could tell he was trying to protect me from those who might notice my awareness. I did everything he told me, even chose the one faction that he said would be my salvation, and yet here I am.
His words reverberate in my mind: Because I could not change you. God could not change you. I will never be selfless enough, giving enough, good enough for Marcus. He will never stop trying to change me through violence until the day he goes too far and kills me. My decision to leave is the right one, but I can't wait any more.