As we take our seats at the table, under one of the bright-blue lamps that hang from the wall, I tell him about Max’s offer, careful not to make it sound too impressive. I only just found friends; I don’t want to create jealous tension between us for no reason. When I finish, Shauna leans her face into one of her hands and says to Zeke, “I guess we should have tried harder during initiation, huh?”
“Or killed him before he could take his final test.”
“Or both.” Shauna grins at me. “Congrats, Four. You deserve it.”
I feel everyone’s eyes on me like distinct, powerful beams of heat, and hurry to change the subject. “Where did you guys end up?”
“Control room,” Zeke says. “My mom used to work there, and she taught me most of what I’ll need to know already.”
“I’m in the patrol leadership track . . . thing,” Shauna says. “Not the most exciting job ever, but at least I’ll get to be outside.”
“Yeah, let’s hear you say that in the dead of winter when you’re trudging through a foot of snow and ice,” Lynn says sourly. She stabs at a pile of mashed potatoes with her fork. “I better do well in initiation. I don’t want to get stuck at the fence.”
“Didn’t we talk about this?” Uriah says. “Don’t say the ‘I’ word until at most two weeks before it happens. It makes me want to throw up.”
I look at the pile of food on his tray. “Stuffing yourself up to your eyeballs with food, though, that’s fine?”
He rolls his eyes at me and bends over his tray to keep eating. I poke at my own food—I haven’t had any appetite since this morning, too worried about tomorrow to stand a full stomach.
Zeke spots someone across the cafeteria. “I’ll be right back.”
Shauna watches him cross the room to greet a few young Dauntless members. They don’t look much older than he is, but I don’t recognize them from initiation, so they must be a year or two older. Zeke says something to the group—mostly made up of girls—that sends them into fits of laughter, and he jabs one of the girls in the ribs, making her squeal. Beside me, Shauna glowers and misses her mouth with her fork, smearing sauce from the chicken all over her cheek. Lynn snorts into her food, and Marlene kicks her—audibly—under the table.
“So,” Marlene says loudly. “Do you know of anyone else who’s doing that leadership program, Four?”
“Come to think of it, I didn’t see Eric there today, either,” Shauna says. “I was hoping he tripped and fell into the chasm, but . . .”
I shove a bite of food in my mouth and try not to think about it. The blue light makes my hands look blue, too, like the hands of a corpse. I haven’t spoken to Eric since I accused him of being indirectly responsible for Amar’s death—someone reported Amar’s simulation awareness to Jeanine Matthews, leader of Erudite, and as a former Erudite, Eric is the most likely suspect. I haven’t decided what I’ll do the next time I have to talk to him, either. Beating him up again isn’t going to prove that he’s a faction traitor. I’ll have to find some way to connect his recent activities to the Erudite and take the information to one of the Dauntless leaders—Max, probably, since I know him best.
Zeke walks back to the table and slides into his seat. “Four. What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Nothing?”
“Not anymore,” he says. “You’re coming with me on a date.”
I choke on my next bite of potatoes. “What?”
“Um, hate to tell you this, big brother,” Uriah says, “but you’re supposed to go on dates alone, not bring a friend.”
“It’s a double date, obviously,” Zeke says. “I asked Maria out, and she said something about finding a date for her friend Nicole, and I indicated that you would be interested.”
“Which one’s Nicole?” Lynn says, craning her neck to look at the group of girls.
“The redhead,” Zeke says. “So, eight o’clock. You’re in, I’m not even asking.”
“I don’t—” I say. I look at the redheaded girl across the room. She’s fair-skinned, with wide eyes smeared with black, and wearing a tight shirt, which shows off the bend in her waist and . . . other things my inner Abnegation voice tells me not to notice. I do anyway.
I’ve never been on a date, thanks to my former faction’s strict courtship rituals, involving engaging in acts of service together and maybe—maybe—having dinner with someone else’s family and helping them clean up afterward. I’ve never even thought about whether I wanted to date anyone; it was such an impossibility. “Zeke, I’ve never—”
Uriah frowns and pokes my arm, hard, with one finger. I slap his hand away. “What?”
“Oh, nothing,” Uriah says cheerfully. “You were just sounding Stiffer than usual, so I thought I would check—”
Marlene laughs. “Yeah, right.”
Zeke and I exchange a look. We’ve never explicitly talked about not sharing my faction of origin, but as far as I know, he’s never mentioned it to anyone. Uriah knows, but despite his loud mouth, he seems to understand when to withhold information. Still, I’m not sure why Marlene hasn’t figured it out—maybe she’s not very observant.
“It’s not a big deal, Four,” Zeke says. He eats his last bite of food. “You’ll go, you’ll talk to her like she’s a normal human being—which she is—maybe she’ll let you—gasp—hold her hand—”
Shauna gets up suddenly, her chair screeching on the stone floor. She tucks her hair behind one ear and walks toward the tray return, head down. Lynn glares at Zeke—which hardly looks different from her normal facial expression—and follows her sister across the cafeteria.
“Okay, you don’t have to hold hands with anyone,” Zeke says, like nothing happened. “Just go, all right? I’ll owe you one.”
I look at Nicole. She’s sitting at a table near the tray return and laughing at someone else’s joke again. Maybe Zeke’s right—maybe it’s not that big a deal, and maybe this is another way that I can unlearn my Abnegation past and learn to embrace my Dauntless future. And besides—she’s pretty.