What if tragedy is all we have…?
It will be my undoing if I become my obsession.
Even at 18 years old and within the comfort of my own home I can't completely shed the habits that fight with the rebelliousness of my nature. But I have to take a good look at myself, I spent the last ten hours running my hands over my head in an attempt to stifle the screams that truly urged their way out of me.
The hair that I neatly arranged in a bun in the morning now plays loose, like the evidence of the failure that this day means, actually, this and every one of the last two weeks...
Days like today I wish I was bold enough to break the most insignificant of rules in front of my father; even though we no longer live together, every week we gather to share dinner along with my mother, and even though we see each other every day at work, spending time with them makes me feel as if years haven't passed and I'm still a little girl. So as much as I want to let my hair down and rest the burden of the day in front of my parents, it's an act of rebellion that to this day I can only afford with my mother.
I am 18 years old and if I had been braver, I would have chosen to change faction when I was 16; I wasn't, I wanted to with all my heart but as fate would have it that year we were all called up starting with the last one on the list, which made my brother Caleb pass before me. If I hadn't had to listen to my mother's stifled sobbing next to me and if I hadn't seen my father contain deep inside him the mixture of loathing and disappointment upon hearing that Caleb was choosing to transfer to Erudit, then I could have chosen my lifelong dream: to be a part of Dauntless.
But I learned long ago not to live on the "what ifs." The first few months after the election ceremony were the worst. My initiation was a nightmare, between the tasks we were assigned that did nothing but be tedious, one more than the last one, and having to be careful all the time not to show the fact that in reality Abnegation is not the only faction I have an aptitude for.
When my father suggested, I'm sure after seeing how depressed I was, to continue my training so I could choose a job closer to the government and told me about ambassadors, I knew it was the only way to satisfy my erudite side a bit. Ambassadors have the opportunity to interact with ambassadors from other factions and with the leadership. When I was 16 years old, visits were still allowed between factions so that they could establish agreements or explain their disagreements or doubts before the meetings at The Hub; but since I finished my training as an ambassador and started to practice, no visits have been made to any faction. Now we only hold meetings on one of the 100 floors of The Hub.
I am awakened from my own memories by the knock on the door. The table should be set, and ready to place the food that my mother kindly offered to prepare for our dinner, as she knows that my father and I have worked quite hard in the last few weeks and I don't have the strength or the energy to be the perfect hostess that my faction demands of me, so I don't worry too much about looking relaxed. We'll set the table together and I'll hold my tongue for any response that wants to slip out when my father questions my manners.
"Beatrice, sweet girl. We hope we won't intrude by arriving a few minutes before the appointed time" my mother hugs me as she hands me one of the baskets in which she brings our dinner.
"Not at all, I was just starting to set the table" I try to stifle the sigh of relief that provides me with an excuse for my lack of self-denial.
"Beatrice" My father enters and holds his hand on my shoulder for a few seconds as a sign of affection. We have seen each other all day at work, no need to extend courtesies.
He takes a seat in my living room while my mother and I hurry to set up the table and place the food to begin dinner. As the three of us sit down at the table my father asks "Won't Robert be joining us tonight?" I have to cough to mask a whimper that involuntarily comes out of my mouth. My father takes every opportunity to talk about Robert Black, ever since he asked my father's permission a month ago to court me, he has tried, unsuccessfully, to get Robert and I to spend every minute of my free time together.
"No, we agreed to meet tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to help him a bit in the warehouse putting together packages for the factionless" My mother smiles but my father doesn't look convinced. It's not that Robert is a bad person or that I don't want to spend time with him because he makes me too nervous. In Abnegation tradition dictates that the suitor asks permission to court to the father or mother first, depending on who is in charge, and then asks the girl in question. I don't really like Robert, I've never found him attractive and we've never had a connection that would make me float and turn my stomach picturing our lives together. When Robert asked to pursue me with romantic interest, though always in Abnegation we have the option to decline the proposal, in my case there was no question left, my father urged me to accept.
"Beatrice, remember that a good courtship needs effort on both sides. The Blacks are a good family and it would do you well if the entire faction knew that their aspiring leader makes the best decisions even within the privacy of her home" That is the reason why in the future I will be Beatrice Black instead of Prior. I've been training for a year now to one day replace Marcus Eaton as leader, not just of Abnegation but of Chicago in general.
The idea was, at first, far-fetched. Getting Marcus to agree was a challenge, after that he's been pretty tyrannical about me being the perfect member of Abnegation, which means that being an adult female, an official member of this faction, my single status can only last so long.
"Oh believe me, I remember it well" I try not to let the irony show in my tone of voice "We've been working so hard these past few weeks that Susan wanted to spend time with her family too, so we've agreed to spend time together tomorrow. If all goes well, we will also find a beneficial activity to see each other on Sunday." This is enough to reassure my father, Susan is Robert's sister and my fellow ambassador. We have all worked beyond what is humanly acceptable for days. Chicago is so blind to the imminent danger in the air, that it is beyond me that problems as inconsequential as having a date are what my faction is most concerned about.
Perhaps, though, if I could just figure out what is really going on in Chicago, it would be easier for me to convince the other factions that we need to be more careful about how we treat our citizens. So far I have not been able to piece together the puzzle of all that I have discovered, I only know that between factions there is more and more distrust; the part that each faction has to do to help the welfare of the city is becoming less and less; the number of factionless has been increasing in the last two years; plus, the differences between Erudit and Abnegation are becoming more and more notorious and irreconcilable, the news newsletters spreading intimate rumors about members of the Abnegation government, or at least that's what Marcus has insisted we all believe, that they are just rumors; of course if there is one thing I am partially sure of, it's that they are not all lies, are becoming increasingly frequent.
"Do you think that with the selection ceremony approaching, things will be sorted out at the meetings? I'm putting together all the data on the people who have recently been cut out of their factions; the task is quite complicated because no one has ever bothered to do a census of the factionless before. And if I somehow manage to convince the ambassadors of the other factions to investigate the number of outcasts, it will be more noticeable that there is an increase that we cannot miss."
My mother throws me a glare reproachfully bringing work issues to a family dinner, but she knows how important this is. It was she who first told me about the increase of factionless in the areas where they normally are. I may have been thrilled with the task of getting to the bottom of it, but she threw out the first bait to trap me.
"I wouldn't know, but I'd like you to let this topic go for a while. Maybe you could write a proposal for the distribution center that would help with the next initiation. I heard that Dora was having problems with some of the packages when distributing them..." My father as well as the rest of the Abnegation council refuses to accept my suspicions. And the fact that of the five factions three are adamantly refusing to talk about it, makes my insistence stick. I may seem ungrateful, but having Amity and Candor on my side doesn't help much when I have to face the leaders of Dauntless and Jeanine, the leader of Erudit; besides having to face Marcus who from the first moment I touched the subject I'm sure has kept all his attention focused on not throwing me against the wall so he could shut me up. I don't really know what is going on in those meetings or in Chicago in general but I do know that I can't stay quiet when I have seen first hand, perfectly capable men and women being exiled from their homes and their lives, each and every one of them with one thing in common: no one seems to remember exactly what it is that drove them to live on the streets.