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Chapter 18

I wake in the morning to Lauren shaking me.

"What are you doing in here?" I ask her. "What time is it?"

"Come on, we have to get down to the chasm, someone took a dive last night. Looks like one of the initiates."

"Who?" My heart sinks. For a moment I'm terrified that Peter finished what he started.

"I'm not sure, definitely one of the boys from the transfers though. I already went in and checked on the Dauntless-borns to make sure they were all there."

I throw on a clean shirt and shoes and Lauren and I run down to the chasm just in time to see them pull Al over the railing. He is battered and bruised from being knocked around on the rocks by the water, but it is definitely him.

"What happened to him? He seemed like such a nice strong boy when he got here. Then he is part of the attack on the Stiff and now this?" sobs Lauren.

"He was weak, that is all. He couldn't handle any of it." I say. "He didn't fight because he couldn't handle knocking someone out. He attacked Tris because he couldn't handle the strength that she was showing in spite of her fears. And he killed himself because he couldn't live with what he did to her."

I see Tris with Christina, over by the chasm. Christina is sobbing and has a grip on Tris' arm as they watch the scene in front of them. Tris sinks to the ground, dragging Christina with her. She looks like she is ready to break into a million pieces. Just as I am ready to go and see her, she breaks away from Christina's embrace and runs. I watch her run barefoot across the Pit toward the tattoo parlor. She is going to see Tori, There isn't a better place for her to go right now.

XXX

Later on all of Dauntless fills the Pit for Al's funeral. I go down and stand near the chasm and watch as the initiates fill in around it. Tris walks out of the tattoo parlor with Tori and finds her friends standing together. Christina is crying on Will's shoulder and he holds her close and comforts her. Uriah is holding a silver flask, he offers it to Tris but she shakes her head. I am close enough to hear the beginning of an altercation. Molly chooses this moment to antagonize Tris. I hear her say something about Tris' father and Tris turns and her fist connects with Molly's jaw. Molly tries to lunge at Tris but Will stop her and yells at them to stop.

Eric begins by talking about bravery, or what he thinks is bravery. He talks about Al as being brave enough to take that step into the unknown. It is the same speech every time someone takes a dive into the chasm and it angers me every time I hear it.

Suddenly I see Tris leave the group and run away down one of the halls. I decide to follow to see if she is okay. I find her at the end of one of the hallways near a drinking fountain under a blue light. I know there is a camera in this blue light, so I have to do my best to stop her from saying anything she shouldn't say and get her to move away from it with me.

"Tris," I say.

She jolts her head up and turns to look at me.

"What are you doing here?" she asks. "Shouldn't you be paying your respects?"

"Should you?" I ask stepping closer to her.

"Can't pay respect when you don't have any," she says in a hollow tone. She shakes her head. "I didn't mean that."

"Ah." That's my only reply. I understand what she is feeling. In Abnegation, Al's actions wouldn't be considered brave, they would be considered selfish.

"This is ridiculous," she says frustrated with everything. "He throws himself off a ledge and Eric's calling it brave? Eric, who tried to have you throw knives at Al's head?" She closes her mouth and breathes. "He wasn't brave! He was depressed and a coward and he almost killed me! Is that the kind of thing we respect here?"

"What do you want them to do?" I ask keeping my voice calm and even. "Condemn him? Al's already dead. He can't hear it and it's too late."

"It's not about Al," she says angrily. "It's about everyone watching! Everyone who now sees hurling themselves into the chasm as a viable option. I mean, why not do it if everyone calls you a hero afterward? Why not do it if everyone will remember your name? It's…I can't…"

"This would never have happened in Abnegation!" She shouts, and shakes a bit. "None of it! Never. This place warped him and ruined him, and I don't care if saying that makes me a Stiff, I don't care, I don't care!"

I think about the camera that is right above the water fountain; it is monitoring us now.

"Careful, Tris," I say, my eyes glancing up toward the camera.

"Is that all you can say?" she snaps. "That I should be careful?That's it?"

"You're as bad as the Candor, you know that?" I grab her arm around the elbow, and pull her down the hall away from the camera. I know I'm grasping her arm too tightly but I feel a sense of urgency here. She tries to pull away but I am much stronger than her.

I lean in close to her, I can feel her breath against my face, even as she struggles to break free, but right now, we are still in sight of the camera. "I'm not going to say this again, so listen carefully." I take hold of her shoulders and grip them tightly. "They are watching you. You in particular."

"Let go of me," she says faintly.

I do as she says, and my body stiffens.

"Are they watching you, too?" she asks in the same, hushed voice.

They are, they always have, but I'm not going to tell her that. She is in enough danger without that bit of information. Why does she have to be so stubborn? She needs to listen to me. "I keep trying to help you," I say, "but you refuse to be helped."

"Oh, right. Your help," her voice is heated. "Stabbing my ear with a knife and taunting me and yelling at me more than you yell at anyone else, it sure if helpful."

Why doesn't she get it? "Taunting you? You mean when I threw the knives? I wasn't taunting you," I bark." I was reminding you that if you failed, someone else would have to take your place."

She looks at me. "Why?"

"Because you're from Abnegation," I say, "and it's when you're acting selflessly that you are at your bravest." She finally seems to get it.

"If I were you, I would do a better job of pretending that selfless impulse is going away," I say, "because if the wrong people discover it…well, it won't be good for you."

"Why? Why do they care about my intentions?" she asks.

"Intentions are the only thing they care about. They try to make you think they care about what you do, but they don't. They don't want you to act a certain way. They want you to think a certain way. So you're easy to understand. So you won't pose a threat to them." I place my hand out on the wall next to her head and lean in closer. I'm worried, it is only a matter of time before that look at her like she is a threat.

"I don't understand," she says, "why they care what I think, as long as I'm acting how they want me to."

"You're acting how they want you to now," I say, "but what happens when your Abnegation- wired brain tells you to do something else, something they don't want?"

She thinks about this for a moment before looking up at me. "I might not need you to help me. Ever think about that?" she asks. "I'm not weak, you know. I can do this one my own."

I shake my head. I know she's strong, but she still doesn't understand. "You think my first instinct is to protect you. Because you're small, or a girl, or a Stiff. But you're wrong."

I lean in close to her and curl my fingers around her chin. Her skin is soft against my rough hand. "My firstinstinct is to push you until you break, just to see how hard I have to press," I say tightening my hand a bit. She has no idea how fascinating it is to see her fight for what she wants. "But I resist it."

"Why…" she stops to swallow."Why is that your first instinct?"

"Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up. I've seen it. It's fascinating." I move my hand across her jaw, gliding down her neck. My heart is pounding and my stomach is full of butterflies. "Sometimes I just… want to see it again. Want to see you awake."

She looks alive and her eyes shine with electricity. Her hands move to my waist and she pulls herself tight against me, she wraps her delicate arms around me, her fingers skimming my back. I feel a surge of electrical energy pulse through me at her touch.

I pull her in closer, my hand touching the small of her back and the other hand runs through her hair. The closer I bring her to me, I can feel her warmth spreading throughout my body.

I have longed for this kind of affection. I feel like I could do anything so long as I have her at my side to help me. She is everything that I have always wanted, smart, brave, talented, and different from any other girl I have ever met. Most of all she is uncontrollable. She won't conform to one standard, because she doesn't believe in just one standard, much like me.

"Should I be crying?" she asks, her warm breath seeping into my shirt. "Is there something wrong with me?"

"You think I know anything about tears?" I ask softly. She presses her forehead to my shoulder.

"If I had forgiven him," she says, "do you think he would be alive now?"

"I don't know," I say. Al was cracking during the first round; he completely broke in the second round. I should have seen it coming. I place my hand over her cheek and she turns her face into it. Her grip on my waist tightens and I can feel her need to make sure there is no space left between us.

"I feel like it's my fault."

I tilt her head up to look at me; I place my forehead against hers. "It isn't your fault," I say.

"But I should have. I should have forgiven him."

"Maybe. Maybe there's more we all could have done," I say, "but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time."

She looks at me startled and then I realize why. I just repeated a lesson from one of the lectures that were given frequently in Abnegation, a lecture that her father gave.

"What faction did you come from, Four?" she asks.

"It doesn't matter," I say, not meeting her eyes. "This is where I am now. Something you would do well to remember for yourself."

I look at her sadly and feel a desperate aching in the pit of my stomach. I want to share everything about me with her. I want to pull her close to me again, hold her tightly, and kiss her.

I touch my lips to her forehead and she closes her eyes. Neither of us move for a long time, my lips to her head and her hands wrapped around my waist.