A/N: Thank you readers and reviewers. You're all so lovely to welcome me. I think I like this fandom very much. So, enjoy chapter 2 (if enjoy is the right word). -Lu
AL
The water pounds at the rocks below me and it feels like the very earth should break apart with its fury. I chose the most violent place. It seems fitting and as I look down at the churning water I can't help think it's just one more cowardly act. I chose the quickest death.
Part of my brain knows it souldn't be this easy. It tells me that I deserve to suffer for my weakness. But I'm so tired of fighting my mind and it's right, I am weak, too weak to face a better death. I try not to think about what it will feel like to fall. I remember watching Christina dangling over the edge of this very spot, her fingertips white with the effort of keeping her alive. I remember the dread I felt as I watched her cling on. I remember the slow encouragement I offered her, all we could do, and I remember Tris joining in after a moment of horror-struck hesitation. I squeeze my eyes shut and turn my face to the misty spray at the thought of Tris.
She's the reason I'm doing this.
But it's not her fault.
The image of Christina hanging over the edge blurs in my mind with the image of that night; of Peter's cruel snarl and Drew's stupid glee and my own inevitable weakness. And Tris' fear as we hung her over the edge. She thought she was going to die.
I don't know why I did it. I honestly don't. There was a voice shouting- screaming- in my head the entire time but for some reason I shut it out and let my body numbly do as it pleased. I let myself be guided by Peter's insistent persuasion and cruel manipulation. I let myself be convinced that Tris deserved it and that I was doing this for the right reasons, for honourable reasons. The very thought of that now makes tears of shame prick at my eyes. How could I be so stupid?
They were the only friends I'd ever had. With shaking hands I grip the railing and haul myself over the edge. I balance on the balls of my feet against the cold metal and feel the thin railings shake as another wave of water crashes into the rock. It's all so fragile, so flimsy. All it takes is one second and everything can come crashing down.
All it takes is one decision. A droplet of blood in the wrong bowl, the sizzle as it hits the burning coals and your fate is sealed. A punch to the jaw that sends your friend down in your first fight, the gut wrenching feeling of guilt and you realise you could never do that again, and the accompanying realisation that that alone dooms you here. A misjudged night, a hand placed over a mouth to stifle screams and a twist in your heart as you realise your mistake and that it's already too late. Each time it only took one decision, one second, to lead me down this path.
Now all it will take is one more second, one more decision, and it can all be over. I will myself to release my iron grip on the railings but some primeval instinct won't let my fingers move.
I look down at the water and tell myself I want this. But I know it's a lie. I don't want what waits for me at the bottom of this long drop, whatever it is. But then I glance over my shoulder at the Pitt, at the darkness of the tunnels and I know that I want that even less. I don't want to die, I just want to live less.
I don't know if I would be standing here now if I hadn't blindly followed Peter. Perhaps I would, but it is the image of my friends that drives me most now, so perhaps I wouldn't. Even if I close my eyes I can see them standing in the doorway of the dormitory. I can see Will's eyes burning angrily at me and his hand protectively on Tris' back. I see Christina's face step up behind them both and I hear the venom in her voice as she hisses at me. They would never forgive me for what I did. We've all made mistakes but what I did was unforgivable. But most of all I see Tris' eyes searching mine as I beg her for absolution I don't deserve. I see the battle within her as her Abnegation flutters weakly in her heart but then I see that coldness glaze over her eyes and I know it's gone. I know that she is gone from me.
But she was never really there was she? I fooled myself into thinking that she was, or that perhaps she could be, but I knew on Visiting Day, when she shrugged out of my arm that she wasn't really there. Not for me, not in the way I wanted.
When she stood before me in the dorm, back by Will and Christina, the only other two people I could ever call friends, I made this decision. Not this specifically, but I knew I couldn't do it anymore- the cold, endless nights that tormented by brain and the long, painful days where everything I did and everything I touched seemed to turn to dust.
"Stay away from me." Her cold, vicious whispers rings in my brain and it must send a message to my limbs, because the fingers of my left hand begin to loosen slightly on the bar. I open my eyes again and stare straight ahead and the dark nothingness before me, determined not to look down at the swirling water below.
"Never come near me again." In the darkness I see the pure hatred in her eyes, not fear, not anger, not resentment- only hatred. A sob escaped my mouth and is swallowed instantly by the noise of the Chasm. The fingers on my right hand begin to loosen as well.
"If you do, I swear to God I will kill you...".I inhale a deep breath, the cold mist catching in the back of my throat and sending icy daggers down into my lungs, down into my heart. I know the word that came next. It is imprinted on in the inside of my brain. I see it burning blood red every time I close my eyes. It hurts every inch of my body, not because it is false, but because it is true. It is so true. I have never been anything more than it and I never will be. I could spend a hundred years throwing myself in front of knives and beating weaker people in unconsciousness and it would never change. It's as much a part of my soul as anything these factions tell me, perhaps more. It lies at the very core of me.
"Coward!" I almost hear her voice hiss the word in the darkness and with it I release my grip entirely from the railing. My knees bend and push away from the rock and with a tense moment of suspension I sail out over the nothingness. It feels like I could hover here forever. But then there is a sickening drop and I am falling, falling, falling away into nothing...