Dauntless High School

Chapter 12

A/N: This took me forever... the chapter ended up totally different than what I had planned. What can I say, Tris can be pretty stubborn. Hopefully she won't make you wait so long for the next one.

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FOUR POV

Friday morning I walk into first period Chemistry class and sit down next to Marlene. Zeke is over at Maria's desk again, his shirt sleeves rolled up, the tie loose and the top two buttons of his shirt undone, thankfully he has a t-shirt under his dress shirt. We have a game tonight, so the team has to wear dress shirts and ties to school. I hate dressing up. It reminds me of being dragged to business events with Marcus. We could never have gotten away with the way Zeke is wearing them at my old school, but I follow Zeke's example and loosen my tie.

We do a lab today, and Marlene and I work together while Zeke somehow manages to make the teacher pair him up with Maria. We totally get the chemicals wrong (and when I say we, I mean Marlene) and it explodes in a cloud of red chalk-like substance, coating my face. I'm very glad that I have safety goggles today.

Marlene looks at me and bursts into a loud belly laugh. "It's all in your hair," she breathes out, still laughing at me, "all over your face, and you just had to wear a white dress shirt today, didn't you?" Oh shit, my dress shirt!

"You know this was your fault, right? Not mine! I can't believe you're laughing at me," I retort, but even as I say this, I can't hold back my own laughter any more, either.

"Come on," Marlene chuckles. "Let's go get you cleaned up." She grabs my wrist and begins pulling me toward the sink at one side of the classroom, but it's already got a line waiting, so she pulls me out the door and into the hall.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

"Bathroom," she says. My eyes widen, does that mean I'm going in the girls' room or she's coming into the boys'? It's kind of stupid but I have always wondered what the girls' bathroom is like.

We pass Shauna in the hall and she raises her eyebrows at us and gives Marlene a weird look.

Marlene does indeed pull me into the girls' bathroom. I'm a little disappointed by how plain it is... I don't know what I was expecting. However, it's still definitely different from the boys' room. Marlene begins to wet paper towels and brush me off. "It smells a lot better in here than the boys' room," I comment. This bathroom looks only slightly cleaner, but there's no gross smell in here.

Marlene giggles. "Yeah, that's why we're here and not in the boys' bathroom."

"You've been in the boys' room?"

Marlene shrugs. "Because of a dare." She points at my head, then at the sink. "Bend down," she orders me.

After she has finished washing my hair out with cool water and soap, I have a bit of a kink in my neck and back, but I'm clean, other than the shirt. We stop by my locker on the way back to class-- I carry my backpack with me during the day, but my extra clothes and shoes and stuff for practice stay in my locker. I grab the t-shirt I brought for practice this afternoon and turn with my back to the locker before quickly whipping off the dirty white shirt and putting the black t-shirt on in its place. I notice Marlene staring at my abs and chest after I take off the dress shirt and (now stained) white t-shirt underneath, and I smirk at her.

I smirk at her. "Like what you see?" I tease her, and Marlene flushes bright red.

"Sorry," she mutters as we start walking back to class.

"It's fine," I laugh, "I was just teasing you. I know I'm hard to look away from."

Marlene just rolls her eyes.