Daring to be Dauntless (A Divergent Fanfiction)

Chapter 22- Break Down

“Glad to hear from you again darling. How’s it going down there with the project?” Jeanine asks.
Jeanine called almost as soon as I got done ripping up Zeke’s note and flushing it. Eric was the one she called first, inquiring that everything was taken care of with Beatrice. Turns out she tried to kiss Tobias and he rejected her so she ran to her brother. That makes perfect sense. NOT.
I let Eric believe that that was the inspiration for the wild goose chase, figuring something else must have happened but Tobias is covering it. Over the phone, Jeanine instructed Eric to leave so I and she could have some private talk, as she put it.
“I’m fine, the project seems to be on track,” I say biting at my thumbnail.
“Have you seen the finished product yet? It was just put into mass production yesterday and already the vials have been boxed and shipped. Eric should have them already.”
“No, I haven’t seen them yet,” I say honestly.
I can hear her clicking her pen on the other line. This was one of her own few stress ticks, she either clicked her pen like a mad woman or squeezed a stress ball till every vein in her wrist looked about to burst. “What is taking those imbeciles so long?” She cursed. She obviously wasn’t speaking to me, cause, how should I know where those imbeciles were?
“How are the initiates?” I ask breaking the chain of aggravating clicking. “Have any proven worth our while?” She pauses and inhales.
“Well you know what I say, Never count your chickens before they hatch an all that,” she says slowly. “Especially now, that we have a member from Abnegation joining the assembly line. He himself has proven to be very interesting”
I nod though she can’t see me. It would be catastrophic if Caleb found out about the war and decided to divulge to his mommy and daddy.

She sighs into the phone. “I do miss you love. I need my counterpart again.”
My eye twitches and a part of me wants to scoff. If only she knew.
“I miss my family,” I lie.
She purrs on the end of the phone, comforting me. “That is actually why I have contacted you darling,” she chirps. “I thought you needed to come home before the party starts and, well, be with your family.”
I roll my eyes. You’re killing my family.
“I’d very much appreciate that,” I say calmly though my heart is about to jump out my chest. My stomach feels all sloshy as I let her go on about how I need to be home to watch the decimation from prime seats as one of the most important people in all of Erudite, how as a Soon-to-be Council Member I needed to be well studied and versed in all the rule books of every faction, including the soon to be destroyed Abnegation manifesto (which I can’t do in a cave), and how once again, she missed me.
“How soon?” I ask, looking at the ceiling.
“Tonight, I’ll send a car for you. Eric will escort you to it.”
After ending the conversation on a final chorus of “see-you-soons,” “thank-yous,” and “have-a-lot-to-tell-yous,” I crawl onto the cot and pull a pillow over my head. Burying my face into the hard mattress that smelled like rank body odor, I screamed and screamed until my voice was hoarse and raw.

At some point I fell asleep because when I woke up I found Eric shaking my shoulder and helping me scoot out of bed.
“Time to go,” he whispers. Strangely enough I wish he’d come with me. For a minute I stare at his shadow sitting next to me, remembering his build and trying to color in the rest of his features. His hand finds my cheek and covering it with my own I lean in and kiss him. He pulls back smiling for a fraction of a second before leaning back in, and with his other hand cups the back of my neck.
When I finally need to allow myself a breath, he presses his forehead against mine and closes his eyes.
“I know I’ve said it before,” he murmurs softly. His breathing is labored as he opens his eyes and in what little light filters in from the hallway I see the moistness on his cheeks.
“Eric,” I whisper wiping a stray tear away with my thumb. I was dumbstruck at the heartbreaking gesture. This was definitely not the Eric anyone knew. This was the little boy inside that saw his father’s dead body, was leading a massacre, who killed his father’s murderer, and fell in love with a Stiff. I was honored to be the only one who got to see this.
Blinking my own tears away I just began realizing. Our factions changed us. Eric no doubt before was intelligent, incredibly rare among his own classmates, which is hard to top in Erudite. If his father hadn’t been killed, would he be so sociopathic? If he hadn’t known that the murderer was from Dauntless, would he have even transferred? If he hadn’t killed Amar, would he have been completely empty, with no heart left for love? If I myself hadn’t lost both my parents I would have never had to live with Marcus, I would never have gotten abused, I would never have gone to Erudite, would never have known about the war against Abnegation, and would never have known Eric. We’d have been completely different. He’d have stayed in Erudite and I in Abnegation.
We’d never have met, he’d be—mostly--only arrogant, not a sociopathic brute leaving people on train tracks. I’d be wearing grey clothes instead of blue and black. I’d be bowing my head as people acknowledged me and when my neighbors invited me for dinner I’d bring an extra dish and we’d sit around the table and talk about our day, completely neutral and calm. That’s how Eric would kill me; in grey, surrounded by my family, utterly and completely, alone.
I stroke and place a kiss on his cheek, before he takes my hand away and he sighs. “I love you Magdalena.”
Smiling, I place another kiss on his lips before saying “I love you to Eric, and I’ll miss you.”
“We’ll see each other soon, you hear me. When this is all over I’ll find you.”
“I know,” I whisper so the listening walls can’t hear us. “As soon as this is over?” I repeat.
He nods vigorously and kisses my nose. “I promise.”
Eric pulls back, letting me go. “I almost forgot,” he says reaching into his jacket pocket. “I wanted to give this to you so you’d know I mean what I say.” He looks up at me briefly before smiling. It wasn’t a creepy sadistic smile. It was a genuine, fond smile.
“This was my mother’s,” he says taking my hand and, uncurling my fingers, he delicately places a slim, silver chain in my palm. At the center of the chain, lying gingerly on the top of the pile was a small diamond ring. The ring looked like it fit someone with long slender fingers, not someone you’d imagine to be Eric’s mother.
“Eric,” I gasp, shaking my head completely breathless. My entire body was numb and my hands were beginning to tremble. My heart had never been in such agony as it was being given the last thing of his mother’s.
“I can’t accept this,” I say, suffocating on my own pain. Eric closes my fingers over the beautiful treasure, “Yes you can,” he counters. “It’s hard for people to trust me,” he says hushed. “I understand why, I just need you in-particular to trust me. There can’t be love if there’s not trust foremost.”
Here is where the Erudite in him comes out. It’s logical thinking, I must say, and truth in itself.
“I understand,” I whisper. After what seems like decades of silence I let him put it on me. I turn my back to him and collect my hair in a fist, leaving him room to clip the necklace.
“It looks beautiful,” he whispers in my ear.
I giggle like a little girl, and taking his hand, yank him into the bathroom to the mirror.
My fingers gently graze over the silver ring, the minuscule prongs gripping the shining gem like teeth. I’d never worn something so beautiful. This in entirety is vanity.
“I bet you’d never even been allowed to look at something like this before,” Eric says smiling behind me.  
“I’d be whipped if I did,” I say numbly, not realizing that I had said it out loud. I stare at my reflection, my own shocked face next to Eric’s.
“What do you mean?” He says slowly.
I shake my head and touch the sentiment again. “That’s not what I meant,” I say.
Eric looks at me in the mirror, his face becoming bloodshot. “Aria… did they hit you?”
“Listen,” I say turning to him and taking his hand. “There are a lot of things about Abnegation that you don’t understand. The things you don’t know about me are better left unsaid, it’s the same with Four.”
He blinks, unable to do anything but listen.
“Please, don’t worry about it. I left that behind years ago.”
“You ran,” he whispers, finally realizing for the first time what I had been depressed to admit. I am a coward.
“Wouldn’t you if you were being abused,” I say angrily. Even he didn’t understand. “If you were whipped with a belt every day, for sometimes the stupidest things as not finishing your food, wouldn’t you want to get away from the torture?”
He steps back, obviously not expecting the emotions. My eyes sting with blistering tears as I yell. “And what was worst of all was that it wasn’t even your parents disciplining you! It was your uncle, who now had three children to take care of on his own because your parents and your aunt were all too stupid and got themselves exiled!” For some reason, admitting it all out loud made me feel a little bad more Marcus. He was probably under a lot of stress, and having three children who just couldn’t get anything right, because they were well, kids, probably was not helping. But still, it's no excuse. 
“You lost your dad Eric when you were young, how much did you honestly remember him? My situation wasn’t any better with being almost eight and knowing exactly what happened to my dad. He left my mother for someone else and he got exiled for it. My aunt did the same and got exiled but guess what Eric, we’re not all Candor, they told everyone that she was dead! That she died giving birth to Four’s brother, and as a nine year old we both believed it until one day on our way to school he saw her sitting on the bridge watching us. He never mentioned it to anyone but me and a few years later he finally knew he was right. She contacted him Eric. Do you know what it feels like to be left behind? Death is not someone’s choice Eric, no one chooses to die unless they commit suicide, but she chose to leave knowing full well from my dad’s experience what she’d leave behind, and she chose to leave her son.” My breaths had become ragged. I could feel the sweat pouring down the nape of my neck and near my temples. I’d never remember getting so heated before.
“Then my mother, who swore up and down that she loved us, left too, because why not leave your two small children along with their young cousin to be tortured by his parent? You had better things to do, like stab people’s bodies with needles all day, and get fat on cake and not have a care in the world because you’re living high on steroids, surrounded by freaking stone and a bunch of overconfident schmucks that enjoy being tormented by their own fears and like throwing knives at people!”
By the time I finish I can’t breathe. I turn away from him and lean over the sink, sick to my stomach. I’m sure if I had eaten lunch it would have all came back up. I expected Eric to be angry, if not for yelling at him but for calling him a schmuck. Now my tears drip like rain into the sink, making a little clunk noise as it hits the steel. I hide my face in my hands waiting for Eric to say how he wants his mother’s necklace back, that a coward is not worthy of him, maybe that he would never talk to me again. Instead, and much to my surprise, he doesn’t say anything. He places his arms around my waist and kisses the top of my head.
“You are so brave,” he mumbles through my hair. I shake my head but he stops me by saying, “Yes you are. A little girl at your age, who had to put up with being abused, live with her parents’ decision for eight years, and is still kicking,” he says this stroking my arms, “is braver than anyone I have ever met.”
Another tear streaks my face but he catches it with his finger
“Don’t cry anymore Aria. Like you said… all of that is in the past.”
After giving me a minute to calm down and dry my face, he takes my hand, squeezing it tight he tells me it’s time to go. I grab my jacket and my duffel bag and let himwalk me through the glass building. He walks me out to the street where one of Jeanine’s drivers was waiting for me.
“Miss Aria,” the driver says tipping his hat and nodding to Eric.
“Hi, Joseph,” I say, managing a smile.
He opens the back car door for me and waits patiently. I turn back to Eric and cupping his face with my hands I gave him one last kiss. I could almost feel Joseph’s shock. “I love you,” I whisper one last time before letting him go and sliding onto the cool leather seats. Joseph nods one last time to Eric and takes position behind the wheel. I roll down the window and wave as the car pulls away from the compound, and soon all Eric is is a shrunken figure in the distance, left alone in the streets with nothing but a necklace holding us together.