My Allegiant Life-- A Divergent Fanfiction

Chapter 14 Storm

I don't fall asleep, but Stella does. Right in my arms, her head resting against my chest. No one bothers us for the longest time. Stella wakes with a start, her breathing uneasy and her eyes wide with something that I recognize as fear. I press her closer, even though there is no closer, she buries her face in my chest.

"Nightmare?" I whisper. She nods. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She shakes her head. "Just . . . Something from the simulations," her voice is muffled.

I consider my response. "Do you want me to try to help you?"

"No," she says. "You can't."

I feel like she just punched me in the gut.

"I don't mean it like that," she says, pulling away. She looks at me. "I mean, I don't think anyone can help me, not even you. It's just something that I wouldn't expect very many people to understand--"

"What were the simulations about?" I demand, my voice colder than I'd intended.

She sighs lightly. "You already know," she says. "The one with the screaming . . . Except," she almost chokes on her words. "He was there." She coughs as if to hide her struggle against the tears. "I'm sorry, I'm just going to go get some food--"

"Stella, don't go," I say. "Look, I don't think I ever told you that I went back into my fear landscape."

She looks at me.

And I can't read her expression.

"Was it the same?" She asks.

I nod. "Same number, to," I say. "Just . . . Two of them are different, the last two."

"How so?"

I hesitate, glancing around the room to spot any eavesdroppers. I trust and respect these people I'm living with, but I can't trust them not to listen in on personal conversations. Although, each and every one of them is deep into a conversation of their own. But I will never let my guard down for any one but Stella. She's the only person I've ever really felt I could trust with my secrets. And it seems I was right to trust her. She seems to have taken my secrets into a part of her mind, hidden under a lock and key.

"We'll talk about it later, okay?" I say. She nods. "Are you alright?"

"Physically, yes," she says. "Emotionally unstable. Mentally devastated."

There's a brief silence.

"Hey," she says. "Just being Candor."

I sigh. "Why?" I ask. She shouldn't act like this, not now. Not while everything is already falling apart. We just lost Anthony. "You don't need to be doing this."

"Doing what?" She asks. "I thought I hadn't said anything really Candor in a while."

I hesitate before answering. "Stella, how often do you think about those simulations?"

"Why?" She asks, almost too quickly. She clears her throat.

I consider my response. "Because, you keep waking up in the middle of the night, or not sleeping at all, like your trying to avoid sleeping so they won't come back," I say. "Just . . . Please, tell me, let me at least try to help you."

She sighs. "Almost all the time," she says. "Alright? They bother me, and they won't go away. I don't know what can be done to get rid of them, so just . . . Just let me deal with it, okay?"

I study her expression; tired, hurt, irritated. I shake my head. "No," I say. "I already know how you plan to deal with it, and it won't help, I can tell that all you plan to do is what you're doing now. And that isn't dealing with it, that's letting it happen."