I can finally say I understand the protagonists of those silly stories I used to make fun of. How could they possibly get a crush on someone that terrible? I used to ask myself. They must be crazy. Now I realize how easy it is.
Or maybe I'm also crazy just like the girls and boys I made fun of.
There's no denying it; I am infatuated with Eric. To deny it would be lying and I cannot tell a lie. The mirror's reflection in front of me glares back. Many days have passed and yet, I still think about Eric's gaze above me, looking down expectantly. The other day, I could see that his hair was shaved on the sides despite being so long. He dyed it black which made it even easier to tell. When we ran around the perimeter, it was easy to see as his hair flew behind him. There are so many things I notice about our intense Dauntless leader. He doesn't tan even when we are outside for hours on end. Instead, sometimes he gets faint freckles across his cheeks and nose, and his skin turns pink, threatening to burn. There is one singular freckle particularly on his bottom lip that is difficult to make out. His eyebrows are darker because he fills them in with a pencil, similar to the one I used to darken around my eyes. I imagine they are quite pale to motivate him to do that. He must wear mascara for the same reason because sometimes his eyelashes are darker too. He pouts just enough for it to be noticeable, as though he is constantly annoyed by something and wants to complain but can't. I can't tell if it's creepy or not to notice such random details or to stare at him so much. It isn't as though I hide the behavior, that's for sure. He catches my eyes sometimes before looking away.
A sigh of frustration leaves me. The only time I truly get to see Eric is when we are training. I have half a mind to go seek him out myself but I don't even know where I would begin with that.
"Earth to Blaze!" Andrea all but yells from beside me and my eyes dart away from the mirror and to my friend in a split second. She'd startled me. My mouth twists.
"Sorry, what's up?" I ask and Andrea raises her eyebrows at me.
"You've been staring at your reflection for five minutes. Are you okay?" she asks me. It's a million dollar question. "Ever since Eric made you dangle over the pit a few days ago, you've been… kinda different, I guess. I'm a little worried."
"I'm alright," I reply smoothly. "I'm just focused on doing well." Andrea's face turns contemplative at my words, her eyebrows drawing together as she frowns.
After a long moment that starts to fray at my nerves, she says, "You are moving high on the scoreboard. Even with the Dauntless-born. You could be number one."
A laugh of surprise escapes me. "Thank you for the vote of confidence but I'm not sure I can surpass Edward in a fight."
Andrea bumps shoulders with me. "Not with that attitude, you can't."
"What about you?" I question with a smile. She tilts her head in my direction and one of her eyebrows raises.
"What about me?" she retorts. I look at our reflections in the mirror. My eyes scan down the elegant, outward curve of her nose and over the way her wavy hair frames her face in a delicate way.
"You know, all we ever seem to talk about is me," I say as I drop my eyes. I twist the cap back onto my eyeliner idly as I look for my mascara. "You've got a habit of getting a person to talk about themselves and not you." Andrea smiles sheepishly.
"I guess it's a habit I picked up from being in Amity," she admits as she rubs the bridge of her nose, embarrassed. I click my tongue and wag the stick of mascara at her like a mother would scold a child.
"Sounds more like an Abnegation thing than Amity." Something about my own words sticks out in my thoughts and I file it away for later. "You're lucky I'm so considerate and observant. Other people would take advantage of that sort of kindness." My lips tilt into a smile. "Do you miss it?"
"Miss it?" she echoes.
I nod enthusiastically. "Yeah. Do you miss being there, in Amity? Where you had nothing to worry about but being happy and raising flowers?" I ask with a slight chuckle. Andrea scoffs and she grins as she bumps into me with her shoulder once again.
"We raised more than just plants! My parents have an entire ranch," Andrea says. For a moment, she goes quiet afterwards and I am quiet with her as I wait for her to say something more. Is this hard for her to talk about, I wonder. "I miss them. And my friends, and the familiarity. But I… didn't truly belong. Especially as I got older."
"I find that hard to believe," I admit with a tilted smile. "That Amity kindness is definitely in you." Andrea laughs a little bit and shrugs one shoulder as her head tilts.
"Yeah, maybe. But when the other girls wanted to pick fruit and flowers, I wanted to do the more dangerous things… wrangling the cows, riding horses, chasing the dogs, climbing the highest trees to pluck fruit… anything to get a rush," she explains. Her eyes are distant as she looks just past me and I stop myself from turning to look for something that isn't here.
"I know the feeling," I say because I do know the feeling. I had been waxing poetic about it in my mind while dangling over the pit. She smiles briefly as she glances at me but the expression wavers easily. I wrap my arm around her waist. "You miss them." It's not a question. Andrea nods heavily, her head tilting like it's being weighed down.
"I want to be here," she says quickly and then her hands twist together. "But it's hard being away from my family. Harder than I thought it would be." Just as quickly as she speaks, Andrea stands and begins to brush herself off.
"We should head out," she mutters, pulling at the edge of her shirt. I follow after her quietly, my thumbs hooking in my pants' pockets. In the training room, it's still set up for more fights. I glance at the board. For the past several days, the fights had been a little repetitive. A lot of the same people were paired together. This time, to my surprise, my eyes land on the matchup of "Tris vs Blaze" and I can't help the way my eyebrows shoot up. When I look to our illustrious instructors, Four and Eric are glaring at each other so hard that I'm surprised daggers aren't flying from their eyes. Or bullets.
"Whoa, that's a weird match-up," Christina says from a few feet away as she approaches me. Tris and Will and Al are not too far behind her. I watch Tris, who only watches the board. I have only lost one match and that was against Edward. I can imagine that is what she is thinking when she looks at the board. Tris isn't terrible but she also isn't good. Well, she isn't good, yet. The potential is there. But this match is a shoe-in for me. I almost feel it's bordering on disrespectful how easy it will be to win. I find my feet moving me toward our instructors and soon, instead of glaring at each other, they are turning their gazes to me.
I blink once, glancing swiftly between the two. Both of them stare at me unwaveringly, dark blue versus pale blue eyes. They are about the same height, but Eric is shorter. His roots are starting to show again and he isn't wearing any makeup so his eyelashes are blond and pale too. His right eye twitches. I glance at Four again who is frowning at me. He probably has an idea of what I am about to say, and if Eric has any brains, he will too.
"Is this some kind of joke?" I ask, reaching up to idly play with the tips of my hair by my collarbone as I look between the two instructors.
"I wonder," Four says in a strange tone of voice. Eric looks at him again, turning his whole head to do it but he doesn't say anything to him.
"I have a particular purpose with this fight," Eric admits after a few seconds have passed. "So, do as I say, and get in the ring!" With an impatient raise of his hand, Eric gestures to the ring and for once, I don't know what to say. I turn abruptly on my heel and stalk to the middle of the floor where Tris is waiting just at the edge. Her eyes are on the floor until suddenly she is looking up and meeting my gaze. Again, I glance at our instructors before sighing as Tris steps into the ring with me.
"I was curious about something," says Eric very calmly. Tris grimaces but then her expression fades back into the generic grimness she had been wearing earlier. When Eric sounds remarkably calm, nothing particularly good comes from it. I look at Eric at the same time Tris does and he raises an eyebrow. "Blaze is second to one in winning fights. And Tris is second to last. But fighting isn't just about winning."
Circling Tris, my eyes dart across her body at various different points. In particular, I observe her legs and the way they move without clear purpose. They are keeping her standing and moving as we walk around each other, but there's no intent to do much else. "Every opponent is a different circumstance. I wondered how this one would go," Eric continues. I drop my stance and glare at Eric.
"You think I can't fight Tris because she's my friend? I fight Andrea all the time!" I scoff and shake my head and move to get back into position.
Eric's voice interrupts me as he says, "You respect Andrea."
I scoff again, the corner of my lips witching as if I want to smile. "I respect Tris."
Eric smiles and it's a mocking tilt of his mouth that says his reply before he speaks the words out loud. "Then, fight her."
Looking at Tris again, we lock eyes and I bend my knees and shift my weight. I lunge at her first and when she misses with a swing of her fist, I kick my foot into the back of her knee so she collapses onto the ground in a rush. I kick her in the side as she tries to stand up, and she rolls away from me with a groan of pain before she manages to rise to her feet again. She rushes at me, intent to knock me down somehow. It isn't an unfair play and I grunt with some exertion as she rams into me, pushing me backwards toward the edge of the fighting ring. Her and I are of a similar build enough that it could have worked. But she leaves her body too open to attack every time. Several knees to the ribs get her off of me and I bite down the chuckle that almost escapes. It's natural to fall into that urge to laugh. But, I don't want to laugh at Triss.
"Look at Blaze, here. He's toying with her. In fact, he toys with everyone when he fights them," Eric comments. When I chance a glance at him, his arms are crossed over his chest and his head is tilted. His tone of voice is as casual as one would use to observe the weather changes on a cloudy day. "He could end these fights five moves earlier, but he chooses not to. Why? Because he enjoys fighting. He loves it. He's Dauntless through and through. When all this is said and done, Blaze will be number one on that leaderboard. And where will that leave the rest of you?" Eric is staring at his nails now, inspecting them with an unnecessary amount of interest. The feeling in my chest is hard to pinpoint as his words have left me in a state I've never felt. An odd sense of anxiety, perhaps, comes over me as I notice the room has gone still and all of my fellow initiates are looking between me and Eric with varying expressions on their faces.
When no one speaks up, myself unfortunately included, Eric looks back up at us with a raised eyebrow and an obnoxiously nonchalant air to his shrug. "In any case, Leadership is having a meeting with Erudite, so I've got to go." His eyes dart across us all and he lingers on me for a moment, just long enough for me to notice and not feel delusional about it. "Training today doesn't contribute to your rank. Consider it your only free day." With his final sentence, Eric turns and struts out of the training room without a second glance. Even Four looks mildly perturbed at his retreating back and the door slam shuts behind him.
"What was that?" Andrea's voice wakes me from my own mind, stuck staring at closed doors. I shake my head slowly while turning my attention to her, willing the sudden, twisting ball in my stomach to go away.
"He was trying to embarrass you," Tris says bitterly. My eyes widen slightly while I look at her. I've almost forgotten for a moment that she was there, still on the floor where I'd knocked her off her feet. As she stands, she adds, "and me."
"He just put a target on your back," Christina hisses, all pinched eyebrows and sharp frown. Her words are what finally bring me out of my stupor. I slap my hand across my mouth to stop from laughing and to hide my sudden smile. Instead, I school my expression into something a little more neutral, at least for me, which is a less exaggerated smirk.
"I don't think anyone here is surprised I might be a bit of a sadist," I say with an amused huff of air. There's that and the fact that, after doing some thinking, I don't think Eric is trying to embarass me at all. Andrea's lips purse together and neither Christina nor Tris seem all that happy with my answer. Is Eric putting a target on my back? Perhaps. The thing is, it would have been very redundant to do. I am already high on the leaderboard at number two. When I finally beat Edward, I will be number one. The target on my back is going to be there no matter what.
"Alright, bring it in!" Four suddenly calls out, gesturing with a wave for everyone to move forward to him. "You may not be getting ranked, but training today is still in session. Instead of sparring, I have a different activity in mind for you all." Four turns on his heel and begins to lead us over to a far wall of the training room. The wall is painted differently from the others and is free of random graffiti. Instead it is a dark, forest green and has white, brown, and green handle-looking pieces that jut out from it in various shapes and conditions. Some areas of the painted wall have indents in them, big enough to fit a foot or hand.
"Climbing," Four says simply. He tilts his head. "An important skill for anyone to have, and good for teamwork. There's nothing much braver than having to trust your partner completely. One slip could be life or death." Four walks closer to the wall and I notice that just in front of it are some thick, padded mats on the floor that span the length of the wall.
"Do you see how high that is?" Andrea whispers to me, leaning closely so she can speak into my ear. Eyes narrowing, I nod in response. I definitely see it. Even with the padded mats, a fall from the top would be dangerous enough to probably cause some type of injury. Even from midway, falling would hurt. Four picks up what looks like a bunch of ropes and tosses a couple toward Will who barely catches them, caught by surprise.
Four holds up another pair of what he had grabbed. "You put this harness on, and then clip the rope in place. Your partner will clip the other side to their harness." He demonstrates clipping the rope to the metal ring on the body harness with a bored expression.
"So, what's our objective here?" questions Al as he stares with obvious wariness at the climbing wall.
"You and your climbing partner will reach the top and then come back down," Four states as he begins to hand out harnesses to everyone. After a moment, he adds, "preferably without falling."
"What happens if we fall?"
"It's going to hurt. A lot," Four deadpans.
"Have you ever done this? And fallen?" Tris asks. She is attempting to fasten the harness to her small body, pulling at the straps so they aren't as loose. Four places a harness in my hands.
"Why do you think I know it hurts?" he asks in reply. Tris frowns. My lips twitch.
"I bet Eric was your climbing partner," I comment. Four frowns for just a moment as he gives me a look from his peripheral vision but otherwise he doesn't respond to me. I bite my lip, stifling a laugh.
"I'll be pairing you guys up," Four announces as he steps back from the group of us. His eyes wander over each of our faces, expression unreadable. I have to give it to him there. He's good at being stoic when he wants to be. "Blaze, you'll be with Tris. Andrea, you with Caleb…" The rest of his words zone out as I am left there watching Tris instead with no small amount of surprise. One of my eyebrows raises of its own volition before I shrug one shoulder and tug at the end of my harness in Tris's direction. She is the one holding the rope. For all intents and purposes, she doesn't look exactly happy with our teaming up either. I guess I can't blame her. I was just kicking her ass not that long ago.
Moving closer to her, I allow her to loop the clasp into the buckle on my harness and she lets it snap close. Her eyebrows are furrowed with what I think is frustration, and she doesn't look at me. I tug on the rope a few times just to test its dexterity. I'll be damned if I fall from the damn ceiling because the rope designs to fray or something.
"Sorry you didn't get to team with Andrea," says Tris after a few moments while everyone is getting situated. I tilt my head and glance over to Andrea who looks as though she is ready to drop Caleb on purpose once they're on the wall.
"It's fine," I tell Tris because, while I definitely would have picked Andrea, I don't mind at all working with Tris.
Tris huffs out a quiet breath and she makes this weird face as though she's in pain or something. "I know we're not exactly…" she trails off and shifts her weight from one foot to another. I stare at her.
"Not exactly…what?"
"Friends." Tris finally looks at me from the corner of her eye. Her eyebrows are still furrowed, so she kind of looks like an angry, blue-eyed child.
"Friends," I repeat, tasting the word on my tongue. "You don't think we're friends?"
"Well, I don't know," she confesses, sounding exasperated. It's not a heavy tone, but it is noticeable compared to her awkward stumbling from just a moment ago.
Once more, I tug at the rope between us. I'm not sure how to refute her, actually. Most of our interactions have been secondhand, accompanied by our mutual friend group. It isn't untrue that I favour Andrea. "Well, we can be. Friends. You ain't half bad you know, Tris Prior," I finally reply as we move to stand before the wall. I peer over at the other pairs, watching some fidget with discomfort.
"Thanks…?" Tris sounds a little unsure but her expression has relaxed.
"Ready to climb this thing?" I stretch my arms over my head and stare up to the ceiling. A foreign feeling washes over me and there's a glimmer of a vision at the top, of someone who isn't actually there. I blink and the vision is gone. I saw blond hair. But no one was climbing yet.
"Well, get started," Four says, observing us all intently.
Tris and I make it halfway up the wall when my foot slips out of a hole. The movement is so sudden that I can barely comprehend what is happening as my fingers scratch for purpose, my body falling for just a moment before I regain my footing, left leg dangling from where my foot slipped. Below me by just a foot or two, Tris was frozen in place. She stares up at me with wide, blue eyes. I stare down at her with a pinch to my lips. "My bad," I mutter. We had been making good progress until then. "Here, catch up with me a bit?"
She climbs up further until she is beside me on the wall. It occurs to me suddenly that she's not bad at this at all. In fact, she almost seems comfortable.
"If I'm the reason we end up falling… my bad," I say under my breath. For a brief moment, Tris smiles before looking up.
"Ready to keep going?" she asks. I nod once and we continue.
I make sure to picture Eric at the top, staring down at me with impassive, ice-blue eyes.
On the way back down, we fall. It keeps replaying in my mind, my fingers losing purchase. The rope had caught me, for a moment, my body slamming into the wall and knocking the air of me. Tris had called my name just before slipping too, and we both fell less than halfway down the wall and back to the floor. The mats were probably the only reason we didn't have broken bones. Hitting the wall had been impactful but it had not prepared me for my vision blacking out upon hitting the mats.
I stare at the ceiling before me now, a dusty grey with dim, yellow lights hanging from it. The infirmary is a dull place, not at all as exciting as the rest of Dauntless. It smells faintly of antiseptic and artificial lemon cleaner. "You can leave once I make sure you don't have any internal injuries," says Meryl, a nurse apparently, while he prods at a particularly sore part of my abdomen for the fortieth time.
"You said that about twenty pokes ago," I complain with a groan and roll of my eyes.
"Shouldn't have fallen off the wall," Meryl retorts and grins at me. Two of his canines are gold and silver and long, like a creature from an old book I'd read in the past.
"What, like you didn't?" I snap. Tris is sitting quietly on a different bed just a few feet away while she gets looked over by another nurse whose name I haven't remembered because he isn't actively annoying me.
"So maybe I did," Meryl says breezily. He flicks me in the forehead and I gasp in disbelief as he gives me a thumbs up. "I think you're good. You can leave now, and I better not see you back here unless you're dying or some shit."
"Yeah, I'll make sure I'm dying," I huff out. I slide off the bed and brush myself off. "What about you, Tris?"
"She's all good too," the other nurse says and Tris nods as she stands up too.
"Thank you," she says. I head to the door and shove my hands in my pockets as Tris joins me.
"See you guys soon!" Meryl calls after us as we exit through the doorway. I sneer at the air, not bothering to look over my shoulder. My body aches and my fingernails pulsate with a sharp pain but the worst thing hurt right now is probably my ego, though I'm loathe to ever admit that out loud. I can hardly believe I am admitting it to myself right now.
"So," Tris starts. She doesn't say anything else until I look at her inquisitively. "You don't like losing."
"No. I don't." I turn my gaze back to the walkway. "What gave that away?"
Tris shrugs as though she doesn't have an answer but replies, "This is the most upset I've ever seen you."
"Of course," I mutter. From the corner of my eye, I am pretty sure I see Tris smile. "I guess you know what that means now, right?" I turn my head to look at yer fully, and she stares back at me inquisitively.
"What? What do you mean?" she questions. I shrug one shoulder as we walk, our steps in sync.
"You've seen me at my worst and I haven't pushed you into the chasm." I lay my hand on her shoulder. I feel her muscle tense just slightly beneath my fingers. "We're friends, obviously."
"I see," Tris replies as I pull my hand away. My bad mood slips away with it.
