TOBIAS POV
On my way out of the house, I spot Tris in the plush living room, curled up under a fuzzy blanket made of some unidentifiable animal's fur and dawdling on her phone. Not two minutes ago, I asked Andrew if it would be fine for me to leave for a couple hours to visit my mother in the hospital, and he granted my request. But I have to make sure that Tris doesn't go anywhere during the time I am gone, since I won't be able to guard her.
"Tris," I say to get her attention. She doesn't respond, too focused on a text she is busy sending. "Tris."
"Hmm," she responds, but I don't think she is really listening.
I sigh. "I'm going out for a while, so that means you can't go anywhere. Understand?" She is silent, besides the sound of the clicking of her phone's keyboard, and I am starting to get impatient; this is like dealing with a toddler. "Did you even hear a word I just said?"
"Mm-hmm." It is noncommittal and probably false because she is so distracted by whatever she finds more important than this short conversation.
"Great. Stay here." I accentuate my order by pressing my palm in her direction. Then, with that—most likely—taken care of, I walk out to my car.
xXxXx
"Yeah, I'm here to see my mother, Evelyn Johnson," I say to the front desk lady of the cancer unit. I think she recognizes me, as I definitely remember her face. I have paid too many visits to this place. "I think she mentioned something about moving into another room last time, so could you please tell me her new room number?"
The woman nods and types quickly on her computer to pull up the room number. A moment later, she answers, "She is down this hallway." She points to my right. "The room will be on your left. Room 122."
"Thank you."
Following her directions, I slowly walk down the hallway, taking my time. As much as I love my mother, I despise visiting her these days. The cancer has grown worse and won't stop spreading, and I don't like watching it overwhelm her more and more each time I see her. The depressing atmosphere of this damn hospital probably doesn't help my case.
I hate this place.
But I care about my mother more. So I swallow my displeasure and turn the handle of her door, stepping inside and taking in her appearance.
She looks worse this time, as I expected. Her face is ghastly and tinted a sickly green color because of the dim lights. She looks older; her skin sags in places that it didn't before, and she looks significantly thinner. The eyes that used to be a warm brown have faded, and she has never looked closer to death than she does now.
This is not my mother.
But I force a smile on my face and greet her like normal. "Hi, Mom."
"Tobias," she mutters, a small grin working its way on her face. I step closer and take a seat on the chair next to her bed, ignoring the bags of unknown liquids on hooks next to me that lead to IVs. "How are you?"
"I'm fine," I say. "How have you been?"
She sighs and reaches up to pull the beanie on her head down farther. That was one of the things she hated most about chemotherapy—the loss of her thick, chocolate hair. "I don't want to talk about it. I want to hear about your life."
So I oblige. I tell her about the last month, about working and living in a mansion, about being a bodyguard to the stubborn young woman named Tris.
My mother doesn't know about my real assignment, let alone Dauntless, and she never will. Not only do I not want her to find out that her son murders people for a living, but I also don't want her to know that I do it for her sake. When I came back after serving in the military, I was broke, and since she obviously couldn't work and had no other relatives, I was left to find a way to pay the hospital bills. Max approached me with an offer that I couldn't refuse. The amount of money I received after my first two missions were enough to pay for her first round of chemo.
I'm not even sure if she knows that I pay for her treatment, and if she does, she hasn't said anything. Either she assumes that her insurance is covering it, or she just feels guilty.
"Sounds like you're doing okay," she says quietly. With a cough, she reaches out for the cup of water on her nightstand, and I immediately grab it for her. I help her tilt it against her lips and make sure she gets enough before putting it back on the table. "Thank you." I know she hates being taken care of, but I can't help it. And I don't know if she would be able to handle the strain of doing such a simple task anyway.
"No problem."
We don't talk for another minute or so, which gives me time to reflect on how I am feeling right now. As rude as it sounds, I want nothing more than to leave the room. My mother has never looked so weak; even on the nights after my father gave us each a good beating, I would admire how strong she seemed when she helped me bandage my wounds despite her own pain. I will always look up to her for that.
It is strange to see someone so durable resorted to lying frail in a hospital bed.
But I tell myself that she still is that person, even more tough because she is surviving this battle. And it makes me feel a little better, but not much.
I stay and talk to her for another twenty minutes or so, noticing that as time goes on her motor skills are delayed. That is when I take my leave.
"I better go," I tell her quietly.
She nods slightly in understanding before I notice that she is shivering. So I give her a quick hug, which she is barely able to return, and then I cover her up with the several, thin blankets sitting at the end of the bed.
"I love you," she whispers when I grab her hand one last time.
"I love you too. Get some rest."
As soon as I close the door behind me, I let out a heavy breath and lean back against it. When I shut my eyes, I can still see the way she shook when she made an effort to initiate any movement, and two lone tears slip out of my eyes.
This is so hard.
"Tobias?" a voice calls.
Flinging my eyes open, I stand up straight and quickly wipe off the remnants of my moment of weakness off my cheeks. I turn to see my mother's doctor standing there.
"Dr. Miller," I greet him, clearing my throat.
He gives me a pitying smile, and I am annoyed by it. He is a stout man, trying to do his best; I know he means no harm, but sometimes he doesn't know the right things to do or say, despite working in a cancer center for so long. "I know this is a bad time, but I need to discuss the cost of your mother's treatment with you," he states.
A stone drops in my stomach. "It went up didn't it?" I assume. Great. Just what I needed.
He proceeds to tell me about the rise in prices, and alternate treatment options, and the amount of money required for each of them floors me.
"We can continue with chemo. It will be a lot more, but as her doctor, I recommend that we stay on this path." Setting a hand on my shoulder, he says softly, "I understand if you would like to try something else though."
He is implying that he knows I may not be able to keep up with the payments, and he is right. I don't know myself.
But I think about how much more income I am getting from the Priors and the cumulative money from Dauntless. By the time my assignment is completed, I will have thousands from taking Tris out. Plus, I could even do some hacking in between, which I am undoubtedly talented at—they don't pay as much for that, but it's still money I need. I could even enter fights.
I can do this. For Mom.
I nod my head with certainty. "Let's keep doing chemo."
xXxXx
"You have got to be shitting me," is the first thing I say when I get out of my car in the Prior's massive garage. I hurry over to the hooks that hold a collection of car keys to confirm my suspicions.
Tris's Ferrari is gone.
"I'm going to kill her," I grumble to myself, pulling out my phone and clicking on her contact as I pace to my room angrily. She picks up after a few rings, and I know that I am about to lose it.
"Hello?" she answers innocently.
"I tell you to do one thing, one goddamn thing while I go to visit my dying mother in the hospital, and apparently that task was too difficult for you!" I shout. "I have never met someone more disrespectful and selfish than you. You're a spoiled brat who can't take 'no' for an answer, who gets whatever the hell she wants; you don't think of anybody but yourself, and you don't want to, because who cares about anyone else when you have all the money in the world? Right?!"
My tone reaches a new level of lividness as I continue my rant, "You're despicable. You have no idea what it is like to suffer as I have, to live a life that treats you poorly on the bare minimum. Now I am going to get fired and probably be forced to starve on the streets paying for chemotherapy that I can't afford! All because you wanted to run off on one of your little mindless adventures!
"I hate you, Tris Prior," I snarl with all the loathing I can muster. "I hate everything about you. I hate your lifestyle. I hate how you get money you don't deserve. I hate your attitude. I hate the person that you are and that you will always be."
She doesn't reply to my heated criticism, and for a moment I think she hung up on me until she says flatly, "Just so you know, I'm volunteering at the homeless shelter with my mom right now, since we never get time to anymore. My dad said it would be fine."
Oh.
Well, damn.
Here I am criticizing her character, when I am complaining about becoming one of the very people she is helping right now. Here I am yelling at her without even giving her a chance for an explanation.
Maybe this whole situation is getting to my head, but in a different way from the one I worried about.
I went too far. I can't take those words back; I can't say I didn't mean them...
"Tris, I—" I don't know what to say. What do you say to someone who you just degraded in almost every possible way?
"You know, Four," she says quietly. "I thought highly of you. I thought we were becoming friends." I wince at that statement. We were, until I screwed everything up.
My mind is running away with me. Who am I kidding, I am supposed to kill her, not befriend her.
"But apparently not. Apparently you're just one of those guys that assumes things without asking." She sighs, and it sounds like her throat is constricted. Is she going to cry? Over my hurtful words? I also notice the way she says the sentence, like she has had previous experience with a guy that treated her that way. "I don't know the hardships you have had to overcome in your life, and I don't think anything I have gone through would ever come close to those. I'm sorry about your mom; I had no idea. But you are misplacing your anger on me because you are judging rich people as a whole. And I'll tell you what: you don't know me."
I don't.
The phone beeps lowly to signal the end of the call, and I throw my phone on my bed, running a hand through my hair agitatedly. She handled my temper like an adult, when I initially thought that she was the one being an unyielding child. No, it is me who is too stupid to be able to see the people in front of me for who they really are, and too immature to avoid lashing out at them after making false assumptions.
Can I even fix this?
I don't know. I don't know. But I have to try.
xXxXx
I have never been good at apologizing. It is not often that I offend someone, but when I do, I dread saying "sorry." One thing is for certain: I struggle with my pride.
Tris didn't show up to dinner, instead ordering one of the maids to deliver food straight to her room. So that is why I am unable to reach out to her until nighttime. By now everyone else has retired to their own bedrooms to sleep, but I pace in mine, mulling over my words to make sure everything sounds good. I don't know if she will forgive me, but that is what I am aiming for.
With a reluctant sigh, I open my door and walk a little bit down the hallway to Tris's bedroom. I don't hear any noise coming from inside, so I hope that she is awake when I lightly tap on the door.
"Come in," she calls quietly.
I turn the handle and step inside to see her lounging on her bed and reading a book with a red cover. She meets my eyes shyly.
"Hi," I say lamely.
"Hi." The response is terse, like she wants to keep this confrontation as short as possible.
Clearing my throat, I begin, "You were right, I don't know you. I was wrong to jump to conclusions." She sits up at my statement, setting the book aside to give me her full attention. "I just...everything kind of sucks right now, and yeah like you said, I took it out on you. That was wrong of me, and there is no excuse. I'm sorry." Those two words feel foreign on my tongue, but I force them out anyway.
With her arms crossed, she slides off the bed and walks towards me, a smile appearing on her face. "Is the great Four apologizing?" she teases.
I roll my eyes jokingly and say, "I suppose."
"Well, then I forgive you." That's all it took? I thought I sounded pathetic. Maybe she is a better, more forgiving person than me after all.
Surprising me, she steps forward to wrap me in a hug. My body reacts as slowly as my mind does, unmoving and stiff. I have never been comfortable with—or familiar with—contact like this.
But I catch up soon enough and pull her into my arms. It is refreshing and reassuring, just what I needed after that brutal, one-sided fight that I was unsure she would recover from.
"I don't want us to be enemies," she mumbles against my shirt.
I drop my head down on top of hers and hold her closer. "Me neither," I breathe out, squeezing my eyes shut. I don't want to be, but I have to be.
And for the first time, I realize what it is boiling down to.
I am being forced to choose between my mother's life and Tris's life. And maybe mine as well, if I choose the latter.
xXxXx
I hope that if any of you hated Tobias before this chapter because of the whole assassination thing, now you'll feel bad for him and see that he is in a tough situation. :(
Btw, I tried to keep the descriptions about cancer treatment vague since I don't know much about it. Sorry if anything is inaccurate.