I will be my undoing If I become my obsession.

She walks away, and I am too stunned to follow her. At the end of the hallways she turns and says, "Have a piece of cake for me, all right? The chocolate. It's delicious." She smiles a strange, twisted smile, and adds," I love you, you know." And then she's gone. I stand alone in the blue light coming from the lamp above me, and I understand: She has been to the compound before. She remembered this hallways. She knows about the initiation process. My mother was a dauntless.

Everything inside me screams for just one more kiss, one more word, one more glance, one more.

It must be because you're so approachable", I say flatly. "You know, like a bed of nails." He stares at me, and I don't look away. He isn't a dog but the same rules apply. Looking away is submissive. Looking him in the eye is a challenge. It's my choice. Heat rushes into my cheeks. What will happen when this tension breaks? But he just says, "Careful, Tris.

I think he came to die with me," I say. I clamp my hand over my mouth to stifle a sob. If I can keep breathing, I can stop crying. I didn't need or want him to die with me. I wanted to keep him safe. What an idiot, I think, but my heart isn't in it. "That's ridiculous," he says. "That doesn't make any sense. He's eighteen; he'll find another girlfriend once you're dead. And he's stupid if he doesn't know that." Tears run down my cheeks, hot at first and then cold. I close my eyes. "If you think that's what it's about..." I swallow another sob. "...you're the stupid one.

Let the guilt teach you how to behave next time.

What irritates me most about him is his natural goodness, his inborn selflessness.