Roles Reversed (Divergent No War)

Chapter 6 (Four)

The closer it gets to midnight, the more nervous I get. The only thing on my mind is Beatrice's revelation that I have a son. Am I ready for something like this? Can I handle being a parent?

I'm only sixteen. But then again, Beatrice was only sixteen when she found out about him. She was only sixteen, maybe seventeen when he was born. She's been doing this on her own for a little over a year now.

The biggest question keeps popping up, though. Will I be like Marcus? I really hope not.

I slip out of the dorm five minutes before I'm supposed to meet Zeke to find him already there, leaning against the wall.

"How long have you been waiting?" I ask quietly. The Abnegation in me compels me to ask the question worrying that I was rude and selfish to make him wait.

Zeke shakes his head at me. "Only about a minute." He laughs. "You remind me of Tris when she first came here. Timid and worried about imposing on everyone."

"Beatrice and I do come from the same faction," I point out.

"I wouldn't call her Beatrice if I were you," Zeke says. "The last person who called her that struggled to walk for a week. That was the most painful week of my life."

I give the older boy a strange look. Beatrice is so much smaller than he is. How could she do enough damage to make him struggle to walk for an entire week.

"Don't underestimate her," Zeke says in reply to the look on my face. "Tris is a lot stronger than she looks."

"So everyone calls her Tris?" I ask trying to figure things out.

"Just her friends. Everyone in the compound knows who you're talking about if you say Tris, but everyone else is supposed to call her Six." He pauses. "I would suggest calling her Six in front of the other initiates and probably around anyone you don't know as well until after initiation."

I am quiet for most of the walk after that.

"How much has Tris changed since you first met her?" I ask trying out her preferred name.

Zeke stops walking. "Tris is still mostly the same girl I met two years ago. Honestly, the most I've noticed is her rise in confidence. She practically forced Shauna and I to help her build that confidence."

I cock my head to the side curious as to how someone forces others to help them build confidence. "How?"

Zeke laughs a little. "Candor or Dauntless. She's the one who came up with the clothing rule. Tris would ask us to play it all the time forcing herself to show more and more of herself until she could stand in a room full of people in just her underwear without trying to hide."

I don't understand his answer.

He sighs at my silence. "Tris was always so insecure about herself, especially how she looked. She felt if she could stand in a room filled with people she barely knows practically naked, then she could handle just about anything else."

"Did it work?"

He scoffs. "Did you not see the woman who managed to intimidate a girl three inches taller than her?"

He begins to walk again.

"Good point." I continue following him to the apartment.

As we stand outside the door, my nervousness reaches its peak. Somewhere on the other side of that door is my son. I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

Zeke takes out a key and sticks it in the lock to let us in. He hands the key to me after the door is open. I assume that the key is meant for me to keep.

I step inside first, forcing myself to keep calm no matter how much I want to panic. I'm not ready for a child. Twenty-four hours ago, I was still just a child being whipped by my own father.

The first thing I hear as the door opens is the sound of a baby screaming. I guess that must be Orion.

I step inside followed by Zeke as he makes his way through the apartment as if he knows it well. He probably does if Beatrice is his best friend. I follow close behind him to a small living room.

Zeke gestures for me to sit before he makes his way to the adjoining kitchen opening a drawer and pulling out some sort of tube.

The crying of the baby hasn't stopped, and Zeke makes his way to a door that he slips through. I stay on the couch where I sat when motioned to.

Soon after Zeke entered the room, the sounds of crying begin to cease, and I can now hear voices coming from the room.

"Shauna told me when we got to my apartment that she forgot to give him the gel before laying him down," I hear Zeke say is that an explanation for the tube he grabbed from the kitchen.

I can hear an audible sigh. "I wish this tooth would just finish coming through." That's Beatrice's voice. "He's always so miserable when he's teething."

"Tobias is in the living room," Zeke says.

The door to the room opens to let out Beatrice carrying a child almost as long as her torso. He's really tall for a one year old. Zeke follows her out.

"Shauna will be here in the morning," Zeke says looking at Beatrice.

She nods, her eyes never leaving the child in her arms.

When we hear the sound of the door clicking shut, Beatrice finally speaks, but not to me.

"Ri, honey," she coos at the child. "There's someone here to meet you."

As she speaks, I see his head rise to look at her face. He reaches his chubby arms around her neck and clutches her close. She laughs lightly.

My eyes never leave the child in her arms as Beatrice walks over and sits next to me on the couch. I don't know what to say, or if I should even say anything at all.

"Ri," she says to the boy again.

He looks up, and from my close proximity, I can see what she meant earlier about him looking like me. He has the same hooked nose and his eyes, although not as deep set as mine, are the same dark blue. There are bits of Beatrice like how his chin is sharper than mine, and the shape of his mouth is hers. Of course he has the same dark hair as I do too.

I watch as Orion looks up at his mother for a minute before noticing me. A look that I can only describe as pure confusion crosses his small face as he looks at me.

"Hi," I say quietly now that his attention has landed on me.

He releases his grip on Beatrice's neck and reaches out for me as if he knows who I am. She passes him over.

"He's usually pretty shy," she comments as he presses his face into my shoulder. "I've never seen him take to someone new like that. It's like he can sense who you are."

An emotion fills me that I've never felt before. It's like a mix between love, pride, and fear all wrapped into one. I speak without realizing that I had decided to.

"Hey, Orion," I say in a gentle voice that doesn't quite sound like it belongs to me. "I'm your dad."

He doesn't look up at me like he did when Beatrice said his name. He just snuggles closer to me before drifting off to sleep.