Meant To Be // Eric OC

Dreams & Decisions

     "Audrey." I turn to see who has called my name, although I don't have to. The sound of his voice has been embedded in my heart. It's the voice I've been yearning to hear for the past year.

     "Eric?" I see him. His face is still as beautiful as the last time I saw it. Just seeing him brings tears to my eyes.

     "Audrey. I can't stay. I don't belong here." Oh, no. I remember him telling me this. I remember the pain I felt as the words reached my ears. This can't happen again.

     "Eric, you have to stay here. Stay with me... I LOVE YOU." The tears have already fallen over the brim of my eyes and are flowing down my face in salty, sticky rivers.

     "I can't stay. I don't want to stay." His face contorts as if he's in pain, "I DON'T WANT YOU." 

     I spring up in my bed gasping for air, my face wet with tears. It happened again. I had that same nightmare for months after he left. They stopped coming after a while. I thought I was okay. I thought I had finally forgotten. I thought that the hole in my heart had closed for good. But that just re-opened the wound and made it a little bigger.

     The clock on my nightstand reads 5:56, an hour before I'm supposed to be up. I won't be able to fall asleep again so I go to take a shower instead. I turn the water on, waiting for it to warm up, and step in letting its warmth envelop me and wash away the seemingly endless layer of cold that surrounds me.

     After showering, I walked back into my room to get dressed and find that my mother has laid clothes out for me on the bed. I sigh and put them on. Putting on a little make-up and a locket Eric left for me the day he left.  

     My parents had made me go to the Choosing Ceremony with them, although I really just wanted to stay at home and cry. When we got there I looked around for him, but he wasn't there yet. He came 5 minutes before the ceremony started. I had wondered why he was so late. Back at home after the ceremony had ended, and he had left my life, I went straight to my room. I walked in and saw a small box lying on the bed. When I opened it there was a locket shaped like a heart lying in it. I turned it over to look at the back and the tears started flowing faster. Engraved on the back was the word 'FOREVER.'

     I was never really able to understand him. One minute he tells me he doesn't want me and the next he leaves me a locket that lets me know he'll love me forever. 

     "Audrey!" My mother's voice echoes from down downstairs. "Alex is here for you!"

     Alex Sanders is my "boyfriend". My parents absolutely love him. I, on the other hand, don't. Now don't get me wrong, he's cute, but he is a stuck up asshole. Not only that but I'm sure he's cheating on me, probably with more than one person. But, my mother set us up together and I don't want to disappoint my mother.

     "I'll be right there, mother!" I quickly pull my blouse over the locket and walk downstairs.

     "Goodmorning, Alex." I smile at him softly.

     "Goodmorning, Audrey. Are you ready to go to the ceremony? It will be starting shortly."

     "Of course."

     "We'll see you at dinner, Audrey." My mother says before she and my father come around the table and wrap their arms around me, briefly because they didn't know that it would be the last time.

* * *

     Alex and I entered the Hub, where the ceremony is held, and found our seats with the rest of our faction. I looked around the room at the sullen, worried faces of parents, and the somewhat passive, almost excited, expressions of the choosers. Well, the ones who plan on transferring. I empathize with some of these people. The ones who are willing to leave everything they know and love behind so they can make a better future for themselves.

     The room falls quiet as Max, the leader of Dauntless, walks up onto the stage at the front of the room signaling that the ceremony was starting.

     "Today, every 16-year-old in this room is going to enter the realm of adulthood. Today is the beginning of the rest of their lives. They will live their own lives and make their own decisions. And, this is the first and most important decision they will make. Choose wisely."

     Max quickly leaves the stage and Jack Kang, the leader of Candor, steps up to the table with the bowls on it and starts calling the names in alphabetical order. I don't pay attention. Out of all the people being called I only know a handful of them and even they are people I don't care about.

     "Audrey Collins," Jack calls loudly.

     I stand quietly and start walking down the stairs and to the stage, hoping that I don't trip. I, thankfully, make it to the front of the room without falling. An Abnegation man behind the table stands to get a knife ready for me to use. As he does this I look at the contents of all five of the bowls sitting on the table. Smooth gray stones for Abnegation, Soil for Amity, shards of broken glass for Candor, water for Erudite, and lit coals for Dauntless. My eyes linger on the Dauntless bowl the longest.

     The man reaches out and hands me the knife. I hastily press the blade into my skin and slide it down my palm, leaving a trail of blood welling up out of the wound. The blood pools in my hand and without a second of hesitation I thrust my out and listen to the sizzling of the coals.