Flower Child

Chapter Thirty

   The next morning I can stop touching my lips and smiling as I think about him. It's stupid but I can't help it. My friends all look at me like I'm crazy but I don't particularly care.
"What's up with you," Christina asks.
We're walking to breakfast.
"She probably ate to much Amity bread," Will snorts.
I elbow him in the side, "shut up. Am I not allowed to be happy?"
"Of course you are," Tris chuckles.
"Thank you," I smile, "at least someone isn't being mean to me."
"Whatever," Chris rolls her eyes, "you're just being weird is all."
"I'm not being weird," I say.
"Sure," she nods, "whatever you say."
We push through the doors and go to our usual table, Uriah, Mar, and Lynn are their waiting for us. I sit down between Uriah and Tris. I grab an muffin from the center of the table and happily bite into it.
Uriah leans around me to Tris, "did she hit her head on the top bunk or something?"
I shove him so he falls out of his seat. The table erupts into laughter but I'm quickly distracted.
Tobias walks into the room, his hair is shorter and almost seems black because of it. It's Abnegation short. I smile. He walks towards Zeke without glancing at me.
Despite what happened last night, I'm still an initiate and he's still my instructor. We can't just go around acting like a couple, I know that. It doesn't stop the clenching in my chest.
Suddenly I'm being pulled backwards. I shriek as I land on top of Uriah. He groans under me. When I had fallen my elbow had gone straight into his ribs.
"How well did that idea work out for you," I ask him, a smile on my lips.
"Could've gone better," he says.
I laugh, getting off him and helping him to his feet. We sit back down and I glance at Tobias, his eyes are on me but he quickly looks away when I catch him.
"Today's fear landscape day," Will says from across the table, "you think we'll get to see our own fear landscapes?"
"No," Uriah says, "you go through one of the instructors' landscapes. My brother told me."
"Ooh, which instructor," Christina asks, suddenly interested.
"You know, it really isn't far that you all get insider information and we don't," Will says, glaring at Uriah.
"What do you think you're getting now," Mar asks.
Chris ignores them, "I hope it's Four's landscape."
I stiffen a little, "why?"
She rolls her eyes, "like you don't want to know what his fears are. He acts so tough that he's probably afraid of marshmallows and really bright sunrises or something. Overcompensating."
"It won't be his," I say.
"And how do you know that?"
"It's just a prediction."
My wrist tingles for a moment. Tobias would never let everyone see his last fear. I glance at him again, and his eyes find mine. I smile and let my eyes fall away, he wouldn't let anyone see that, but he let me.

The Dauntless-born instructor, Lauren, stands with her hands on her hips outside the fear landscape room.
"Two years ago," she says, "I was afraid of spiders, suffocation, walls that inch slowly inward and trap you between them, getting thrown out of Dauntless, uncontrollable bleeding, getting run over by a train, my father's death, public humiliation, and kidnapping by men without faces."
We all stare at her.
"Most of you will have anywhere from ten to fifteen fears in your fear landscape. That is the average number," she says.
"What's the lowest number someone has gotten," Lynn asks.
My eyes fall on him.
"In recent years," Lauren answers, "four."
Tobias's eyes are trained on the floor. I thought Four was impressive, not a record. He's amazing.
"You will not find out your number today," Lauren continues, "the simulation is set to my fear landscape program, so you will experience my fears instead of your own."
I smirk at Christina. I was right, we wouldn't be going through Four's fears.
"For the purposes of this exercise, though, each of you will only face one of my fears, to get a sense for how the simulation works."
Lauren points at us at random, assigning us her fears. There are two fears I really did not want to be assigned, so of course I got one. Tris got the other one of them, kidnapping, and I got Lauren's father's death.
We can't see the fear the others face, but we can watch the reactions. Will frantically pushes invisible spiders off his body. Uriah presses his hands against enclosing walls. Peter, by far my favorite, turns bright red has he is publicly embarrassed. But then it's my turn.
The entire way up there, I remind myself that I can do this, I've been through Tobias's, I have already been able to manipulate the sims, I can do this. Lauren puts the needle in my neck and I don't flinch.
The concrete beneath me turns to white tiles. The graffitied walls turn to white paint. Bright fluorescent white light blinds me.
Beep... Beep... Beep... Beep...
Lauren's fear looks an awful lot like mine. No, it is mine. My father's name is written on the side of the white hospital bed, clear as day. My father is in the bed like my fear, but that's where Lauren's fear takes over. My father is alive, and he's looking at me.
"My little artist," he says.
"Daddy," I ask, tears welling in my eyes.
It isn't real, but it feels real.
"Come here," he says, opening his arms for me.
I fall into them. It feels so real. The warmth, his smell, it's so real.
Beep...... Beep...... Beep......
His touch suddenly grows colder and his arms loosen around me.
"Daddy?"
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I pull away from him, "Daddy? No, Daddy!"
His cold lifeless eyes stare back at me. A sob leaps from my chest.
"Come back," I sob.
He slowly starts to disappear, leaving me.
I scream, "no, please, no, no, no!"
He leaves me alone in that white room. I can't tell if I'm sobbing or screaming. I can't hear myself anymore.
"Stop," a stern voice cuts through me.
The sim falls away, the white turns back to the dark. I'm on the floor, tears streaming down my face. I failed. I failed. I failed. Lauren's fear became my own and I lost it.
Everyone saw it too. Everyone.
Tobias marches towards me and grabs me by the arm, ripping me to my feet.
"What the hell was that?"
"I- I..."
"Get yourself together," he yells, "this is pathetic!"
Something within me breaks, some sort of dam that had kept my anger contained. I smack him across the face so hard that my own hand stings on impact. He stares at me, his cheek red. I stare back, my eyes narrowed at him.
"Get your hand off me before I rip it off," I growl.
He lets go out of shock and I stalk out of the room. Everyone watches me go, their eyes wide and fearful, for me, and of me.