Chapter 26 Chapter 26 Confession

Hand in hand, we walked towards the deep pit of the base.I carefully controlled the strength of my hand.One minute, I feel like I'm not holding it tight enough, but the next minute, I feel like it's too tight.Lovers like to hold each other's hands when they walk. I never understood why before, but when his fingertips slid across my palm, I trembled all over, feeling a sudden realization. "So..." I analyzed with the last logical thought I can remember, "You have four fears." "It was four fears, and it's still four fears," he said, nodding. "They never changed, so I kept going back and forth. But ... I still didn't make any progress."

"You can't be fearless, remember?" I said, "because you still care about something, about your life." "I know." We followed a narrow path along the edge of the base pit, which led to the rocky area at the bottom of the canyon.I never noticed it before because it almost blends into the stone wall.But Tobias seemed to know everything about it. I don't want to ruin a moment like this, but I also have to ask his personality test results to see if he's a Divergent or not. "Are you going to tell me the results of your personality test?" I said.

"Ah." He scratched the back of his neck with his free hand, "Is this important?" "Important, I want to know." "You really have a lot to ask for." He smiled. We came to the end of the trail and stood at the bottom of the valley, where the rocks formed a rough terrain, jutting out of the rushing water at an odd angle.The fourth child led me up and down, through narrow gaps and over sharp protrusions.My shoes clung to the rough rock.The soles leave a wet footprint on every stone. He found a relatively flat rock on the side, and the surrounding water was not so fast, so he sat on it, with his feet dangling by the edge of the rock.I sat down beside him.Here, just a dozen centimeters above the rapids, he looked so at ease.

He let go of my hand.I gaze at the jagged edge of the rock. "There are things I never tell anyone, you know? Even my friends don't know," he said. I crossed my hands and clasped my fingers tightly together.This is the best place for him to tell me he's a Divergent, if he is.Because the roar of the water echoing in the canyon can ensure that our words will not be heard by others.But for some reason, the thought made me feel particularly nervous. "My result, as expected, was altruism," he said. "Oh." I felt the balloon in my heart deflate.I guessed wrong.

I thought that even if he wasn't a Divergent, his result must be Dauntless.Technically speaking, my test results are also altruistic if it is recorded according to the system.Did the same thing happen to him?If so, why didn't he tell me the truth? "But you chose Dauntless anyway?" "Out of necessity." "Why do you have to leave?" He looked away from me and stared into the distance, as if searching the air for answers.But he didn't have to give me an answer.Because I can still feel the pain from Marcus' belt on my wrist. "You have to run from your dad," I said, "and that's why you don't want to be the leader of the Dauntless? Because if you do, you'll have to see him again?"

He raised one shoulder: "There are reasons for that, and I always feel that I don't quite belong to the Fearless faction. In short, it's not okay to be like them now." "But you... are brilliant." I paused and cleared my throat. "I mean, by Dauntless standards. There are only four fears in a person's life, which is unheard of. How could you not belong here?" He shrugged.He doesn't seem to care about his talent or his status in the Dauntless faction at all.I think this is a trait of disinterestedness, but I'm not sure how to make sense of it.

He said: "I have an idea that selflessness and bravery are not so clear-cut. You have been training all your life to forget yourself, so when you are in danger, that will become your first reaction. In this way, it is easy for me. Can integrate into the selfless faction." My heart suddenly became heavy.A lifetime of training is never enough for me.My first instinct is still to protect myself. "Yeah, well," I said, "I left the altruism group because I wasn't altruistic enough to be selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried." "It's not all that," he said to me, laughing. "The girl who had knives thrown at her friend to save her from harm, the girl who fought my father with a belt to protect me—the selfless Girl, isn't she you?"

He knows himself better than I do.Although it seems unlikely that he has feelings for me.Given that, I'd better not get too sentimental...but maybe that's not how it works.I frowned at him: "You've been watching me closely, haven't you?" "I like to observe people." "Maybe you'd be a better fit for the honesty, number four, because you're a terrible liar." He put his hand on the rock beside him, fingers lined up with mine.I look down at our hands.His fingers were long and slender, a pair of hands adapted to delicate and delicate movements, not the hands of the fearless, their hands should be rough and fat, hands that are always ready to destroy things.

"Okay." He leaned close to my face, eyes on my chin, lips, and the tip of my nose, "I'm watching you because I like you." He said it boldly and frankly, looking up into my eyes, " Don't call me fourth, okay? I'd be happy to hear my name called again." And so he finally confessed it all himself, and I didn't know how to respond.My face was hot, and I could only think of one sentence: "But you are older than me... Tobias." He looked at me with a smile: "Yes, the huge gap between these two years is really insurmountable, isn't it?"

"I'm not being modest," I said, "I just don't understand. I'm young, I'm not pretty, and I..." He laughed, laughed out loud, sounded like he was laughing from the bottom of his heart, and touched my temple with his lips. "Come on, you know I'm not pretty. I'm not ugly, but I'm not pretty either." There was a gasp in my voice. "Well, you're not pretty, so what?" He kissed me on the cheek. "I like the way you look. You're brilliant and brave. Even if you found out about Marcus..." His voice changed He became gentle, "I didn't look at me like that, as if I was a puppy who was kicked a few times or something."

"Well, you're not." For a moment, his almost black eyes stared into mine, silent.He touched my face and moved closer, his lips brushing lightly over my mouth.The river roared furiously, and I could feel the spray wet my ankles.He grinned and pressed his lips to mine. At first I was tense and didn't quite believe it, but when he backed away I thought I must have done something wrong, or very wrong.But he cups my face, presses his fingers against my skin, and kisses me again, stronger and more determined this time.I put an arm around him, sliding my hands down his neck and into his short hair. For a few minutes, in the deep valley, surrounded by the roar of the river, we kissed each other.As we walked up, hand in hand, I began to understand that if we had all chosen differently, we would still be doing the same thing, in a safer place, in gray instead of black.