I put on the red shirt I was wearing before. I don’t want to put on something that dirty again, but I have no other choice.
“I suspect some of the factionless women have spare clothes,” says Susan.
“You’re probably right. Okay, your turn.”
I stand with the towel as Susan washes up. My arms start to ache after a while, but she ignored the pain for me, so I’ll do the same for her. Water splashes on my ankles when she washes her hair.
“This is a situation I never thought we would be in together,” I say after a while. “Bathing from the sink of an abandoned building, on the run from the Erudite.”
“I thought we would live near each other,” says Susan. “Go to social events together. Have our kids walk to the bus stop together.”
I bite my lip at that. It is my fault, of course, that that was never a possibility, because I chose another faction.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring it up,” she says. “I just regret that I didn’t pay more attention. If I had, maybe I would have known what you were going through. I acted selfishly.”
I laugh a little. “Susan, there’s nothing wrong with the way you acted.”
“I’m done,” she says. “Can you hand me that towel?”
I close my eyes and turn so she can grab the towel from my hands. When Therese walks into the bathroom, smoothing her hair into a braid, Susan asks her for spare clothes.
By the time we leave the bathroom, I wear jeans and a black shirt that is so loose up top that it slips off my shoulders, and Susan wears baggy jeans and a white Candor shirt with a collar. She buttons it up to her throat. The Abnegation are modest to the point of discomfort.
When I enter the large room again, some of the factionless are walking out with buckets of paint and paintbrushes. I watch them until the door closes behind them.
“They’re going to write a message to the other safe houses,” says Evelyn from behind me. “On one of the billboards. Codes formed out of personal information—so-and-so’s favorite color, someone else’s childhood pet.”
I am not sure why she would choose to tell me something about the factionless codes until I turn around. I see a familiar look in her eyes—it is the same as the one Jeanine wore when she told Tobias she had developed a serum that could control him: pride.
“Clever,” I say. “Your idea?”
“It was, actually.” She shrugs, but I am not fooled. She is anything but nonchalant. “I was Erudite before I was Abnegation.”
“Oh,” I say. “Guess you couldn’t keep up with a life of academia, then?”
She doesn’t take the bait. “Something like that, yes.” She pauses. “I imagine your father left for the same reason.”
I almost turn away to end the conversation, but her words create a kind of pressure inside my mind, like she is squeezing my brain between her hands. I stare.
“You didn’t know?” She frowns. “I’m sorry; I forgot that faction members rarely discuss their old factions.”
“What?” I say, my voice cracking.
“Your father was born in Erudite,” she says. “His parents were friends with Jeanine Matthews’s parents, before they died. Your father and Jeanine used to play together as children. I used to watch them pass books back and forth at school.”
I imagine my father, a grown man, sitting next to Jeanine, a grown woman, at a lunch table in my old cafeteria, a book between them. The idea is so ridiculous to me that I half snort, half laugh. It can’t be true.
Except.
Except: He never talked about his family or his childhood.
Except: He did not have the quiet demeanor of someone who grew up in Abnegation.
Except: His hatred of Erudite was so vehement it must have been personal.
“I’m sorry, Beatrice,” Evelyn says. “I didn’t mean to reopen closing wounds.”
I frown. “Yes, you did.”
“What do you mean—”
“Listen carefully,” I say, lowering my voice. I check over her shoulder for Tobias, to make sure he isn’t listening in. All I see is Caleb and Susan on the ground in the corner, passing a jar of peanut butter back and forth. No Tobias.
“I’m not stupid,” I say. “I can see that you’re trying to use him. And I’ll tell him so, if he hasn’t figured it out already.”
“My dear girl,” she says. “I am his family. I am permanent. You are only temporary.”
“Yeah,” I say. “His mom abandoned him, and his dad beat him up. How could his loyalty not be with his blood, with a family like that?”
I walk away, my hands shaking, and sit down next to Caleb on the floor. Susan is now across the room, helping one of the factionless clean up. He passes me the jar of peanut butter. I remember the rows of peanut plants in the Amity greenhouses. They grow peanuts because they are high in protein and fat, which is important for the factionless in particular. I scoop some of the peanut butter out with my fingers and eat it.
Should I tell him what Evelyn just told me? I don’t want to make him think that he has Erudite in his blood. I don’t want to give him any reason to return to them.
I decide to keep it to myself for now.
“I wanted to talk to you about something,” says Caleb.
I nod, still working the peanut butter off the roof of my mouth.
“Susan wants to go see the Abnegation,” he says. “And so do I. I also want to make sure she’s all right. But I don’t want to leave you.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
“Why don’t you come with us?” he asks. “Abnegation would welcome you back; I’m sure of it.”
So am I—the Abnegation don’t hold grudges. But I am teetering on the edge of grief’s mouth, and if I returned to my parents’ old faction, it would swallow me.
I shake my head. “I have to go to Candor headquarters and find out what’s going on,” I say. “I’m going crazy, not knowing.” I force a smile. “But you should go. Susan needs you. She seems better, but she still needs you.”
“Okay.” Caleb nods. “Well, I’ll try to join you soon. Be careful, though.”
“Aren’t I always?”
“No, I think the word for how you usually are is ‘reckless.’”
Caleb squeezes my good shoulder lightly. I eat another fingertip’s worth of peanut butter.
Tobias emerges from the men’s bathroom a few minutes later, his red Amity shirt replaced by a black T-shirt, and his short hair glistening with water. Our eyes meet across the room, and I know it’s time to leave.