Rekindling

Chapter 4: Tris - Difficult Subjects

A/N: I am truly blown away by how many reviews all of you wonderful, wonderful people have been leaving. Thank you so much for the support! It makes a really big difference to me. Thank you also to my wonderful beta readers, Rosalie and BK2U, who have both been helping with this story!

This is a long and (as the title implies) sometimes difficult chapter. There are a lot of revelations in it, some of which you'll probably like better than others.

Chapter 4: Tris – Difficult Subjects

Christina doesn't get home until very late, which gives Tris the chance to pretend that she's asleep and postpone the inevitable post-Tobias discussion. It's not that she won't talk to her roommate about it soon enough – she just wants time to mull over her own thoughts before the interrogation begins.

Besides, Tris adds to herself as she tries to ignore the way Christina is hovering in her doorway, clearly considering waking her up, her best friend should know by now that she'll get a lot more answers the next day.

And apparently she does, since she finally makes a small huffing sound before retreating to her own room. Unfortunately, the reprieve doesn't help much in this case, since Tris finds it impossible to sleep as she dwells on the evening.

How could it possibly have been so easy to spend time with Tobias when it's so hard to figure out what she wants with him?

She loved so much about the way they talked tonight, and about the way he looked at her, and – if she's entirely honest – about the way it felt to be in his arms as they danced. But whenever he nudged his way a little too close, she couldn't keep the old familiar distrust from seeping in. It's a self-defense habit at this point, one that she suspects she'll never lose, particularly with the man who caused it in the first place.

He can't be serious about wanting to try again.

She knows what Christina will say – what all of her friends will say, really. That she should cut the idea off now, before Tobias can hurt her again. But no matter how much most of her agrees with that concept, she can't deny that there's a stubborn part buried deep inside that desperately wants to give him a second chance.

After all, when things were good with them, they were really good. The best she's ever had. That's why it hurt so much when he didn't feel the same way.

She turns onto her other side, mashing the pillow in frustration as she pictures the emotion in Tobias' eyes during their final conversation of the night. She absolutely believed him then. It was impossible not to. And yet he looked at her exactly that same way the day he left for Boston, when he assured her that they would find a way to make the distance work. That he was absolutely not breaking up with her.

It took him less than two months to change his mind.

Eventually, her sleep-deprived brain begins reliving memories that she banned ages ago. Back then, she forced them out because they always led to overwhelming heartache and crippling self-doubt and unshakable depression. Tonight, though, they seem to be overpowered by the good times – by moment after moment of Tobias' gentle touch and deep voice and whispered confessions of love. By the way he used to talk to her, revealing secrets that she knew he hid from everyone else in the world. By the way his eyes would light up when he saw her, as if she were the only thing that could ever possibly matter. He looked at her that way tonight, too, when he said that he wanted to try again.

She just doesn't know how to believe that look anymore.

At some point, sleep finally claims her, pulling her into dreams of ocean blue and soft caresses and hard bodies and scents that surround her and fill her in every possible way. She's embarrassingly aroused when she wakes up to the sound of her phone receiving a text.