each other at the same time, Caleb returning to his cot and me walking down the hallway, following Caleb's directions.
I see the genealogy room from a distance. The bronze walls seem to glow with warm light. Standing in the doorway, I feel like I am inside a sunset, the radiance surrounding me. Tobias's finger runs along the lines of his family tree—I assume—but idly, like he's not really paying attention to it.
I feel like I can see that obsessive streak Amar was referring to. I know that Tobias has been watching his parents on the screens, and now he is staring at their names, though there's nothing in this room he didn't already know. I was right to say that he was desperate, desperate for a connection to Evelyn, desperate not to be damaged, but I never thought about how those things were connected. I don't know how it would feel, to hate your own history and to crave love from the people who gave that history to you at the same time. How have I never seen the schism inside his heart? How have I never realized before that for all the strong, kind parts of him, there are also hurting, broken parts?
Caleb told me that our mother said there was evil in everyone, and the first step to loving someone else is to recognize that evil in ourselves, so we can forgive them. So how can I hold Tobias's desperation against him, like I'm better than him, like I've never let my own brokenness blind me?
"Hey," I say, crushing Caleb's directions into my back pocket.
He turns, and his expression is stern, familiar. It looks the way it did the first few weeks I knew him, like a sentry guarding his innermost thoughts.
"Listen," I say. "I thought I was supposed to figure out if I could forgive you or not, but now I'm thinking you didn't do anything to me that I need to forgive, except maybe accusing me of being jealous of Nita. . . ."
He opens his mouth to interject, but I hold up a hand to stop him.
"If we stay together, I'll have to forgive you over and over again, and if you're still in this, you'll have to forgive me over and over again too," I say. "So forgiveness isn't the point. What I really should have been trying to figure out is whether we were still good for each other or not."
All the way home I thought about what Amar said, about every relationship having its problems. I thought about my parents, who argued more often than any other Abnegation parents I knew, who nonetheless went through each day together until they died.
Then I thought of how strong I have become, how secure I feel with the person I now am, and how all along the way he has told me that I am brave, I am respected, I am loved and worth loving.
"And?" he says, his voice and his eyes and his hands a little unsteady.
"And," I say, "I think you're still the only person sharp enough to sharpen someone like me."
"I am," he says roughly.
And I kiss him.
His arms slip around me and hold me tight, lifting me onto the tips of my toes. I bury my face in his shoulder and close my eyes, just breathing in the clean smell of him, the smell of wind.
I used to think that when people fell in love, they just landed where they landed, and they had no choice in the matter afterward. And maybe that's true of beginnings, but it's not true of this, now.
I fell in love with him. But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
TRIS
I ARRIVE AT David's office for my first council meeting just as my watch shifts to ten, and he pushes himself into the hallway soon afterward. He looks even paler than he did the last time I saw him, and the dark circles under his eyes are pronounced, like bruises.
"Hello, Tris," he says. "Eager, are you? You're right on time."
I still feel a little weight in my limbs from the truth serum Cara, Caleb, and Matthew tested on me earlier, as part of our plan. They're