Veronica Roth

It's hard to know what's right in this life,' she said. 'We do what we can, but what we really need is mercy. Do you know who taught me that?' A grin. 'You.'"P459

I close my eyes. I don't expect Four to reassure me, and he makes no effort to, but I feel better standing here than I did out there among the people who are my friends, my faction.

Sometimes I feel like we are the same, but sometimes, like right now, I feel the separation between our personalities like I've just run into a wall.

I grabbed hold of my Divergence like it was a hand outstretched to save me. I needed that word to tell me who I was when everything else was coming apart around me. But now I'm wondering if I need it anymore, if we ever really need these words, 'Dauntless,' 'Erudite,' 'Divergent,' "Allegiant,' or if we can just be friends or lovers or siblings, defined instead by the choices we make and the love and loyalty that binds us.

I don't want to cry for Edward- at least not in the deep, personal way that you cry for a friend or loved one. I want to cry because something terrible happened, and I saw it, and I could not see a way to mend it.

He still smiles all the time, but now his smiles look like they're made out of water, about to drip down his face.

I have discovered that sitting still leaves little spaces for the grief to get in, so I stay busy.

I was angry with him before. I__ not really sure why. Maybe I was just angry that the world had become such a complicated place, that I have never known even a fraction of the truth about it. Or that I allowed myself to grieve for someone who was never really gone, the same way I grieved for my mother all the years I thought she was dead. Tricking someone into grief is one of the cruelest tricks a person can play, and it__ been played on me twice.

It happened. It was awful. You aren't perfect. That's all there is. Don't confuse your grief with guilt."We stay in the silence and the loneliness of the otherwise empty dormitory for a few more minutes, and I try to let her words work themselves into me.

Grief is not as heavy as guilt, but it takes more away from you.

You don't have to tell me everything right away, but I have to tell you everything right away? Can't you see how stupid that is?

It reminds me that no embrace will ever feel the same again, because no one will ever be like her again, because she's gone. She's gone, and crying feels so useless, so stupid, but it's all I can do.

I confessed to Tobias, soon after that, that I had lost my entire family.And he assured me that he was my family now. -Tris Prior

When someone wrongs you, you both share the burden of that wrongdoing - the pain of it weighs on both of you. Forgiveness, then, means choosing to bear the full weight all by yourself.

I have been able to be kind and pleasant to him because every time I think of what happened in Erudite headquarters, I immediately push the thought aside. But that can't be forgiveness - if I had forgiven him, I would be able to think of what happened without that hated I can feel in my gut, right?Or maybe forgiveness is just the continual pushing aside of bitter memories, until time dulls the hurt and the anger, and the wrong is forgotten.

Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here?I want to be.I can.I believe it.

I understand why she did all those things, but that doesn't mean we aren't still broken.

I think about pressing myself against him, but I can't, because all our secrets would keep a space between us.