Divergent UNIVERSITY ✅

chapter 44

Chapter 44

"So what happened?" Four asks her once they are in the car and have started to drive."He was miserable from the moment that I walked into the house. Caleb warned me that he wasn't happy that I was there. He claimed that he did all of these things for me and supported me, but he never did. It was only a few minutes before I realized that it was a really bad idea to meet with him. I basically called him a liar, told him thanks for nothing, and walked out of the house.""I'm sorry you had to deal with that," he tells her.She leans across and kisses him on the cheek and lays her head on his shoulder. "Thank you for coming.""I wasn't about to let you deal with that on your own. Besides, I had to go to the parlor today anyway. Might as well drive there with you."They pull into the parking lot of the tattoo parlor and get out of the car. Four takes her hand and they walk in together.When they walk in to the tattoo parlor, Zeke is sitting in Zia's chair looking at a picture and laughing with her. Seeing them together makes Tris happy. She and Four walk over to her mother and Tris sits down."Well how'd it go?""Best time ever," Tris says sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "He just basically reminded me of why he has always made me feel like crap and then I realized I don't have to put up with his crap anymore. I have no connection to him other than the fact that he is my brother's father."Bud walks into the room. He smiles when he sees his daughter. Tris finally knows what it means to have a father's unconditional love. She's always had it, she just never knew it."Does this mean that you forgive me?" Natalie asks."Sort of," Tris smirks. "I'm still irritated. You should have told me. You should have allowed me to have the relationship with my father that I deserved. Not the torturous relationship that I had.""You had a relationship with your father.""Mom, it's not the same. I spent twenty-one years trying to win the love of a man that only ever resented me. I just never knew it.""I know, I'm sorry.""Let's just move on. I'll deal and move on. Bud has always loved me and I always knew it. He has always been the father that I needed. Now it's just official," Tris pauses for a moment. "I want a tattoo.""What do you want?"Bud comes and sits with his wife, daughter, and Four. "Getting a new tattoo?" he asks."Yes, I want interlocking hearts on my calf. Inside of one heart I want it to say dad and in the other I want it to say mom.""Do you want any color on it?" Natalie asks."No, black and grays only. I also want the lettering to be calligraphy type lettering, not script."Natalie nods and gets to work drawing what her daughter just described. Bud just sits there and smiles, "I have something to show you."He lifts his shirt and reveals a tattoo on his chest. It is a little hand print and a little footprint. Under the prints is the name Beatrice. "I got these just after you were born. These are your actual foot and hand prints. I had your mother make them when she returned from maternity leave."Tris smiles at this. He's had her tattooed on his body and she never knew it. "Thanks Dad."Bud starts to tear when he hears her call him dad. It's what he has always wanted, and now he finally has everything he could possibly want. He pulls her into a hug and kisses the top of her head. "I've waited twenty-one years to hear you say that word to me."Tris wasn't sure what it would feel like to actually call him dad. At first it felt kind of strange, but when she saw him light up from just that one word, she knew it was right. Suddenly it didn't feel wrong to call him dad, it felt right, it felt perfect.

~oOo~

Two weeks later, Brian came to talk to Tris at her parents' house."It seems they have moved up the trial date for the kidnapping," Brian tells her somberly."Why?" Bud asks. "We haven't heard anything about that for a while now. Why all of the sudden now?""I don't know how to break this lightly, so I'm just going to tell you. Albert Cost committed suicide two nights ago. He was doing a work detail on a highway just outside of Chicago, cleaning up. He jumped off of a bridge into the Chicago River. The U.S. Attorney's office has put Eric on lockdown and they want this trial resolved as soon as possible."Hearing this news makes Tris sad, but also a little relieved. Al was kind of her friend. He was nice to her when she arrived on campus. Of course he became creepy and weird after that, but she never wanted to see him dead."When?" Tris asks Brian."The trial is set be begin in two weeks. I'm pushing Turner to bring you in early to recount what happened. There is no reason to drag this out like they did with Marcus' trial.""When will we know what is going on?" Natalie asks."Hopefully soon. For now, they are trying to get everything set up and they will be selecting the jury in the next few days."Tris nods, "I'm going to find Four if that's okay." She has mixed feelings about Al's death. He tried to hurt her. He kidnapped her and threatened to kill her. But he also was once her friend when she really didn't have anyone.She finds Four sitting outside on the balcony of their bedroom. When he sees her he knows that something is up. When she gets close enough, he takes her by the hand and pulls her into his lap."What's wrong?""Al killed himself," she says simply."When?""Brian says two days go. He was working on a street cleaning crew from the jail. He jumped into the Chicago River from a bridge just outside of the city apparently." She pauses for a moment, "You know he called me a couple weeks ago. He tried to apologize but I wouldn't listen to him, I just hung up on him. He sounded so sad and defeated.""Tris it isn't your fault. He tried to hurt you. No one can blame you for not wanting to talk to the man that kidnapped you. If I'd have known I would have hung up on him for you.""But maybe if I would have forgiven him...""Don't even say that. Tris he was weak. He couldn't have you so he kidnapped you. He threatened to kill you. He obviously had some kind of issues. No normal thinking person would kidnap someone.""I think I'm actually kind of mad. He took his life and now he doesn't have to answer for anything that he did.""He was a coward, Tris. He couldn't handle not getting what he wanted, so he tried to hurt you and me to get what he wanted. When that didn't work, he killed himself."She knows that he is right. But she can't help but feel a little responsible for the death of this person that she barely knew. She sits with Four in silence. A lone tear falls down her cheek as she mourns the loss of a life.Four pulls her close and she buries her face in his chest. She doesn't allow any more tears to fall, but she does allow herself to be sad for just a moment longer.~oOo~Over the next two weeks the group prepares to go back to campus. Four and Zeke found an apartment about a mile off campus that is convenient for Zeke to get to the police academy and for Four to get to campus for work.Zeke got his new tattoo from Zia. She created a crazy looking monkey mooning people. For some reason she thought that a funny monkey would fit him. He loved it when he saw it. The two of them started hanging out more often. She helped him move into his apartment, which coincidentally was in the building right down the street from hers.Zia started letting her guard down with him a little. She still fears that he has lingering feeling for the girl that he was with before, but she loves being friends with him so she's decided to focus on that.A week before classes were set to start, Bud and Four move Tris back into the sorority house. This year she will have her own room, Marlene was voted president so she will move into the room that is designated for the sorority president and Tris will have her own room.As the semester begins, the group starts to make plans for what is to come. The girls start practice for their fall softball team. Uriah and Will have already been practicing since the middle of July.As the first home football game approaches, the Phi Delts start to plan their first victory party of the year."Planning a little early, don't you think?" Marlene scoffs."We aren't planning to win, we decided that we are having a party to celebrate the first game, win or lose."Once back on campus, Four and Tris start to train again. She has taken a little time off from their normal training sessions, but as the season draws near, she knows that she needs to get back into shape, fast.Four drives to campus every morning and meets Tris for a morning run. Then they go to the training facility to lift and work on fielding and hitting. They help each other to get into shape as they push one another harder than anyone else could possibly push them.Four starts to think about what is going to happen when he leaves for spring training and part of him wonders if Zeke has the right idea. He turned down the opportunity to play baseball because even though there are tons of minor league teams, there is never a guarantee that you are going to go pro. There are only about six hundred total baseball players on the continent in the major leagues and they are bringing in the best ball players from across the world. He's not sure if he can compete with that. He could spend his life on a triple A team which wouldn't be bad if he was only worried about himself, but he doesn't he also worries about Tris. She is already set to play professional softball and she will be going out for the Olympic team again in a couple years. This is her life, he now just needs to decide what his life is going to be and where he wants his life to be.~oOo~The first softball game of the fall season arrives to mixed feelings. This team has won the national championship two years in a row. But this year they have huge changes in key positions. With Shauna, Kenzie, and Faith gone, new players had to take their place. They are all very good at playing their positions, but the rapport on the field isn't the same. Kenzie could anticipate Tris' throws and moves but Sam is different. She hasn't played with Tris enough yet to really know how she plays. Sam is afraid to catch when Tris throws the ball at her during practice. How is she going to act during a game when Tris doesn't hold anything back and she just throws? Heather is also not as good at knowing what her job is at third base. She's slow and doesn't try to get to the balls that go between her and Tris.Jasmine is as good a pitcher as Faith was, she's played several games with Tris in the past when they pulled Faith out for one reason or another. There is also a new left fielder, Angel. She is better than Mary was. She watches Tris and tries to get to the balls that she doesn't think that Tris will get to. She has also asked Tris if she could meet her when she is training with Four so that she can learn to work with her on the field. So Angel started meeting Tris and Four in the mornings to run and go to the training center.With Four's help, Angel became a better player. She got faster and became a better fielder. She even learned to play first base almost as well as Kenzie while she would catch for Tris while they were doing fielding practice.The first game comes and Four is on the sideline as the team doctor. He's really starting to question going to play triple-A baseball. He loves training Tris and Angel and helping them to become better ball players.The team goes out to warm up and Sam is already flinching when Tris throws the ball to her. Tris watches her and knows that she is going to get hurt if she doesn't stop closing her eyes when she catches the ball. Before the first batter comes up, Tris calls the infield to the pitcher's mound."Alright ladies, this is our first game. We have a title to defend."Marlene steps in, "Here we go ladies, are we ready for a win?"They all yell, "Tigers on three. One... Two... Three... Tigers!"Tris grabs Sam, "Sam, you have to calm down. If you keep flinching when I throw the ball to you, you are going to get hurt.""I'm fine Tris, you know you aren't the know all of softball. Let's just play."Tris glares at her. Part of her wants to prove a point to this girl, but she knows she won't have to.The first inning proves Tris' point. The first two batters cause uneventful plays. The first flew out to Angel in left and the second hit a grounder up the third base line that Heather missed. Angel got the ball and made the play at second base holding the runner to a single.The third batter comes up and hits a line drive to Tris. She grabs the ball out of the air and fires the ball at Sam to get the out at first. Sam has a look of terror on her face when the ball comes at her. She closes her eyes and misses the ball. But the ball hits her square in the chest, knocking the wind out of her and causing the runner to take second base. Jasmine runs to get the ball and cover first, but the damage has been done.The umpire stops the game as the coaches and Four run out onto the field to check on Sam. She is down on the ground crying while the infield surrounds her to see if she's okay.The coaches pick her up. She looks a little dazed but okay. Four tells them that she needs to go to get x-rays to check for cracked ribs.Sam looks toward Tris and glares at her, "You did that on purpose. You were trying to hurt me."Tris doesn't have the chance to respond, Jasmine, Angel, and Marlene speak up in her defense."Sam you are crazy, if she wanted you to miss that ball she would have thrown it so you couldn't catch it. That ball hit you square in the chest, if your eyes were open when she threw it, you would have caught it," Angel says."Besides Sam, she warned you to keep your eyes open. I heard what she said to you before this game started. She warned you that you were closing your eyes and you told her to mind her business. Tris isn't one of the best college softball players in the country for no reason," Jasmine says.The coaches lead Sam from the field. One of them turns to Tris, "Who can catch your throws other than Marlene?""Put Angel on first and put Shelley in left. Shelley knows that position and Angel can catch whatever I throw at her."The coaches agree. They knew that Sam getting hurt was partially their fault. Tris had gone to them a couple days ago and told them that she was afraid of the ball. They just thought that it was Tris missing the old team and figured that she would get used to Sam. They didn't realize that Tris had tried to talk to Sam about being afraid of the ball.The rest of the game goes smoothly. Angel is very good at first base. She can catch everything that Jasmine and Tris throw at her and she is tall and can stretch to catch the balls that don't quite make it right to her.The Tigers lose the game seven to five, but they are headed in the right direction with the changes.Sam didn't have any broken ribs, just a deep bruise in her chest. The next day when the team meets for practice, the coaches told her that she would be benched.Sam blamed Tris for everything that happened and she promised herself that she would make Tris pay for making her lose her position.