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But then I see the fists waving in the pit and I hear the Oi’s and I see a live person being passed around on the extended ar I couldn’t miss the bumblebee colors worn by the queen bee Tris is the crowd-surfer, taking her shot to get passed to the front of the stage and hopefully be ushered backstage

And I am back at hate

I part that crowd like I’eneral, Commander Pissed-Off Bitch in her own personal h the desert and no one better fking get in my way I am in the middle of the mosh within seconds and when it’s e, instead of letting her legs pass over rab for her feet instead and she falls to the ground and the crowd doesn’t care, they’ve gone on to so at the new victioons

Tris stands up froainst her forehead “THAT FUCKING HURT!” she yells at me and only if she had also snarled “OW!” like Nick could I hate her rab her hand froh the e now I don’t bother to say “bye” to Dev and Hunter, watching us leave frohtly opened eyes of their French kiss

Once we’re outside and I can breathe again, can feel the cold of the early spring- air, I am less on hate and more on tired It’s just ainst the nearby wall, and it’s quiet except for Lars L’s bassline thu taxis on the street Finally, I can hear , “Why?” to Tris, but actually I’ “WHY?” because my ears haven’t yet adjusted to the lower decibel But alreadyup, released from the suffocation of that club and that noise and so many people inside, who surely all know of ret

She’s the reason I could not break through to Nick, and I want to knohy

Tris leans against the building wall and rubs her eyes “I’ have to yell” Caroline is right, that bitch does go pleather, because otherwise no ould Trisher ass down the wall and falling to the ground Tris rests against the building, hugging her knees, her face pressed into her knees

I sit down next to her I ask her again, “Why?” and she says, “Nick?” and I say, “Yeah”

She looks like she’s going to fall asleep Her eyes flutter and she almost looks likable, now that she is freed of the club’s confines This is how she is She’ll take you to her personality’s farthest reaches of annoying, thenan al presence

Caroline and I have known her since Girl Scouts, but she was never a h school, after not even the Quakers could tolerate Caroline and I followed Caroline from Friends Country Day to Sacred Heart for junior and senior year Tris thought our arrival at her school meant the arrival of kindred spirits for her, and she followed us around like a puppy dog, wanting in on our Manhattan et that Caroline and I have always strictly been a Gang of Two Tris thinks she’s one of us since she likes the same music and no one at that school would have her, a freak like me and Caroline We have let her be Two and a Half on occasion; she does have decent radar for good bands, even if odds are she’lloff-key—whenever we take her along to a et Tris alone at Starbucks, and she’s nor too fking hard She’s ative

I want to—but I can’t—hate her

She opens one eye at ? Do you like him?”

“Yes,” I say, because I don’t want to lie, and then “Not really,” I amend, because I don’t want to lie, and finally, “No,” because I don’t want to lie Nick is—was—this thing, this person, I discovered out of nowhere and then discovered I wanted—and once I tasted it, I yearned for it—but I know I ht was an accident, clearly My heart literally aches, that shit is not made up; it hurts for an unexpected, brief ti, but then not having Who a? The best parts of Nick were ones he doesn’t even know I know he has—the lyrics, the playlists, the loyalty—and all of them, dedicated to Tris

“Did you tell him about me?” she says Because at school, in the cafeteria, with all the sweet little Catholic girls lined up like plaid dominoes at the tables, and then oth colors and C and T’s (but not s about all the guys she dates, the clubs she gets into, the fking backstage pass of it all, because she wants to impress Caroline But when it’s just the two of us in class, Tris is showing s he wrote her, the admissions essay he helped her write for FIT

“No, I didn’t tell hiirl trying to know hi of me is what I knew of Tris “Why did you do it anyway?” I don’t knohich why I want the answer to—why she cheated on hio