Chapter 57 - Back to Chicago

Peter

I know I use to live in Chicago.

I know that I wasn't the nicest person.

I know that many people I hated have died, but not specifically from me.

I know that I took memory serum before I left Chicago.

I know I haven't forgotten everything although I am not Divergent.

I currently live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin by myself. Milwaukee is also another failed experiment by the Bureau of Genetic Welfare. Just like Chicago. I currently work in an office building as a secretary type person. Really, all I do is the files for this company. Nothing else, just files.

It's a pretty boring life. Just doing paperwork and paperwork and more paperwork. I've had to get glasses because of all of the small print reading that I've had to do. It's so small that I ended up with eye strain and needed glasses.

They make me look Erudite.

I may have moved, but you can never stop petting people, even yourself, into those certain categories.

It's just second nature.

Human nature.

Because of that I've concidered getting contacts.

I just haven't gotten around to doing so yet...

Every day is the same: Get out of bed, do everything that needs to be done in the morning, go to work, do all of that work crap, come home to an empty, silent house, go to bed, repeat.

I really don't like it.

I've tried to make friends, I've tried being nice, I've tried being friendly, I've tried not to complain, I've tried to change my Candorly ways, I've tried to smile, I've tried to stay away from trouble;

I've tried to change my character, but it seems like even the people here know my past.

Do they?

What am I doing wrong?

I don't have much experience with this whole "nice" thing, but I've tried just about everything. I don't know what I'm doing wrong!

No one here even bothers to come out and say "Hi" back when I greet them or answer any non-work related questions that I gear towards them.

I even had a small dog, Jo.

He slipped his collar ran away from me as well.

Why does everyone hate me?

I'm not the person I was, or at least think I was.

I've tried to change.

No, I have changed.

Nobody wants to accept that though.

What did I do before all of this to get even people I never even knew to hate me for three years and counting?

*   *   *

I continue to walk to my small apartment after a long boring day at work. It begins to rain, but I don't change my walking pace as I walk down the sidewalk; hands in my pockets, head tipped down, glasses dribbled over with water.

I live at an apartment building quite a few blocks away from where I work.

I still have at least a dozen more blocks to walk.

I still don't change my pace.

It begins to pour and my clothes are already soaked all the way through.

I still don't change my pace.

People around me walking run or quicken their pace to the nearest building.

But I just keep trudging along down the sidewalk; feet dragging as I go.

Sometimes I feel like I forget that I'm only nineteen.

I feel like I'm fourty-five.

Fourty-five and ready for this all to be over.

I'm ready for a new life.

I want a new life.

But look where that got me;

To even worse of a life.

I wanted a clean slate, and that was what I got.

But this,

I never wanted this.

I wish I could change the past.

Maybe if I never acted so terribly to everyone back in Chicago I would've never of been right here, right now.

I almost feel like the people in the buildings I walk by stare at me as I walk by.

Maybe they are,

Maybe they aren't.

I don't raise my head to check though.

I have saved up just enough to get myself a car. But I get around fine just without one, so why should I bother.

Plus, no one would probably even sell one to me, even if I paid double the marked price.

I've even tried getting a taxi to take me home on rainy days like this,

But they never stop for me either.

So yet again, why should I bother.

I sigh as I raise my head to look both ways before I cross the street. After a few cars zoom by, I jog across the street, my shoes making sloshy sounds after each step. But I could care less, just like everyone else here could care less about me.

As I come onto the street of my apartment building, I feel the familiar burning feeling in my gut; like an empty pit that cannot be patched with anything you could offer.

I come to the front of my apartment building. It's not to crappy of a place, but it's not luxury either. I go up next to the brick building and lean against it as I slide down to sit against it in the poring rain, my black fake leather work bag propped against me in the pouring rain. I run my wet hands through my soaking hair that is now flattened to my head as I breathe heavily.

I don't like this life.

I don't like going home to a quiet, empty house alone.

I don't like being on everyone's hate list when I don't know what I did to them.

I don't like being lonely.

I hear people walk toward the building, but their footsteps slow when they are by me, like they are questioning on stopping or not. None of them do.

I don't like Milwaukee.

"What am I?" I mumble. "Invisible?"

A faint sound of a motor catches my ear as I look up toward the sky.

Through all of the dark rain clouds I see a small, white airplane; its line of puffy smoke behind it, lost in the rain.

I know what I must do. I begin to stand up off of the now very wet grass I was sitting on.

A sudden burst of adrenaline rushes through me as I raw through the building, ignoring the elevator and going up to the fourteenth floor, up the stairs two at a time. I rush to my apartment and fiddle with the keys in the door until it door finally unlocks.

They gave me the most unfunctional apartment in the building, the man said so when he gave me the key. That was the last time anyone has said anything to me by choice; two and a half years ago.

I pull out my old laptop given to me by my work manager. It works, but it's not the best, but it works.

*   *   *

I barrel down the stairs and back out into the rain as it still rages on. But I could care less as I scream at the top of my lungs, "I'M GOING BACK TO CHICAGO!"

A/N-

Hi humans! 😄

So... Peter POV. Who saw that coming?

Honestly, 😂😂I didn't even see it coming. It kind of just came to me and I was like "Hey! That could work!"

So yeah, sorry to all of you who were helping me pick a POV for whose POV this chap would be in because as you can see, I kind of ignored all of you... 😁😁 Please forgive me

✨✨✨✨What do you think of this size chapter (1,300-ish words) too small? Too big? Just right? Let me know please Jon the comments!!✨✨✨✨

Next chap will be up... Hopefully soon. 😁😒☺️

Just waitin' for summer 😎🌴☀️

Anyways...

26k reads!!!

⭐️⭐️Also.... Thank you all so much for 1k reads on the prologue of The Truth!!!!⭐️⭐️

Until next time

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