Trigger warning: brief mention of sexual assault in this chapter.
When I walked out of Myron's office I found Eric in the hallway, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. His eyes hold a silent question, and even though I am terrified to trust anyone I simply nod and he stands to follow me into my room.
This time I gesture towards my bed and we sit side by side with our backs against the wall.
"You can talk to me you know?" He says, breaking the silence between us.
"You have your own issues."
"I'm here because I can't remember my issues. You're here because of something else. It's okay if you want to talk." He replies.
The silence between us is thick, but not uncomfortable and I pull my legs up to my chest and wrap my arms around them, resting my chin on my knees. I feel Eric's hand on my arm, tracing patterns across my freckled skin and my eyes meet his.
"Is this okay?" He asks and I nod, "I mean it, Tris. It's not just an offer; I want to know you."
It's not an admission that I expected, and it's times like this that I have to remind myself that this isn't the Eric Coulter I knew in Dauntless.
"I called a friend. He was..." I steady myself, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, "he was seriously injured during the war. I thought he was going to die too."
"He's okay?"
"He's going to be, yeah." I reply before scrubbing tears from my face.
"That's a good thing right?" He asks.
"Yeah."
There is silence between us again, and I'm surprised when I feel Eric wipe tears from my cheeks, "You and I really weren't friends before this?" He asks.
I shake my head, "No."
"Think we can be now?" He asks me.
I think about him, sitting here in a mental institution with me, obviously memory wiped and stripped of his identity. The only person who ever told me Eric was involved in a war is my dead boyfriend, who I've just learned is very much alive, and has left me here to rot.
"Oh my god... oh my god... he knows I'm here...he left me here." I choke out.
I don't realize I'm sobbing until I feel Eric's arm around me and I bury my face in his neck, weeping. This isn't me, this situation isn't us, there's never been a caring bone in his body but in this abyss of grey where everyone thinks I'm crazy he's the only piece of my former home I have.
"I'm so sorry." I say as I try to pull away from him and he just holds me tighter.
"It's okay. This place is a shit show, and everyone deserves a good cry." He replies softly.
"I feel like I'm constantly falling apart." I whisper.
"There's a reason you're here, Tris. I will never judge you for it, whatever led you to make the decisions you made, okay? When it gets to heavy, let someone else help carry it." Eric says quietly.
We sit there, neither talking, both watching the shadows creep in. We hear the announcements, and skip all of our optional recreation activity until we're forced to get ready for our mandatory group therapy session.
"Hey Paul?" I use his new name timidly, needing to get used to its sound.
"You know my actual name." He complains.
I sigh, "I'm not sure it's a good idea for me to use it yet."
"Fair enough." He sighs, "What were you going to say?"
"Thank you. For today, for just being here and knowing how to just... be..." I shrug.
His lips quirk up briefly, not unlike the smirks he used to suppress when I did something that challenged his ego back in Dauntless. Before, it drove me nuts.
Here, it's comforting.
"It's what friends do, right?" He asks and I nod.
"Yeah, I guess we do."
We have therapy with Murray again, and I see a few new faces, but still no one I recognize. This time, Eric chooses to sit next to me, and when they get to him he actually opens up a little.
"I'm Paul, or at least that's what they tell me. I don't remember shit, and it makes me crazy."
"Now Paul," Murray speaks up, his nervous tic even more noticeable today, with his strange voice inflection, "we're not here because we're crazy. We're here because we need help facing our demons."
"I'm here because I don't remember my demons." Eric argues.
"Why?" A small older woman asks from across the circle.
"If I knew that do you think I'd fucking be here?" He growls.
"Paul, it would be better if you could keep your voice even. What can the group do to help you with your pain?" Murray asks.
"Do you think any of you can help me? I don't remember shit, this city, my city, went to war and I apparently have some bullshit trauma but I don't remember any of it!" Eric answers angrily.
"Dude this ain't your city, your dumb ass think you still in Chicago. You in my city now, bitch, and I dare you to try some dumb shit!" Another man spits and I can feel Eric tense next to me.
"What do you mean he thinks he's still in Chicago?" I ask and all eyes are on me.
"Did they not tell you they shipped your worthless asses out of the city that people like you two helped burn to the ground?" A girl asks me.
"What?" I murmur.
"Poor little suicidal fake-ass war hero." She smirks at me.
"Shut UP!" I yell.
"Ladies, we need to keep our calm voices, we don't need to attack each other-" Murray tries to intervene but I feel myself trying to stand.
A firm on my arm stops me, and I look over to see Eric's worried face, "Fuck them." He murmurs.
I let him pull me into my seat and when I do he moves closer to me, "We need to figure out where the fuck we are." He whispers in my ear.
My body is trembling and Eric drops an arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer to him. He's warm, and the panic I normally feel when touched by the opposite sex is completely absent when Eric touches me. He's the first man I've let touch me while I was sober since the incident at the chasm, and my stomach turns over at the thought.
"Cute couple, they can have a mental hospital wedding and have some crazy ass kids-"
"That's enough!" Murray shouts, and I can see the sweat beads forming on his ruddy face, "Session dismissed, you're all to return to your rooms."
Murray sends us all out separately, and Eric smirks back at me, "My place is closer."
For a moment, he's exactly as I remember. I nod and silently follow him. We're intercepted before l can make it there, and I'm escorted back to my own room due to the mandatory quiet time before bed. Fuck Murray. Fuck those people in that group. Fuck this place.
Alone in my room, it's just me and my thoughts. Tobias was alive, after I watched him be shot during the war. I can't understand how that was possible at all. He wasn't breathing when Peter dragged me out of that room. He never moved.
He also never came back to Dauntless, and we were all told he was dead. Why hasn't he tried calling me? Why was it Uriah to reach out and not him? Why did no one else care?
When the war finally ended, I was hailed as some sort of hero, however all I could think about was the loss. Will killed my mother in an alleyway in Abnegation and I killed him immediately afterward as he turned his rifle on me. My father was shot when I finally made it into Dauntless, where I found a mind-controlled Tobias running a simulation.
Then, they shot Tobias right in front of me, and I knew they had killed him. Except that they didn't?
"He's not alive, he's dead." I say out loud, and my voice just dies in the concrete room. I start screaming those words over and over, and punching the walls, not understanding that the streaks of red I see on the bland grey walls are from my bleeding knuckles. I don't think when they burst into my room and I thrash against them, fighting for my survival like I did when I was being held over the edge of the chasm as Al forced his disgusting dick inside of me, I scream at them like Christina did to me when she heard I killed her boyfriend during the testimony I gave in Candor where I was forced to admit to it under the fiery burn of the truth serum.
And just like that day in Erudite with a mad woman, a needle is jabbed into the side of my neck and this time I only see darkness.
I feel warm skin against mine, and the chill of a cool wet cloth gently wiping against my hands. The room is completely dark, and my eyes can't adjust.
"Eric?" I ask.
"Yeah." He replies softly, "Your knuckle might be broken."
"It doesn't matter, pain is just pain." I take the water he offers and when I'm done he continues to clean my hands. It's quiet, and I realize it's our mandated lights out time, "How are you in here?"
"I've figured out their patrols. It's all timing." He replies.
"Your Erudite still shows." I reply and I can finally see his face in the dim light that filters in through the closed blinds and under my door.
"I wish I remembered what that even means."
"What have they told you about your memory?" I ask him.
"PTSD. It's bullshit and I know it, but everything is jumbled in my head." He replies.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know what's real or fake." He admits.
"They said we're not in Chicago during group therapy, you heard that right?" I ask and he sighs.
"I did, but to be honest I had no idea where we are. You thought we were still there?" He asks me.
"Yes. We were always told that the wall was to protect us, and there was nothing left outside of the wall. Why would they send us outside of Chicago?"
"I don't know, but I damn sure want to find out." He replies stoically.
"Me too." I admit.
Eric stares at me, and he reaches a hand for my cheek, running a finger under my eye to wipe my tears. He leans towards me and I panic, backing away and curling against the wall my bed is pressed against.
"I'm sorry." He says as he too backs away, "I should go."
I don't say anything as he stands, and I let him leave without saying a word.