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THE NEXT CHAPTER IS WHAT ALL OF YOU BEEN WAITING FOR.
CHAPTER XVI. There's no Fun in this Funeral
FOUR
"Four! Four!" I open my eyes to see Christina over me. Her eyes are red and puffy; she's been crying. I groan.
"If this is just you complaining about your hangover, I don't want to hear about it,"
"I wasn't drunk. I didn't even drink anything," She says.
I raise my eyebrows. "Then why'd Will and I have to carry you here?"
She blushes. "I like being carried by Will. I like him! You should know. But that's not important. Four, Al jumped."
My teasing attitude disappears. I am in shock. "W-What?" I whisper.
"He jumped in the chasm." I run out the door with Christina at my heels and I run, run to the chasm.
There I see Peter and his trio, so I know he didn't do it.
He wasn't Divergent either, according to his rank, so it wasn't murder.
Three men use a rope to haul up his body out of the chasm. They pull out a body bag that is way too small, and I laugh in hysterics.
Al is a good friend. No, was. Is to was is shifting from life to death. He was my attacker, but also my friend.
Eric, Max, and the other leader arrive on the scene. They announce that because of his death, there will be no training for his funeral.
I run.
I run with tears forming on my eyes to the dining hall. In there, I find Uriah, Lynn, Marlene, Joey, Gabe, and Zalia sitting and laughing. They see me on the verge of tears and run to me.
"What happened?!" Uriah says. I shake my head, and restrain from crying. He hugs me.
I love him. Not in the way that I love, or like, well, maybe love, Tobias; but as a brotherly figure.
"Al suicided- jumped into the chasm." Christina says.
"Oh." Everyone says.
"Training's cancelled for the funeral today." I say.
-o0o-
I walk with Christina and Will to the Pit; where Al's funeral is being held. Everyone in Dauntless crowd around, holding beers or drinks. Eric stands up on a table and the room falls silent.
"Al may have not been one of our best, but he was Dauntless," He goes on and says more things about him. When the funeral is turned into an occasion where people get drunk again, I lose it. I storm out into a hallway, and I bump into a wall. I look up.
Nope. It's Tobias.
I blush at the memory of the first time it happened.
"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be paying your respects?" I spit out the words as if they are poison in my mouth.
"Shouldn't you?" He counters.
"Can't pay respect when you don't have any," I immediately take back my words. "I didn't mean it like that,"
"Ah," He doesn't sound like he believes me.
"This is ridiculous," I clench my fists. "He throws himself off a ledge and Eric's calling it brave? Eric, who tried to have you throws knives at Al's head?" I shake my head. "He wasn't brave! He was depressed and a coward and he almost killed me! Is that the kind of thing we respect here?"
Tobias takes in a deep breath. "What do you want them to do? Condemn him? Al's already dead. He can't hear about it, and it's too late." He says.
"It's not about Al," I snap, and I notice he flinches. I feel bad, but I am too mad at Eric and Al. "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…"
I shake my head. My heartbeat picks up.
"It's not fair." I say.
"Careful, Four," Tobias looks at something behind me. I just notice that we are in the hallway where the drinking fountain is, the same hallway Al helped capture me from. I feel the tears prickling my eyes again.
"Is that all you say? That I should be careful? That's it?" I exclaim. He rolls his eyes and grabs my arm, dragging me away from the hallway. The spark shoots through my veins, but not now.
"You're as bad as the Candor, you know that?" He sighs.
I try to resist his drag, but I give up after I get bored. He puts his hands on my shoulder, and squeezes them tight. He sticks his face so close to mine that if he'd lean down any further, our noses would touch. I blush.
"I'm not going to say this again, so listen carefully. They are watching you. You in particular." He says quickly and quietly. I gulp. They? The Dauntless leaders and Erudite are watching me for my Divergence? It seemed like it when Eric was talking to that mysterious woman. I hope they don't know about Marcus.
"Are they watching you too?" I say deathly quiet.
"I keep trying to help you, but you refuse to be helped." he says, ignoring my question.
I scoff. "But why were you taunting me and always yell at me more than anyone else?!"
He sighs softly. "Taunting you? You mean when I threw the knives. I wasn't taunting you. I was reminding you that if you failed, someone else would have to take your place."
"Why?"
"Because you're from Abnegation," I wish I wasn't anywhere near Marcus. "And it's when you're acting selfless that you are at your bravest." I understand him now.
Selflessness and bravery aren't all that different.
"If I were you, I would do a better job of making that impulse go away, because if the wrong people discover it…well it won't be good for you."
I nod.
"But why? Why do they care about my intentions?" I ask.
"Intentions are the only thing they care about. They try to make you think they care about what you do, 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 gulp.
My Divergence.
Erudite.
Jeanine.
"I don't understand why they care what I think, as long as I'm acting how they want me to." I mumble.
"You're acting how they want you to know, but what happens when you're selfless impulse tells you to do something else, something they don't want." He says softly.
"I might not need you to help me. Ever think about that? I'm not weak, you know. I ca do this on my own." I defiantly say. He smiles.
"You think my first instinct is to protect you. Because you're a girl, or a Stiff. But you're wrong."
He leans in close to my face, and gently wraps his fingers around my chin.
"My first instinct is to push you until you break, just to see how hard I have to press," His breath falls short. "But I resist it." What does that mean?
"Why…" I swallow. "Why is that your first instinct?"
"Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up. I've seen it. Even if it affected you badly on the first day of fears, it's fascinating." His hand loses his grip on my chin and strokes the back of my neck, where the tattoos show. I tense and my heart rate explodes.
"Sometimes I just…" His voice sounds wistful. "Want to see it again. Want to see you awake." His voice grows quiet. I gulp, and I have a mental war in my head. Should I do it?
Yes.
I'm Dauntless.
I do something daring. I set my hands on his waist, stringing my thumbs in his belt loops of his jeans, the tips of my fingers touching his muscles on his back. The electricity explodes in my body, and I feel blood creeping onto my face.
He places his hand on the small of my scar-filled back gently, and pulls me against him. He runs the other hand through my hair.
I bury my head into his shoulder. He rests his chin softly on my head.
"I should've forgiven him, do you think he would be alive now if I had?" I lift my head, only pressing my forehead to his shirt. I look down at our feet, nearly intertwined.
"I don't know." He puts strokes my cheek.
"I feel like it's my fault," I quietly say, holding back tears.
"It isn't your fault," He bends down and our foreheads press. Every inch of my body is electric.
"But I should have. I should have forgiven him. Al, my friend, my attacker…" I mumble.
"Maybe," Tobias says. "Maybe there's more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time." An Abnegation saying.
"Do you ever miss Abnegation?" I ask. I sincerely don't. But knowing Tobias, he has Caleb, who I think transferred to Erudite, and his mother and father, Natalie and Andrew.
"It doesn't matter. This is where I am now. Something you would do well to remember for yourself." He's right.
I hug him tighter and he places his soft lips on my forehead.
There is only one way to describe how I feel.
I feel on fire.
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~TrissyPoo