But Then I Met Her | ✓

Chapter 36

After I finish with Uriah and Drew- my God, Uriah was out in five minutes and Drew was out in forty- I head back to my apartment. Shauna, Zeke, and Lauren stop me on the way, their eyes widened and their faces pale.

"Four." Shauna says.

I don't look up from unlocking my door. "Yeah?"

"We need to talk to you." Lauren looks around the hallway.

I open the door and gesture for them to go in. My friends have been into my apartment several times, so this is nothing new for them. Zeke drops onto my bed uninvited, like he always does when he comes over. Shauna and Lauren drop into the two chairs at my table.

"So what's up?" I ask, leaning against the door.

Shauna plays with her thumbs. Lauren pulls out a paper with the Erudite symbol on it. "You said you don't care about your old faction. That you don't care what they say about you or your father, that it's all a bunch of bullshit."

I nod. "And?"

"And," Shauna takes a deep breath. "How would you feel if we said that they're now bashing Tris's family, and one of your initiates helped them do it?"

My hands tighten into fists, and I hide it by folding my arms over my chest. "What did they say?"

Lauren hands Zeke the paper. He glances up at me before reading. "The mass exodus of the children of Abnegation leaders cannot be ignored or attributed to coincidence. The recent transfer of Beatrice and Caleb Prior, the children of Andrew Prior, calls into question the soundness of Abnegation's values and teachings.

"Why else would the children of such an important man decide that the lifestyle he has set out for them is not an admirable one? Molly Atwood, a fellow Dauntless transfer, suggests a disturbed and abusive upbringing might be to blame. 'I heard her talking in her sleep once,' Molly says. 'She was telling her father to stop doing something. I don't know what it was, but it gave her nightmares."

Tris is not like me. Her father didn't do that. I would be able to tell, like I knew with Marlene that something wasn't right. It would be reflected in anything and everything she does, like it had been with me. She does not walk around as if the whole world is falling down around her, like Marlene does, and she doesn't hunch her shoulders as if she's trying to curl up into herself and hide, like I did. No, Tris is not like me.

Zeke continues reading. "However, prehaps the answer lies not in a morally bereft man, but in the corrupted ideals of an entire faction. Perhaps the answer is that we have entrusted our city to a group of proselytizing tyrants who do not know how to lead us out of poverty and into prosperity."

I am silent once he's done. "Four, you look ready to murder someone." Lauren comments.

"Probably this Molly chick." Shauna says. "You want me to hold her down?"

I let out a harsh laugh. "No."

Zeke shrugs. "I say we burn this and then find Tommy. He said he wanted to hang out by the Chasm."

"With Tommy, that probably means drinking by the Chasm." I think about it for a minute. "Let's go."

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Zeke is probably on his third drink by now. I'm only on my first. The alcohol is strong, but at least I have forgotten the Erudite report. Tommy cracks a joke, and it makes me laugh so hard that I have to grip the railing to steady myself.

I see someone stop and look up to see Christina slipping from Al's back. Will and some girl walk not to far behind them, and I look away from them and back at Alexis, who is making some exaggerated hand motions.

"Hey Four," Zeke nudges me. "Look who it is." I see the girl and Will stopped, looking at me. The blonde hair is a dead giveaway. Tris.

"Tris!" I call before I really think about what I'm doing. I pull away from the railing and walk over.

At least I'm not stumbling. I think. Tris and Will exchange a look, and Christina slides from Al's back.

"You look different." I say. My words sound slow and sluggish.

"So do you." Her eyes flick over me once. "What are you doing?"

"Flirting with death," I reply with a laugh. "Drinking near the Chasm. Probably not a good idea." Not probably. It isn't.

"No, it isn't." She agrees.

"Didn't know you had a tattoo." I look at the three birds on her collarbone. I take a sip of the bottle. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't let an initiate see me drunk, but oh well. Too late now. "Right. The crows."

I glance over my shoulder at my friends, who are completely oblivious to the fact that I'm not there. "I'd ask you to hang out with us, but you're not supposed to see me this way."

Her eyes move from mine to the bottle in my hand. "What way?" she asks. "Drunk?"

"Yeah...well, no." My voice softens a little. My God, can someone just dump some ice water on my head or something? "Real, I guess."

"I'll pretend I didn't."

"Nice of you." Then, because I have to, I put my lips next to her ear and say quietly, so that only she can hear, "You look good, Tris." I mean the words, too, and I'm not as intoxicated as I probably seem. I make my eyes slide over hers, as if I really am too drunk to know what I'm doing. She seems convinced.

She laughs. "Do me a favor and stay away from the Chasm, okay?"

"Of course." I wink at her. She smiles and Will clears his throat.

I walk away and return to my spot on the railing next to Zeke. Al thows her over his shoulder and she rests her elbows on his back, waving at me. I pretend not to see.

"Hmm." Zeke mutters. "Looks like that initiate's got your girl." I shrug. She thinks that I have no idea what I was saying. Or maybe she knows that I did. I'm kinda hoping that it's the latter, but I think it'd be better if it's not. Guess I'll find out tomorrow.