Dauntless High School

Chapter 14

A/N: I know absolutely nothing about carburetors or old trucks, I just googled so if I got something wrong... just pretend it wasn't. I helped my boyfriend fix his car a couple times, and it was fun, but I really don't know that much about cars.

-o-o-o-o-o-

FOUR

"So, how did you learn to do this?" Tris asks me as I fit the pieces of the carburetor together. I tense, not wanting to talk about the person who taught me to fix up my car... never wanting to talk about him.

"My father did," I say, my voice sounding colder than I mean for it to, colder than I ever would want it to sound with Tris.

"That sounds nice," she says slowly, but I can feel her studying me.

"Hold this," I murmur, showing her what I need help with. I instruct her on the next step by asking her what she thinks comes next, then guiding her through the parts she doesn't know.

Tris knows more than she thinks she does about fixing a car. When I arrived this morning, she was hesitant to guess what she thought might be going wrong under the hood, like she was embarrassed to guess the wrong thing. We went for a drive and I knew what we should look at first immediately, but I asked her questions about what she was hearing, feeling, etc. and what she thought could cause that. In the end, she came to the same conclusion I did: we needed to rebuild the carburetor.

"I mean, that's good time spent together. At least, it was for my mom and me." Her eyes stay on the parts we are assembling the whole time, not daring to look up to mine.

I sigh. "Yeah... I suppose. And I did learn a lot. I just... I don't know, my dad and I... don't get on too well." I explain vaguely. "And I felt like he had other reasons than just wanting to spend time getting to know me."

I think back to that time, shortly before my fifteenth birthday, when I brought home the Mustang. I had saved my pay from mowing lawns, painting houses, and doing odd jobs around the neighborhood for more than two years to earn enough to buy that car. Even then, the best one I could afford was damn near unsalvageable, barely getting back to my house from the next town over, where I had purchased it from a guy living in a double-wide trailer.

The car sat on four cinder bricks in the side yard for more than a month while I scoured videos on YouTube and books from the library, and any internet resources I could find, for enough information to fix the my dream car up on my own. Marcus had no interest in helping me learn.

"How could he have an ulterior motive to helping teaching you to fix a car?" Tris asks. She scrunches her nose the way I have noticed she always does when she's confused. It's adorable. Her curious nature, however, I am finding to be inconvenient.

I pretend to concentrate on the very simple task I am completing while I think of my answer. But she has told me a lot more than I expected about her family, her past... painful subjects. I am not prepared to tell her my secrets, but I can afford a little honesty. After all, it's Tris.

"My mom," I say. I sigh and pause my work, sitting back and looking at her. "My dad only worried about being father- or husband-of-the-year when he was in public," I explain. "At home, where there was no one to impress..." I shrug. "But my mom got sick of that and she left. I was ten at the time." I pick up the parts again, needing something to distract me from how much I am revealing to this girl, and I start putting it together again.

"She was gone for four years," I tell her. "Then when I was almost fifteen, she came back. She couldn't take me with her, she wasn't stable, but at least she did come back for me eventually. She couldn't get me away from him, though, so they got back together. He was wanting her to stay... trying to pretend he was this great dad to me, blah blah blah."

Four years she left me alone with him. I try to forget about it, I really do try. But I'm not certain that I will ever be able to fully forgive my mother.

Tris looks at me. Then she doesn't ask the things I think she will- for more specific explanation as to in what ways my father is deceiving others, what kind of father and husband he really is. Instead she catches what I didn't expect her to, while seeming to know that now is the time to stop asking questions, probing for more information. She just says, "Four years. That's why you call yourself 'Four.' The real reason. Isn't it?"

I nod slowly but my heart races. If she understands how significant those four years were in becoming who I am today, she is seeing right through me, more than I thought she would... more than I think I want her to.

But whatever she thinks she knows, it's too late now. I will just have to trust her.

"Well, that's it, isn't it?" Tris suddenly says and I realize that we have been staring at each other longer than is socially acceptable, she is trying to break the tension.

I smile. "Yep, you just rebuilt your carburetor. Let's get it hooked back up and see how she sounds."

When we have hooked the carburetor back up to the accelerator pump and the choke, and everything is back as it should be, I climb in the passenger seat and Tris climbs in behind the wheel. We fasten our lap belts- this truck is too old to have come with shoulder belts- and Tris gives me a nervous grin as she slowly slides the key into the ignition.

The truck doesn't stall when she turns the key, but instead nearly roars to life with little coaxing. Tris bounces in her seat at the early signs that we've had a successful day in the garage.

She backs carefully out of the driveway and puts it in first gear. I watch her expertly work the clutch and pedals as she accelerates onto a busy street. This morning, it would sputter when she tried to accelerate, but not now.

"Purring like a kitten," I say, smiling at her.

"Yep," she says, "like a kitten. No more old motor boat." I laugh.

-o-o-o-o-o-

We cruise around for a few minutes, Tris grinning like a fool at our accomplishment, until she finally pulls up to a park. Or rather a field with an opening at the edge of a forest. "What's this place?" I ask her.

Tris shrugs. "You helped me today, I thought I'd give you something in return. This is the place I come when I want to get away from everything. You trusted me, so I think you deserve my trust in showing this to you."

Tris leads me down the trail, but soon branches off to a path that I would not have noticed if she had not been leading me. It is overgrown, and I can barely tell where we will follow it next, but Tris knows the way. I wonder if she is the only one who uses this less-traveled trail.

Soon we pass through an opening in the trees where the branches are so low that even Tris has to crouch a little bit; being much taller than she, I have to practically fold myself in half. But when we pass into the clearing, it's all worth it.

The river is loud here, and I can just see it through the trees on the opposite side of the small clearing. We pass through the open space and Tris leads me to a cluster of large, flat rocks at the water's edge. We sit with our feet dangling in the mist kicked up by the white, swiftly-moving water.

The rushing water fills the silence between us. It's not an awkward silence; it's very comfortable, actually. Neither of us needs to ask the other any questions, entertain the other, we can just sit together, just be, in a way that I don't remember just existing next to anyone else, without feeling as though they expected anything of me.

It's freeing. It's perfect.

Until the perfect, consuming silence is interrupted by the ringing of Tris's cell phone.

Tris smiles at me in apology as she her phone out from her jeans pocket and swipes at the screen to answer the call. But I already saw the picture on screen: it features Uriah giving Tris a piggyback ride, her face peeking over his shoulder. It brings me back to reality with a twist in my stomach.

Tris's voice fades out as she walks back to the clearing to take the call from her boyfriend, and I stand up and stretch, my mood dampened. For a few glorious minutes I just enjoyed being with Tris, nearly allowing myself to forget all about her boyfriend... a guy I'm supposed to be friends with. I keep falling deeper, when in reality, I know what I need to do.

I need to forget about my feelings for Tris.