Three years later…
Chapter Fourteen
When I submerge myself into the icy water, I am careful not to make a sound. Just filling up the tub took me the better part of an hour. Any heat from the faucet has disappeared into the chilly air, and I shiver, drawing my knees up to my chest and hugging them tightly.
I close my eyes, willing myself to not see how red the water is turning. Every muscle in my body aches, and every inch of my skin is sticky. As I rest my back against the wall, it glues, and I peel myself away from it, cringing from the sharp pain. I curl myself into a ball and splash my hand around in the shark-infested water.
Maybe I should take refuge in the fact that the bathroom door is locked… but I know better than that. If he can't break it down, he will find a way to come in through the window again. If he finds me then, I will have hell to pay for trying to keep him out.
My eyes drift to the window. It is cracked open behind the gentle grey curtain, wind pushing against the soft fabric, making it pulse back and forth like my chest as I breathe. It calms me, and I sigh.
What was really only three years ago feels like a different lifetime: not my own, but someone else's seen through my eyes, alive only in my memory. It is in moments like these, where the cold water consumes me and the fluttering curtains calm me, that I remember the feeling — being human. Sometimes it's hard to remember something like that when I look and feel and sound like a wounded animal.
My hair sticks to my arms, the golden locks matted with thick, dry blood. It curves with my skin, stopping short at my hips. I have not cut it in many months.
Perhaps my body has grown since then. I have not noticed. I possess a sort of detachment when it comes to my outer shell; maybe it is because I am so ashamed of how frail it has become, how bruised and battered, how my muscles have shrivelled up and died since I ended my training that I no longer wish to claim it as my own.
As for my face… it may have changed, and it may look exactly the same as when I was eleven years old. I have not looked in a mirror since. A week ago, I turned fourteen. The year before that, thirteen; I don't like to speak about that day.
I shift slightly. Even the water doesn't feel clean anymore; a shower would be better, but I can't risk the noise. Sighing, I get to work, scrubbing my body until it feels like I have shed a layer of skin. As the blood washes away, ancient silver scars shine along my arms, beckoning for the newer, fresher ones to join them. I can't wait until they do and the pain that they bestow upon me in this moment is just a fleeting memory. I try not to think about the fact that once the ones that cause me pain now fade, there will only be more.
When I step out of the water and grab my towel, my fingers leave watery red marks on the fabric. I wrap it around myself. Quietly, I sneak into my room, closing the door gently behind me, and grab my first aid kit out of my closet, attending to my wounds. I have gotten over my aversion to blood.
Once my bandages are secure, I get dressed quickly in the same dreary Abnegation clothes, making sure to choose the ones that are too big for me. Our clothes never fit us right anyway, so they will not notice that my sleeves fall inches past my fingertips and that the collar of my shirt fits the bottom half of my face inside of it. I hide my face in my shirt, letting my breath warm up my chin. Slinging my satchel over my shoulder, I slip my Faction History textbook inside of it. After a moment, Caleb's dictionary follows, and I stumble out of my room.
I tiptoe through the halls, stretching myself over the loose floorboard in front of my mother's old bedroom with practiced skill, and slip down the stairs. The kitchen is dark, the window over the sink boarded up because it gives a clear view into the place where my pain is created. I suppose the darkness is fitting in that way; the rest of the time, it is merely an inconvenience.
This morning, my father is not awake to greet me. I know that if he was, he would smile and offer me an apple like he wasn't the one to draw across my skin with a knife like it was his brush and I was his canvas only hours ago. I know that I should wait for him to wake and eat breakfast together like a normal Abnegation family, like we used to be, like he wants for us in the mornings. But I will not.
I take the apple and burst through the front doors loudly; now that I am out of the house, he can't hurt me. In this moment, I do not have to return home tonight. In this moment, I will run towards the bus stop and never look back. This moment will only last until the bus drops me off in this same spot eight hours from now. But I will live in the moment.
A smile spreads across my face, and pain follows it. Only one of them is fake. Neither fades as I climb onto the bus and take my seat beside Christina.
"You excited for today?" she asks, running her fingers through her knotted hair down to her jaw where it ends. Jealously bursts through me as my hair tugs painfully, caught in the seat.
"What's today?" I reply. She gives me a look of reproach.
"Earth to Tris. Today is Aptitude Test day."
"Ours isn't for another two years," I remind her. "We're only fourteen."
"First of all, fourteen is practically sixteen," she insists for the tenth time in the past week. "And secondly, we do know someone who's taking the test today. Aren't you Abnegation people supposed to remember this stuff?"
The blood drains from my face. Someone who is taking the test today? Only one name comes to mind: Tobias. The boy I haven't spoken to in three years. The boy who killed my mother. "What?"
She raises her eyebrows, but she looks concerned. "Zeke. He's taking the test today. Remember his sixteenth birthday last month?"
"Oh, right. I remember." I sigh, pressing my palm against my forehead. "Sorry, I'm a little out of it today."
I can tell by the look on her face that she doesn't believe me — she is Candor by birth — but thankfully, she drops it. "If you say so. You think he's going to get Dauntless? Ah, who am I kidding. Of course he will. This is Zeke we're talking about, after all."
"Zeke will definitely stay," I mutter, leaning back in my seat. Christina continues on, talking about the Aptitude Test, about what she thinks will happen, about what life in each faction would be like, and as much as I want to listen, I allow myself to fade away and close my eyes. She probably knows that I'm not listening, but she is content with talking to my lifeless body. I am content with letting her, as her chatter draws my life further and further from that of a regular Abnegation girl my age: quiet, demure.
I let my thoughts drift to the blue-eyed boy again. I would like to say that I haven't thought of him in three years, since the day he killed my mother and left me with my father, but it would not be true. Luckily, I am not a Candor, so I tell myself that I no longer care for him the way I used to.
I tell myself that I no longer love him as my fingers slip into the pocket of my robe, feeling for a familiar smooth surface — the black Dauntless stone. I caress it softly, instinctively, and almost unconsciously as it brings me desperate comfort. As I breathe in and out slowly, my racing heart begins to calm.
I close my eyes, humming quietly as he runs his fingers through my golden locks. "Why did you give it to me? It's obviously special to you."
"So are you," he replies without hesitation, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "That's why I gave it to you. Because I love you."
I tell myself that I no longer love him back, but I know that I am wrong.
When the lunch bell rings, I don't wait for anyone else to leave; I slip out of my seat and from the classroom, and I am out the building's front doors before the final shrill note hangs eerily in the air. My eyes fall upon my destination: the Upper Levels building. Like the Mid-Levels where I will be staying until next year, the building is made of glass and steel. It is where the fifteen and sixteen year olds attend their final years of schooling (unless they are Erudite, that is). Today, it is where the Aptitude Tests are taking place.
Briskly, I made my way through the doors. Curious eyes fall on me, but I ignore them, picking up my pace through the unfamiliar halls. Finally, I spot him sitting among the Dauntless-borns, his head thrown back laughing as his friends clap him on the back. I hesitate to approach him, afraid that he might be embarrassed of being friends with a Stiff, but when his eyes catch mine, his smile widens and he waves me over.
"Beatrice!" he calls out. I notice the flinch in his shoulders when he calls me by my given name. I feel the same, but we must keep up pretences, now more than ever. I grin shyly and make my way over to the rowdy table, each head of hair a different colour, each collarbone covered in a different pattern, each nose pierced with a different stud. It's not hard to see that Zeke is one of the tame ones, which is saying something in itself.
"Who's the Stiff?" says a girl around his age, pale with orange hair dyed pink at the tips, her black tank top hanging low on her chest. She is beautiful, I realize. By the way Zeke looks at her, it seems that he does, too.
"Don't call her that, Shauna," he snaps. She holds her hands up in the air mockingly. I smile at her hesitantly, feeling more and more like a Stiff. Zeke holds his hand out to me and directs me into a seat beside him.
"This is Beatrice," he introduces, and I wave at them weakly. "She's a friend of Uriah's."
"Uriah's friends with a Stiff," someone mutters from the back. Zeke glares at him, and he shuts up.
The red-haired girl, Shauna, pipes in, "How old is she? Is she fourteen like your brother? She doesn't look fourteen. How on Earth did those two become friends?"
"Hey," I whisper, and all heads turn to me. It's the first thing I've said. I clear my throat, and this time my voice is stronger, louder: "I'm right here. You can speak directly to me." It isn't much, or it wouldn't be to anyone else, but in this moment, I am brave for speaking up. It's laughable really, compared to jumping onto a moving train in a thunder storm or running at a murderous man unarmed, but I've never felt braver.
With those words, I realize that I can be Beatrice and still act like Tris. I don't have to be different versions of myself around different people.
The table falls silent, and they all stare at me for a moment too long; in their eyes, I see shock, curiosity, a little amusement, but most of all… respect. It surprises me, and it feels good. I clear my throat. "To answer your question, Shauna, I am fourteen. I met Uriah in the infirmary a few years ago after getting punched in the face."
She chokes on her water, and Zeke slaps her back roughly. Shauna swats his hand away. "You got punched in the face? What the hell did you do, help someone so much that you pissed them off?"
I glare at her — she's right, in a way — and Zeke answers for me. "She stood up for her friend: a Candor, obviously. Their mouths get them into more trouble than we can get them out of. Anyways, the guy who was teasing her was a bully, and he didn't like it when Beatrice here talked back to him. He socked her in the nose, and she hit her head on the floor and collapsed."
Everyone sobers up. The Dauntless take bullying very seriously; they are the Protectors, and they don't like it when people prey on those who can't defend themselves. The respect in their eyes doubles.
One guy who looks to be almost seventeen, the older end of the initiates this year, pounds his fist against his chest twice and holds it out in the air. He says in his strong voice: "We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another."
"We believe," says everyone around the table like an echo, Zeke's voice the loudest in my ear. My heart swells, and for a moment I feel like I am already part of the faction. For a moment, I forget that I must spend another two years in purgatory. I remember why I started training in the first place, how I felt in that hospital room all those years ago that inspired me.
My eyes shine. "Thank you," I whisper, my voice quiet but firm, unwavering. Then, I remember why I came in the first place. "Not that I don't love being here, but I did come for a reason. Ezekiel, will you…" I motion with my head towards the hallway, and he nods.
"Wow, my full name. She's bringing out the big guns, guys. This must be important," he jokes, eliciting a chorus of laughter that follows us into the adjoining hall. As we round the corner, well out of earshot, I grab Zeke and pull him into a hug. Surprised, he hesitates for a moment before wrapping his arms around me and resting his chin against the top of my head.
"Hey," he says soothingly. "You okay, little sis?"
I begin to speak when I am cut off by a woman on the other end of the room, announcing that the test are about to begin. Two Amity boys whose names I have never heard are called in first.
"I'll talk quickly," I say, and he nods. I look around for a moment, making sure that we are alone. When I raise my head, my eyes meet his, serious. "It's about Tobias. Have you seen him?"
"He's still not coming to school, Tris," he answers, shaking his head. "Homeschool, Marcus is calling it. Sick bastard. I still think we should've… when we had the chance…" He trails off, his fingers finding the spot along his abdomen where a thick scar outlines the place where Marcus jammed a dagger into him. I remember how guilty I felt when he woke up, and how he made me feel better by smiling and telling me that he was the first of his friends to get a battle scar, how jealous they would be.
"I know," I reply. "Me too. But he's stronger than us in every way. Besides, tomorrow… tomorrow will be the last day that Tobias will have to suffer."
"He's transferring?" Zeke exclaims, shocked. Why is he surprised?
My eyebrows furrow. "We've been training for this for years, Zeke. It's finally happening."
"It's just…" He hesitates. "It's just that the last time I saw him, he said that he was going to stay."
"What?" I cry out, clenching Zeke's t-shirt between my fists. "He can't stay! You know he can't! I know it, and he knows it, so why is he staying?"
An unreadable expression spreads across his face. "Look, Tris—"
"Where is he?" I interrupt.
"I already told you, he doesn't come to school…"
"Today is the Aptitude Test, Zeke," I explain. "Everyone has to take the test. Which means he's around here, somewhere."
Zeke begins to speak, when he is cut off by the tester lady. "Ezekiel Pedrad, Dauntless."
"Go, Zeke," I tell him, nuzzling my head against his chest. "Go, and I will find Tobias." We hold each other for a moment, and I realize that this might be the last time we see each other. Zeke is like my older brother, filling the void in my heart where Caleb used to be. Hesitantly, he nods and breaks away from me, giving me one last kiss on the forehead before jogging over to the table, bumping fists with his friends, and marching towards the impatient looking Candor lady.
Ignoring the tightness in my chest, I turn on my heels and dash from the lunch room as the volunteer calls out for an Eric someone, poking my head into every nook and cranny along the halls. Groaning in frustration, I rest my back against the wall of an adjacent hallway when I don't find him anywhere, burying my head in my hands.
A beep resounds in the empty hall, followed by another, and then the sound of whooshing air and a smack against a hard surface. Standing rigid, my gaze falls to a machine in the corner filled with colourful plastic packages and a head of brown hair crouching in front of it. The boy straightens and turns to face me after digging the prize out of the compartment at the bottom.
Tobias waves his candy bar in the air. I notice that it is plain oats, Abnegation food, even when he could have had anything from the machine. "Breakfast," he says, picking at the wrapper. His voice is deeper, low and breathy, and makes something in the pit of my stomach light with electricity. He cocks his head, eyes boring into mine. "Yum."
"No toast this morning?"
His face hardens. "No, not today," he replies, fist tightening around the bar. He stares at me, unmasked. "Nice to see you, Beatrice."
My eyes flit across his face; it is sharper than it used to be, full of angles and edges. His lips have grown fuller, pink, and his nose is wide and strong. A smile hints at the corners of my mouth as his familiar pointy ears twitch, but I straighten it out. Our eyes meet, blue on blue, the different shades of the ocean we will never see the end of. My breath catches in my throat; the sight of him affects me like it does to no other, because it is Tobias inside that body of his. I am the only one who knows Tobias enough to feel this way for him.
It seems that he is real. Over the last few years, I almost started to believe that I had dreamed him up, but there was never a chance I could create someone so complex. He is not perfect — he never was — and that is how I know that he is real, that he is not a figment of my imagination.
Still, it is hard.
"You too," I reply, leaning back against the wall. He follows my movements with hawk-like attention, eyes lingering on where my back meets the plaster. "It's been a while, Tobias."
His eyes shoot up to mine, pleading me to forgive him; it is only a flash of emotion, and then it is gone. He looks away. "You're still beautiful, I see."
An angry blush rises to my cheeks. "Don't patronize me."
"I wasn't," he replies. I look away. He continues, "It certainly has been long. I would have visited but I've been… preoccupied. Besides, I wasn't sure if you would want to see me."
"Neither was I." But now I am. "Nevertheless, it's nice to see you."
He blinks once, twice, and a crooked smile breaks out on his thick lips as he saunters towards me. "You said that already." I blush deeper, and he eyes me curiously. His fingers rise gently to my cheeks and then fall, a ghost of a touch that leaves the skin burning without any contact, and his gaze lingers on the rouge in my face. "You've changed."
"Of course I have," I snap. "It's been three years since I've seen you, Tobias!"
"It may have been three years since you saw me, Tris, but it hasn't been so long for me," he says. I falter. What does that mean? "I came every night for months after… after my birthday, no matter what else happened that night. I stood at the foot of your window and listened."
"Listen for what?"
He clenches his jaw. "Bea—"
"Screams," I realize. "You were listening for screams."
"And I never heard them," he says, the lump in his throat bobbing. "So, after all those months, I stopped coming, because I knew you were safe." His shoulders relax as he finishes his retelling, and for a moment, I consider lying to him. Not telling him the truth. But he trusted me with his secret once, so I understand that lying to him is just me telling him that I don't trust him anymore, that I don't care for him, that I don't… love him.
"I was quiet," I say. "The screams…"
"What?" he whispers, pain spilling into his voice. "Oh, Bea, tell me I heard that wrong. Tell me that Andrew never laid a finger on you. Tell me that I didn't fail you."
I don't answer. I can't even tell Tobias that he didn't fail me, because he did. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to push away the image of my mother, shirt quickly soaking with blood, Tobias holding a gun just feet away from her.
As much as I want to go back to how things were, I know that we never can. As much as I want to… I know that I can never forgive him.
I think that he knows that, too.
"You're not staying in Abnegation," I tell him. He shakes his head.
"I am," he replies. "I'm too cowardly to leave." But he wants to leave. He needs to. He just needs a little push.
I take a deep breath. "You're going to leave," I tell him. "Because I don't want you here anymore."
His face contorts. First it is shocked, then confused, then heart-broken. It stays that way. "Look, Bea, it's only two years—"
"Tobias."
"If I leave, then—"
I shake my head. "Go. Take your Aptitude Test, and remember what Mama told us about… you know. And then go." Both of us understand what I am telling him to do with that simple command. Maybe it would be funny to someone watching — a little girl ordering around a soon-to-be initiate. But I am not a little girl anymore; I have long since grown. And Tobias will be an initiate tomorrow — a Dauntless initiate.
Swallowing loudly, he turns and starts in the direction of the lunch room. Then he stops and turns back to me. "Will you follow?" he asks.
I hesitate as my eyes meet his. I answer, "Not today, Tobias. Maybe not even tomorrow." Before I can see his reaction, he turns and walks away.
As his frame, large yet crushed, powerless, disappears around the corner, a sinking feeling settles into my chest that I may never see him again. It's the feeling that we will never smile together again, never be so close that we share warmth between us, and suddenly those seven years we spent together are just too big a loss, too heavy a burden for my small, bruised shoulders to carry; I cry into my dry, cracked palms, ears ringing with the sound of cold air swirling through the vending machine.
Breathing hotly from my mouth, I squeeze my eyes shut and let out a small sob in a moment of weakness. It hurts; everything hurts. By now I know better than to think that I'm dying, but it still feels like it. Every damn time.
With trembling fingers, I grasp my bare thigh, pressing against the sides of the wound, and my fingers soak with blood. Robotically, I prepare the wound and pick up my tool, wincing as the cold metal touches my hot skin, pulsing as my heart pounds in my chest, reverberating through my entire body.
As the needle pierces my flesh, I swallow down a loud scream. Tears stream down my burning cheeks, and I move quickly and purposefully, stitching myself up. Pressure builds, and for a moment I think that I will explode. My toes throb.
My breathing is haggard, resembling the hiss of a predatory snake, and the back of my throat blocks itself off. When I am finished, I collapse onto my bed, lying in a puddle of my own blood, still warm.
Snores fill the house, guiltless and carefree. I clench my teeth. Right now, I want nothing more than to fall into a dreamless sleep, but if I try, I will be plagued by nightmares.
I stand, pain shooting up and down my leg, and limp through the room and down the stairs. I take each step slowly, leaning on the railing for support, careful not to pop a stitch.
The front door is blocked with the deadbolt; I can open it from inside, but the alarm will go off. If I make a break for it, he probably won't catch me. But I will have to come back. I always have to come back, and there is always punishment. My leg throbs rebelliously; this was my punishment for waking up Andrew in the morning.
Full of dread, I make my way over to the living room window and push apart the curtains. Behind them, the glass is shattered to no repair, sharp enough to cut me to shreds.
I jump through, feeling my skin tear, and cry out in pain. Clamping my hand over my mouth, I wait. The snores continue. I didn't wake him. Feeling liberated, I limp away from the house and through the grey streets. It must be an odd sight: a small Abnegation girl wearing only a large shirt with bloody legs and a bandaged thigh. I must look deranged, or dangerous, or something of the sort.
Marching forward, I reach my destination after what feels like hours: the factionless sector. I am careful to keep away from those I know: Anna, Thea, and some others they have introduced me to. They don't know my secret. I round the corner into an alleyway abandoned even by them, the abandoned themselves.
There he is, an old man hunched against the brick walls in the dark of midnight. Deep green eyes shine up at me through the black, one of them white and hazy with blindness. His ancient skin is shrivelled like an almond, a paper crane folding in on itself, and it is yellow with disease; his sloppy, knotted beard rests against his sunken ribs, caked in dirt and sweat. It is a wonder that the old man is still alive. It is a miracle. The scar along the right side of his face smiles at me, beckoning me towards him. I follow, dropping down beside him and burying my face in his neck.
"Thomas," I whisper like a whiny child, letting the pain seep into my voice. "He hurt me again."
His weak arms wrap around me. "I know he did."
"Is Tobias okay?"
He hesitates. "I don't know, sweetheart. He hasn't come since… I haven't seen Tobias since your mother salvaged him." If today is his last day in Abnegation, Tobias will surely get a parting gift from his father. I wince, and so does he.
"Why did you come back, Thomas?" I ask, leaning against the bricks. "How did you even find me? We… we searched for you for years."
"I watched over you and Tobias." Yes, I remember Thea telling us that she saw him in the forest. "You never found me because I didn't want to be found."
"But you came back."
"When you needed me to," he says.
My breathing evens out. "Why did you love Tobias?"
He grins, showing a row of missing teeth. "He's my family, Beatrice."
"Hmm?" My voice is weak, tired, and I feel myself drifting. As the sounds of the night disappear to me, I close my eyes. I remember when I found Tobias here, and how easily he fell asleep in my arms. I know now that while he fell asleep in seconds, there was horror behind his eyelids.
"Do not be blinded by love," Thomas says, not unkindly but firmly, "or you will make the same mistake that my daughter did. Take care of yourself and your daughter, and now Tobias."
The same mistake that his daughter did…
Evelyn, I think as I fade out of consciousness. Evelyn is Thomas' daughter. She made the mistake of loving Marcus. That means… Thomas is Tobias' grandfather. That is why he watches over us.
"Someday," Thomas continues, lulling me to sleep, "you will be my family, too." I want to ask Thomas if it's true, if he really is Tobias' grandfather, but… I fade.
When I wake in the morning to the harsh, blinding light of the yellow sun, the space beside me is cold and empty, the brick walls stained red from years of being painted with blood. I wonder if they were made red, or if they started out white and we ruined them.
I never see Thomas again.