Just A Peace of Me

I am Jacob Xavior Vail

The fields of the Amity plains looked smaller then they had when I was a child. I remember looking out and thinking that the empty fields went on forever but you can see small abandon houses, hillsides, and the remnants of old roadways to other cities and civilizations that we assume no longer exist.

“Jacob!” my mother’s voice rang clearly in my ear. Even though, there was a 30 meter distance between us and a powerful howling wind. I guess there was a reason that they called it the windy city before the war.

I only knew that because of an Erudite girl I had met at school. It was a particularly windy day and my hat wasn’t staying on my head. That is when the girl proceeded to fill my head with such useless knowledge. I didn’t know why but Erudites always seem to want to show off their superior intelligence. Although Dauntless were always flaunting their athleticism and Candor, though they didn’t flaunt their honesty, always called out other people when they were lying. Honestly, I have never met a Candor that could shut up or that I even liked for that matter but I had to remain peaceful.

“JACOB!” her voice rang again with more power. She wasn’t being mean. She thought that I was being disrespectful and in Amity that is a symbol of being rude, which in turn is showing you are not trying to be peaceful.

“Sorry, I was zoning mom!” I yelled back. Hopefully she heard me.

“It’s time to go! You have gymnastics practice!”

I had obviously lost track of time. I hadn’t forgotten about gymnastics, I just wanted to be outside the fence a little bit longer. In Amity, most of the people are farmers but a special few who show promise in the arts are granted with the privilege of training to be entertainers for all the factions. Luckily, I was one of the few and I had been training since 3 years old to be a gymnast and a dancer.

The down side to my gymnastics training was that I only got 3 hours outside the fences to farm each week, 1 hour on Wednesdays and 2 hours on Saturdays and most of my fellow dancers didn’t take advantage of this opportunity.

My mother and I began walking back to the large fence surrounding the city. The doors opened up and we quickly walked inside.

“Thank you.” My mother said with a wave and a smile as we passed two Dauntless guards who had opened up the door.

One of them nodded with a small grunt, as he always did, and I always took that as a sort of ‘you’re welcome.’

We boarded a small trailer full of other workers who also had to return to Amity headquarters.

~~XXX~~

I arrived at the gymnastics studio and the instructor quickly got me started on a warm-up. The warm up was followed by a 45 minute arm workout, 15 minutes of intense core training, and a 1 hour long tumbling session. Then we had a 45 minute dinner break at 7:00pm. We got 15 minutes to stretch and warm up and promptly at 8 we began an acrobatic jazz dance routine that we learned in an hour and a half. After that we cooled down and we were free to go home.

I didn’t leave immediately; actually I stayed at the studio for another hour with a small group of dancers to work on our independent small group piece. Shaina -my lift partner, Mazi, Maddaline, and Trevor -my boyfriend- where all a part of this piece.

They had decided that I should do most of the choreography and formation placement but they wanted to decide on a song together. A couple weeks back, Maddaline had come to me with an old song from the 2010’s. It was an acoustic version of “Latch” a twenty ten’s classic by Sam Smith and the whole group liked it so we decided to use that to build our work on. It was coming together quite well but there was something missing and the group had been trying to figure it out for days, maybe it was just that aptitude testing we just around the corner.

“Okay lets split for tonight it’s 10:28 guys.” Trevor said as they had just done their last run through for the night.

“Yeah, Let’s get some sleep.” Maddaline exclaimed exhausted from all of the tumbling and lifts that she had been doing through that dance. She was by far the most flexible and the lightest of anyone in the group. She only stood at 4’10” so she was so small compared to Trevor who was 6’5” or even me standing at 6” flat.

“No class tomorrow, thank god!” Shaina said grabbing her bag.

“Oh yeah! You guys have aptitude testing in two days.” Trevor said completely forgetting that his entire group was 16. Trevor was 17 and had been the first to choose his faction from anyone at the entire Choosing Ceremony. Obviously… he chose Amity. “Well, I hope that this isn’t my last time seeing any of you.”

The sound of those words made me sick to my stomach. Why? I didn’t want to think that this could be my last time seeing my friends. The girls got quiet to and it seemed like none of us took his comment lightly.

“Of course all of you will get Amity!” Trevor said defending his previous comment but it didn’t easy the tension that everyone was now feeling.

As I grabbed my bag and walked out the door, Shaina began walking with me and following her was Trevor. Shaina and I lived just a block away from each other and usually walked with one another so there was nothing awkward about her sudden appearance and obviously Trevor walked with me most of the time.

It was quite among us. Shaina mentioned a couple of things that could be the “thing” that the routine was missing but we couldn’t put our finger on anything specifically.

As she turned to walk up her the cobble stone walkway, toward her house she shouted out a to the two of us with a wink “Have a good night love birds.”

“You too.” I said chuckling out loud.

Then it was me and Trevor. He held me close to him with his muscular arms as we walked. It was nice. I think that he wanted me to feel protected but honestly he was nothing to be afraid of. Yeah he was stronger than me but if we really got attacked I would have been the one to stand and fight. He would have been running for help, screaming bloody murder. I was an endearing sentiment though. Cute even.

“So, do you want to go swimming?” I asked looking up at his baby smooth face. It wasn’t rugged at all. He looked so clean cut and porcelain. He was like a perfect Greek statue that was in one of those old museums.

“Are your parents going to get angry?” He asked looking back at me with his pearly white smile.

“I don’t know but I have tomorrow to do nothing so I am not going to fret about what they think.” I said eagerly wanting him to swim with me.

“I don’t think you should make your parents angry.”

“I won’t. They are good members of Amity who don’t get aggravated,” I laughed and pulled his arm down a road that led away from our homes.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.” Trevor protested while allowing me to tug him along with me.

~~XXX~~

“See this was a perfect idea.” I said as we swam toward the center of the pond.

“The water is nice.” Trevor said gliding through the each stroke with ease.

I stopped swimming and just floated on my back for a second, looking up at the night sky. Trevor heard my splashful strokes stop and doggy paddled to my side. We both just floated there.

“I love you.” He said as his fingers entangled in mine.

“I love you too.” I said quietly sinking down below the surface. It was completely dark as I opened my eyes but I felt Trevor sink down with me.

I tugged his arm toward me and found his face quickly. I pressed my lips to his underneath the water and opened my mouth to allow access for his tongue. It was weird under the water. Everything was… wetter… than usual. As the kiss ended I felt him swim to the surface and all I could do was smile. I pressed up to the top of the water.

“You're so crazy.” Trevor said pecking me on the lips as he back stroked toward shore.

“What do you mean?” I asked cluelessly. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me.

“Only you would kiss someone underwater.” He laughed at me.

I didn’t find that to be crazy. That was the only thing I didn’t like about Trevor, he was incredibly sheltered. He almost thought like an Abnegation would but all I could do was laugh back.

As the two of us reached the shallow parts of the water I noticed a large tree with thick branches that had grown quite a few yards out over the water.

“Hey, follow me.” I said waving to Trevor as I ran past him.

I reached the sandy beach and walked over to the tree. The way it had been grown made it very easy to climb. It was slightly tilted and the branches were so thick that they didn’t move when I stepped on them.

“See you're crazy.” Trevor said. “Get out of the tree.”

Okay maybe I was a little adventurous but I wasn’t going to be a stick in the mud like he was being. I finally reached the branch that expanded out the farthest over the water and began to walk out on it like a balance beam. I reached the edge.

“Are you jumping!?” Trevor exclaimed loudly.

I didn’t pay him any attention, I was jumping on 3.

1

“Jake!”

2

“Jacob get d-“

3

Hope you enjoyed it! Many more to come! Please review and much love!!!! :)