My Allegiant Life-- A Divergent Fanfiction

Chapter 12 Storm

Nobody sleeps tonight. I can tell by dark circles under each eye in this room when we decide to get up. Alice looks the worst of us all, she refuses to join us for breakfast, Grace and Stella get her food but she refuses everything we offer her.

Stella decides to be the first to test out the showers, she grabs a change of clothes and disappears into the bathroom.

She returns just minutes later, the change of clothes is too big for her, but she doesn't seem to care, her hair is wet, but not dripping. She starts towards me and sits on her bed next to me. I take her hand into mine, lacing my fingers between hers.

"How was your shower?" I ask.

She smiles. "Like a normal shower," she says. "Not made for such a short person, but I made it work."

I smile. "You know," I say. "I don't care that your short. The only time I do is when you make me carry you."

"I mind it," she says. "When I was young, Mathew used to hide all of the food on the highest shelf so he could tease me." She laughs, then seemingly thinking about who it was, her smiles dies. "God, I miss him," she says. "Even if he would've stayed at Erudite, he'd still be alive. That would be better than this." She pauses, I can tell she's holding back tears. "I miss Christine too, the old one. Even though she was sneaking out, she was still there. And my mother, and my father. My father now is a coward, he was never a coward before, but maybe that's what loss and war does to some people." Her voice cracks.

"Hey," I say, pulling her into my arms. Despite her eyes being squeezed shut, tears slip past them. "He's alright," I say. "He's safe, he's back in Amity. He's different than who he was when you knew him, but you're right. Loss and war does that to some people," I say. "But not to you. Not to me, to any one of us. Not," I hesitate greatly before, "That didn't happen to Anthony."

She buries her face in my chest. "I'm sorry," she says. "I know you're tired of me saying so, but I am. I'm such a mess. Everything's falling apart in there, and how can we be sure that he's safe. Amity could be being searched right now for him, he could be dead just like the rest of my family."

I hold her tightly, but still cautious about how careful I am. "Stella, I'm sure he's fine," I say. "Erudite is most likely in search of someone worthy of leading them right now, they wouldn't have time to send a group to search Amity. And Amity isn't even worth searching, it's Amity."

"But the thing is," she says, pulling herself out of my arms. She looks at me, and her beauty overwhelms me once again, I stare at her eyes, which are so unusual. Her pupil in the middle-- sometimes large, other times normal sized-- next, her iris. The blue so light it looks gray, but sometimes it looks like such a pure shade of blue that the color is obvious. But at the outer area of her iris is a dark shade of blue, with hints of gray, making it seem black. I love looking at her eyes, waiting to see what the new combination will be; big pupil or small, blue or gray eyes? "Everyone in my family is either dead or a coward. And I was so close to each of them, each loss," she says. "It's like losing a part of me, just as important as my eye, or my leg, or my arm."

"I know what you mean," I say, I take her hands carefully into mine. "Stella, I'll be your family."

She stares at me for a moment, I see tears rising in her eyes. At the moment, her pupils are small, and the inner part of her iris is a light gray-blue. "I love you," she says, wrapping her arms around my neck, burying her face in the space between my shoulder and my jaw.

I slide my arms around her, my hands press to the small of her back. "I know," I say. She laughs and raises her head back to the level of mine, she touches her lips to mine, ever so carefully. I exhale heavily and kiss her back just a bit harder.