It takes basically all my strength not to turn and watch Caleb walk away. I have a feeling that I'm never going to see him again, and I know that feeling has no basis in reality but it doesn't help. My chest is aching and my stomach is twisting into knots. I try to go back to eating dinner, but Four's eyes are burrowing into the top of my head and I can feel my temperature rising. He's suspicious of me. He's been staring at me since Caleb told his pre-planned lie in the least convincing way possible. Poor Caleb. He looked like he might faint. I almost laughed at him but then I remembered that saving him from his own lie was in my best interests as well.
I can't taste my food and I wish Caleb and I had just stayed in the woods together. Eventually everyone would have stopped looking for us and we could have forgotten about them. He feels so far away from me now, like it never happened, like he never existed. I wish Four would stop staring at me. I want him to get up from the table and run after his stupid girlfriend and leave me here alone so I can learn to breathe and try to discourage my heart from thundering against the walls of my chest.
"Peter." Four's voice is a brick wall. "I don't know what is happening between you and Caleb, but it needs to stop. Now." I grind my teeth to keep them from chattering. I can't breathe. "I hope you're taking me seriously here, Peter." I can't fucking breathe. I try to get up from the table. I have to get away from Four. On my way up from the table I hit my knee, hard, and my plate and silverware go flying. The skin on my face is hot and there is acid in my throat. I can't breathe. What is happening to me? This isn't the way rage usually feels to me. I feel like I'm on fire with it, my stomach and my skin. The air that's coming in through my nostrils and open mouth is hot and bitter and vanishes before it ever reaches my lungs. I think I might pass out. I don't want to pass out in front of Four. I have to get this under control. I grab the edge of the table to steady myself and look at the ground. I think of Caleb's fingers running through my hair. I think of the smell of his sweat through his borrowed shirt. I think of the soft sigh he makes when I kiss him. I think of the cold, clear water in the Amity shower, and the feeling of Caleb's eyes on me. I think of the gratitude in his eyes, the forgiveness, the acceptance. I breathe.
I take another deep breath and then risk a glance at Four. He has a strange look on his face, like he's offended by the way I've behaved. That's not it though. Four's face translates emotions in a very strange way. He's worried. Concerned. Well that makes a little sense. If I felt like I was having a heart attack, I probably looked like I was having a heart attack. I take another breath, trying not to sound as desperate for air as I feel. Suddenly I remember Tris punching me in the throat and I manage a smile. "I don't know what you mean, Four." The look of worry drops from his face and is replaced with something more recognizable, anger. "Peter, this isn't a joke. Caleb is Tris's brother. She's very protective of him." I laugh. "She's barely spoken to the kid since she got his parents killed." Four stands up, fast. I hope he doesn't want to fight. If we fight right now, I'm going to get my ass kicked. I'm breathing again, in a near-regular fashion but I'm still sick to my stomach and shaky, like I haven't eaten all day.
"Peter." Brick wall again. I should learn to do that with my voice. "Pick on someone else." I shake my head and start to gather my fallen plate and silverware. "I'm not doing anything wrong." I say it, but it sounds false to me. I'm not doing anything wrong? I can feel the acid rising in my throat again. I close my eyes and think of Caleb laughing, laughing to the point of tears. I'm not doing anything wrong. I think of kissing him, his hand on my neck and drawing me in. I'm not doing anything wrong. I think of slamming my fist against his jaw, knocking him to the ground, beating him with both my fists as he lay curled and defenseless. I'm not doing anything...
And then Four is grabbing me by the back of my neck. We're both crouched on the ground behind the table, out of sight of anyone who might see this as a violation of our terms with our peaceful hosts. Four's not an idiot. He leans in close to my ear, with his fingers gripping so hard they are painting bruises on the side of my neck. "Peter, I couldn't touch you, back in Dauntless when you messed with Tris, but things have changed now." He grips me even harder and I keep my eyes closed but I will not wince. "Let me be clear. I will not allow you to cause her any more pain. I will not allow it." I'm impressed. I never thought that Four was as scary as everyone else did, during initiation, but I can hear it now. There is violence in his voice. Violence like there is in me, dark and unrelenting.
He releases his grip on my neck and stands. As he starts to walk away, I call out to him. I don't mean to do it. I surprise myself. "Do you ever worry that you'll hurt her?" He turns and looks at me. "Even though you care about her, that you won't be able to stop yourself?" I don't stand, I'm not sure I even can. I need an answer to this question. Is what I'm doing that wrong? Do monsters get to have beautiful things or must they stay always in the company of monsters? Can we be redeemed, made whole by other people's goodness? I wonder if Four knows. I wonder if he even knows that he's a monster. I look into his face and his eyes go hollow. He stares down at me in silence for a long moment. "Peter, we are not the same." He waits for me to take this in. "Stay away from Caleb, I will not tell you again." And then he leaves.
I pick up my dishes, and stand. I feel like my body has no substance, like I could pass through walls and other people without too much effort. I don't get to test this theory because people keep darting out of my path as I leave the dome. People always do this, everywhere I go, they get out of my way. I've always enjoyed that, but now I wonder why? Can they smell my predatory nature?
I speed up. I need to be out of here, somewhere where there aren't any people around. Somewhere quiet and dim. Maybe I'll go back to the woods, to sit and grind my knuckles into the dirt until I can empty myself out and feel numb again. And this time I won't be interrupted by a tall, beautiful, dumb stiff with a harpy for a sister.
As I'm veering off towards the woods, I see the shed where I took Caleb once. It's dark and quiet in there, and warm enough to doze off in. The door is open, and I drift in. As my eyes adjust I take in the row of rusty tools and some stacked crates filled with vegetables. I see a pile of big empty sacks in a corner and I drop down onto them, curl into myself and close my eyes. I try to conjure a clear picture of Caleb's sweet face but all I find in my mind is the dark bruise I pressed into his jaw. I touch it with my finger and it darkens, but he doesn't flinch. I lean in to kiss it and he smiles at me, but when I pull back, the bruise spreads like ink across his face. I watch as it darkens his skin, his lips, and his gentle eyes. He opens his mouth and says my name. "Peter." The bruise pours out of his open lips, wine-colored, thick as tar.
"Peter." He's saying my name again. How can he talk with purple tar dripping out of his mouth? How can he talk when his whole face is a shiny bruise? He can't talk, he's on the ground and he isn't moving. He can't talk. "Peter?" His voice sounds kind of far away. I feel his hand on my shoulder but I'm looking at him and he isn't touching me. "Peter, wake up." Oh, I get it now. I open my eyes, and there's Caleb. He's not laying on the ground, and his face is a normal color. Not a normal color. A Caleb color. A beautiful color. I want to pull him down onto the sacks with me and look at it up close. There's something stopping me, though. I am thinking about the way the bruise spread over his jaw, across his cheeks and his lips and into the corners of his eyes. I shouldn't be anywhere near his face. I take a breath.
"What do you want, Stiff?" I brush his hand off my shoulder and start to sit up.
"No, Peter. We're not doing that anymore."
"Sorry, what?"
"We're not going to go back and pretend that today didn't happen. I care about you. You care about me. That part is done. Okay?" He kneels down in front of me and looks me in the eyes. "We need to talk about Tris and Four."
His hand is resting on my knee. He really has no idea who I am, how much danger he is in.
"Oh we're done with that, huh? That's all taken care of?" My mind is made up, but my heart is trying to escape my chest in all directions, out of my throat or directly through my ribcage.
I stand. "Peter?" His eyes are wide, a little confused. He's not scared yet. He will be. There's this thing inside me that I have been keeping locked away. I had wished that Caleb would never see it, but I'm not lucky that way. I breathe him in, this image of him, his eyes fixed on me, without fear or judgement, for one last second. I hold it in my mind, and then I empty my mind, my self of everything but the rage. I feel the hot, sticky adrenaline flooding through me. My heart is pounding. My mind is ice. I wrap my hand around Caleb's throat and stand, pushing him in front of me. I slam him against the wall. We've been here before. I reach behind me and find the rack of rusty hatchets and spades and grab the nearest, sharpest thing. I show it to him, a smile on my face.
"You honestly think this happened because I care about you?" I think I'm doing a good job keeping the tremor out of my voice. "This happened because I enjoy causing pain to your stupid sister, and I thought going after her brother was an exciting new way to achieve that." I trace the sharp edge of the spade along his exposed collarbone. I do not think about how much I would rather be tracing that ridge with my fingers, or my tongue. I do not think about the smell of his skin, or the softness of his lips, or the sound of the little breath he releases when I kiss him. Kissed him. That's in the past now. It has to be in the past.
"It's okay, Peter." His voice doesn't tremble at all. It's cool like sunlight through new leaves. I raise the spade and point the tip at his eye. "Peter, it's okay." He doesn't flinch. He doesn't even blink. His breathing is even, his muscles relaxed. I can feel his elevated pulse under the arm I use to pin him to the wall. "Peter, it's okay."
"You don't know what you're talking about!" I scream. "You don't know what you're doing!"
"I trust you." he says simply. "Peter."
The spade tumbles out of my hand to the ground and just for a second, I see his lower lip tremble. I don't know what to do now. He's staring at me and I wish I was on fire. I wish I was burning from the outside instead of from within. I manage to choke out one word before I collapse to the dirt floor of the shed. "Caleb." and then I'm on my knees, trying to breathe in between gagging and coughing. What is happening to me? What am I becoming?