It’s stupid to miss a thing when there are so many people to miss instead, but I miss this train already, and all the others that carried me through the city, my city, after I was brave enough to ride them. I brush my fingers over the car wall, just once, and then jump.
That night we push our cots just a little closer together, and look into each other’s eyes in the moments before we fall asleep. When he finally drifts off, our fingers are twisted together in the space between the beds. I smile a little, and let myself go.
To me there’s a difference between not being afraid and acting in spite of fear, as he does.
What is wrong with you?? I shake my head. ‘Pull it together.’ And that’s what it feels like: pulling the different parts of me up and in like a shoelace. I feel suffocated, but at least I feel strong.
It’s when you’re acting selflessly that you are at your bravest.
There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved for the sake of something greater.
I read somewhere, once, that crying defies scientific explanation. Tears are only meant to lubricate the eyes. There is no real reason for tear glands to overproduce tears at the behest of emotion. I think we cry to release the animal parts of us without losing our humanity.
Relax Beatrice, I’ve driven a car before.? MARCUS ‘I’ve done a lot of things before, but that doesn’t mean I’m any good at them!’ TRIS.
I can’t answer either question. But the look she gives me reminds me of the look in the attack dog’s eyes in the aptitude test – a vicious, predatory stare. She wants to rip me to pieces. I can’t lie down in submission now. I have become an attack dog too.
I take a deep breath. I’m not sure where that swell of desperation came from, but know that I’ve acknowledge it, it’s impossible to ignore, like a living thing has awakened from a long sleep inside me. It writhes in my stomach and throat. I need to leave. I need the truth.
No one is fearless, that’s impossible. But learning how to control your fear, that’s something even your Stif family should learn how to do.
I hold the gun out from my body, my arms straight, just as Four taught me, when that was his only name. I used a gun like this to defend my father and brother from simulation-bound Dauntless. I used it to stop Eric from shooting Tobias in the head. It is not inherently evil. It is just a tool.
Maybe time would not feel as heavy if I didn’t have this guilt – the guilt of knowing the truth and stuffing it down where no one can see it, not even Tobias. Maybe I should not be so afraid of saying anything, because honesty will make me feel lighter.
One thing I know: For helping me forget how awful the world is, I prefer her to alcohol.
I understand why she did it this way, face-first – it was because it made her feel like she was flying, like she was a bird.
That you’re whole, that you’re worth loving, that you’re the best person I’ve ever known.
I liked some things and hated some things. And there were some things I didn’t know I had until I lost them.
I stopped allowing myself to dream, because it was more painful to long for things and never get them than to deal with whatever was in front of me.
Maybe time would not feel as heavy if I didn’t have this guilt – the guilt of knowing the truth and stuffing it down where no one can see it.
If you don’t like something, change it. You are not a tree.