We Are Divergent

Chapter Twenty-Eight

He seemed deep in thought the entire train ride home, and I was pretty annoyed myself, so we didn’t converse. I couldn’t help but be annoyed at Evelyn, especially as my mind replayed her saying my grandmother was a liar and that the whole thing was a hoax. If it was a hoax why did Jeanine go through such measures to hide it?

Part of me was a little anxious to talk to him on the off chance that our perceptions of her actions and words might be completely different. I know that she is acting out of fear and has greed for power to get her way, but who knows what he thinks? He could be convinced she is somehow innocent now, for all I know. I fingered my fake engagement ring during our silent, and pretty sneaky, walk back to our apartment.

“Are you going to speak to me eventually?” I asked once the door was shut behind me.

His eyes darted up to mine as if he was just remembering he was in my presence. “You haven’t spoken either,”

“Well I guess I thought you needed some time to gather your thoughts...”

“My thoughts are well gathered. I am just thinking.”

“About?” I asked as I removed the gun, that was thankfully not needed tonight, and put it into his outstretched hand.

“It’s kind of unrelated in a way. I’m wasting my time letting it bother me.”

I watched him carefully as he leaned against the hallway wall. “Nothing that bothers you is a waste of your time, and it’s definitely not a waste of mine.”

He flashed a quick smile. I took his hand so that he would come with us into our bedroom. We spent quite a lot of time out tonight but surprisingly I didn’t feel fatigued. He started talking once he sat on the bed and pulled me onto his lap. “I was trying to remember back when I was a kid… I was looking to see if Evelyn ever showed any characteristics of being a person who wanted things the way, and only the way, that she saw it.”

“Did you find anything?

“No. She was a good mom for the most part. Up into when she left, I guess… She never seemed stubborn, and never bossed anybody around. She was very kind to me, and she took a beating for me every night. Abnegation or whatever you would call that, but I know that she did it because she would rather it be her than me. Maybe she thought it was her that caused Marcus to act like that. Maybe that’s why she staged her fake death, because she thought if she was gone it would all just stop.”

He paused for a moment, acknowledging the fact that we both know it didn’t stop. “But I realized perhaps the reason she wants things her way now is because she never had that option. We lived under Marcus’s roof and under Marcus’s rules. Most people take their fear and learn from it, but I guess some people take their fear and turn it into the only way they know how to deal with it.”

“So you know?”

“I know. I kind of knew when you first told me but I wanted to believe she came out better than that. If she left I wish she had at least taken with her the importance of knowing that control doesn’t diminish cowardice.”