TOBIAS POV
The lines of code fly by, but I type fast enough to keep up. My eyes have grown accustomed to the quick reading that hacking entails, so the speed of the lines no longer fazes me. Just a few more seconds and I'll be in—
"Tobias!"
Startled because my concentration was broken, I slam my laptop closed and throw it to the side of the bed just in time for Tris to jump on top of me.
"Hey, beautiful," I say, masking the fact that I was hacking into a server not less than a minute ago. Normally I would be annoyed that I got interrupted, but which is more important: my girlfriend or a side assignment for my job? The former, obviously.
I move my hands to her waist to steady her. "What's up?"
She bites her lip to stifle a smile as she leans over me, her long, golden hair falling in a curtain around us. "Nothing," she drawls.
I flip us over so that she is trapped beneath me. Lacing my fingers with hers to pin her, I murmur, "Nothing, huh?"
Before she can say anything more, I bend my neck down farther and kiss her. Her eyes close as she relaxes back into the bed and suddenly Dauntless and being a bodyguard and any other issues that could possibly stress me out don't matter. Pressure drains from my body and gets poured into the kiss. It is almost terrifying how much power she has when it comes to taking my problems away.
When I pull back, she pulls me right back in, clutching my neck and burying her face in my shoulder. "Let's go do something," she says, her voice muffled by my shirt.
I shake my head against hers and press a hand in between her shoulder blades. "I can't. I have to go visit my mother," I explain.
"Can I come?"
Releasing her for a moment, I stare down at her and consider her request. I am not sure how my mother would feel about having an extra visitor, but I don't think there is harm in bringing Tris. She hasn't met her yet anyway, doesn't even know that she is my girlfriend. Besides, I want to avoid getting in another fight about keeping secrets like we did a couple months ago, and this is a big step that will demonstrate my trust.
Even though there is an unexplainable, underlying nervousness in my mind, I agree.
xXxXx
The cancer wing is the same as usual: everything smells like antibacterial chemicals, and people walk around grimly, mourning their nearly dead loved one. But I don't sink to their emotional level, instead holding Tris's hand and guiding her along with me down to my mother's hospital room.
"Wait," she bursts as soon as I rest my hand on the door handle. I turn my head to look back at her, and she looks nearly petrified. I've never seen her so anxious and full of self-doubt; it is readable on her face. "What if she doesn't like me? What if—"
"Tris. She will," I assure her, squeezing her hand. When she shakes her head, I let go of the handle completely and rest my hands on her shoulders. "Hey. You're beautiful, smart, hilarious, compassionate, and everything else I could want in a person." It almost makes me cross with her when she puts herself down, and I have told her so before, yet she keeps doing it. "Do me a favor and don't say a bad thing about yourself ever again. Okay?"
Tris nods shyly before pulling me into a hug. "Thank you," she whispers.
I tighten my arms around her and give her a moment for her red face to go back to its normal color. "Ready?"
She nods again and takes a deep breath before lacing her fingers with mine. And together we walk into my mother's hospital room.
If I ever said my mom looked on the verge of death before, I was wrong.
How can a person possibly look so miserable? She has turned a new shade of sickly green since the last time I visited, and somehow she is even more frail. The cancer is eating away at her one cell at a time, slowly ripping my mom away from life, from me.
But she masks the pain, just as she did when I was young and my father beat us. She didn't want to scare me then, and I think the same goes for now.
"Hey, Mom," I greet her with a smile that would be identical to hers if she was well enough to turn her lips up higher. Tris tightens her hand around mine in a sad attempt to comfort me. Maybe it was a good idea to bring her after all. I might lose it.
"Tobias," my mom slurs. "Come sit."
I obey and take a seat at her bedside. But then I realize that Tris is left to stand since there is only one chair, and I turn my head to look back at her apologetically. I would have her sit on my lap, but I don't want to make my mom uncomfortable, and she seems to understand that and gives me a minuscule grin.
"How are you? How have you been?" I ask hopefully, fully knowing that there is no hope for her.
"Fine." There is a pause in her speech when she squints at Tris to see her face. "Who are you?"
I clear my throat and introduce them. "Mom, this is my girlfriend, Tris. Tris, my mother."
"It's so great to meet you," Tris says sweetly. "Tobias has told me a lot about you."
"A girlfriend," my mother huffs. "Isn't this the rich girl you told me about? Tobias...you can do so much better than her. She's out of your league."
I am shell-shocked. Never would I have thought that my mother could be so disrespectful, let alone to someone I truly care about. And I am puzzled because I don't know what to do. I can't yell at her; she is chronically ill and obviously has the higher ground here no matter what.
Looking back at Tris where she is leaning against the chair, I notice tears swimming in her eyes despite her head being down. Now I am furious. She did nothing to deserve this.
"Tris," I whisper. She barely makes eye contact with me. "Hey, do you want to wait in the hall?" I will wholeheartedly understand if she does.
She bites her lip before lifting her head and politely saying, "I wish you the best. Excuse me." And she takes the escape I gave her, hurrying out of the room to flee from the embarrassing situation.
"How could you?" is all I can think to say.
"Tobias..." My mother doesn't sound sorry in the slightest.
"No, don't even start," I snap. "She was nothing but nice to you, and you treated her like shit just because she was born into a wealthy family. She can't help that."
"It doesn't matter! Those rich people don't help others who need the money; they only spend it on hover boards or whatever new pointless item is popular—"
I cut her off uncaringly. "She volunteers at homeless shelters and donates all the time. I don't even want to hear it."
She waves me off weakly. "I don't buy it. I will never stop believing how unfair that gap is. People like her have never had to fight—"
I stand up. "Like you should talk," I spit, wincing right after and gazing down at my shoes. She has had to fight the impossible battle of cancer, and I really shouldn't be minimizing that as pissed off as I am.
But she knows what I am talking about: the trial. She didn't fight for custody of me, and because of that, I was handed over to my abusive father without a second thought.
"You didn't fight. You didn't fight for me," I say quietly, my voice broken. I sound like a child. And I know I should not be reminding her of her past mistakes, but I can't help it. This grudge has gone unacknowledged for too long.
"Yes, I did." My head shoots back up at that. "I did, Tobias. You may not have remembered since you were so little, only six, but I went on trial and tried as hard as I could to win you. Marcus paid off the judge, of course, and then he threatened me. I had no choice but to give up."
"That's—" Not fair, I want to say. It is a childish thought. "You tried?"
"I did," she confirms. "I'm your mother. Of course I tried."
Tears well up in my eyes despite my effort to force them down. I spent my entire life thinking that my mother didn't care enough to fight for me, that she purposely let me live with a torturer for eleven more years after she left.
"I'm sorry," I sniffle. "I didn't know."
"Well now you do." There is an awkward silence. "At least now I won't die with you hating me for that."
"You're not going to die," I practically snarl at her, trying to make the statement sound so convincing that it turns out to be true. I have never been one for optimism, but I need something to hold onto in this case.
"I'm tired, Tobias. I'm weak, I'm sick of playing guessing games, I'm tired."
A short sob forces its way out of me before I can cover my mouth. I'm so selfish for wanting her to hang on. "No, you're going to get better. You have to."
"I'm afraid not." I have to bury my face in my hands to conceal my pain from her, like she was doing earlier for me. We're not all that different, I suppose. "C'mere," she murmurs, holding her arms out to me.
Stepping closer to the bed, I lean down and pull her into a bone-crushing hug, whereas she can barely manage a squeeze. I'm going to lose her one of these days, so better make it count, right?
"You're brave," she whispers against my ear. "You have been since you were two feet tall and taking all those beatings from that psychopath Marcus." I chuckle softly in between my hiccuping, even though it is anything but funny. "You will get through this, okay? Find some happiness; I know you will."
Tris immediately comes to mind. She is the only person that can make me smile, laugh, forget about all the trauma I have suffered from in life. She is the one thing I am sure about.
"I think I have," I breathe out, letting go of her.
"That girl?" My mother sounds incredulous, and it makes forgotten anger rise in me, though it is unnecessary because she says, "If she makes you happy, then...go for it." It is not an apology, but it is an acceptance that I thought she wouldn't offer. And I'm more than okay with that. I think the whole problem is that she got jealous of Tris being able to spend time with me, and I forgive her, despite the fact that it wasn't right for her to treat my girlfriend that way. In her state, she can have as many excuses as she wants.
"I love you," she tells me, and she looks so fragile and so far gone that I can't help but start crying again.
"I love you, Mom," I choke out, bending down to kiss her forehead, or more like her beanie. A couple of my tears land in the fabric. "Take care, okay? I'll be back soon."
After making sure she is settled and comfortable enough to sleep, I exit the room, letting out a heavy breath when I get into the hallway. I have the same reaction every time I leave that room; just being in there makes me feel like I am slowly suffocating, and I can only get air by walking out.
"Are you okay?"
Luckily, Tris doesn't look like she has had a crying fit, unlike me. I know that she can tell that I have been crying by my red eyes and my eyelashes that are likely stuck together.
"I'm fine," I answer with a grimace. She doesn't make a move to approach me yet; she stays leaning against the opposite wall to give me space. I think she has established by now that I am not one to approach when I am upset.
"She didn't mean it, you know," I add. "It's the cancer. It changed her—"
"I know. You don't have to explain it to me," she says.
And she doesn't mention anything else while I grieve over my sure-to-be-dead mother, but knowing that she is here if I need her is enough.
xXxXx
TRIS POV
Tobias is sufficiently bummed when we leave the hospital, so I make it my mission to cheer him up.
When he suggests that we go home, I refuse and tell him to drive to the nearest park. I don't really have a plan until I see an ice cream truck sitting in the parking lot next to the playground, and then I drag him over to it, demanding that we get ice cream. It gets a light smile out of him. Bingo.
Before we know it, we are walking around on the sidewalk surrounded by lush grass, him with a double chocolate cone and I with a single vanilla cone. Children run past us excitedly while we walk calmly around the park. It is a nice day, especially since it is beginning to warm up.
"I haven't been to a park in so long," he says quietly. "I used to go all the time when I was a little kid. Well, at least in the beginning."
"Yeah?" I say, grinning before I lick my ice cream. I love it when he opens up to me, even when it is something as simple as this. Though I don't know if it is a good idea to be talking about this after visiting his mother, but he doesn't seem to mind.
"Yeah." He intertwines our fingers.
"I—" I start, but I get cut off by Tobias letting go of my hand to catch a little boy who had just tripped in front of us on his way to the playground.
"Careful, bud," he warns with a friendly grin. It reminds me of the time when he said nearly the same thing to me when he caught me after I tripped on the stairs. The boy stares up at him with wide eyes, shocked by the realization that he almost fell. He looks like he is only three years old, with soft blonde hair and an adorable baby face. Tobias notices how young he is and asks, "Hey, where's your mom?"
The child looks around worriedly before spotting his mother at the ice cream truck and pointing to her.
"Okay, let's go to your mommy." Tobias picks the kid up and says to me, "Stay here. I'll be right back."
True to his word, he carries the boy over to his mother and returns within a minute. I am smiling widely when he approaches me, causing him to question, "What?"
I shake my head. "That was so cute," I declare. "I didn't know you were so good with kids."
He blushes and waves me off, going back to eating his ice cream and taking the opportunity to wrap an arm around my waist and pull me into his side.
"Do you think you'll ever have kids?" I ask, unable to help myself. Then I realize how awkward this sounds, since we're dating and only have been for like five months, and I don't want him to think I am pressuring him. We don't know what the future will hold; we don't know how we will end up. So I explain myself. "I mean, with anyone. Like when you have a family in the future."
He stops walking, causing me to do the same. I turn to face him directly, to see his reaction. He seems speechless. This must be a difficult topic for him.
"I-I don't know," he stutters. "I don't think I would be able to be a decent father."
I roll my eyes. "Oh, give me a break. You're selfless, you're patient, you're clearly great with handling kids..."
But he feels the need to deny all of that. He seems to have already convinced himself otherwise. "It's not—you don't know about—"
"I don't need to know about anything else," I tell him sternly. "I know who you are as a person, and judging by your character, I know that you would be an amazing parent."
Tobias closes his eyes and lowers his head. I step forward and touch his cheek with my palm. "Hey," I murmur. "I'm not trying to pressure you or say you have to do anything. I'm just calling out what I see."
When he raises his head back up to look at me, I am surprised to see a grin stretching across his face. Sudden change of thought, perhaps?
"Nobody has ever said that to me before," he states softly. "Nobody has ever believed I could have a family. Even I didn't."
And I see in his eyes that he desperately wants to believe me, that he needs that hope of having a family because that is all he seems to have at times, especially with his mom on the verge of passing away.
"You will one day, Tobias. I know you will."
He can only manage to stare at me in response. Our ice cream is completely forgotten about by this point, so I am confused when he turns to throw his melting treat away in a nearby garbage can, along with mine which he steals from my hand. I have a feeling that things are about to get serious.
"Tris," he whispers, pressing both hands on either side of my face. "I would be honored if you were to be my family."
Standing on my tiptoes, I kiss him, pouring all my feelings of excitement for the possible future into it. I can't imagine wanting anyone else because I have never wanted anyone else as much as I do him; I have never felt this overwhelmed with emotion over a person. I have never had a real friend, and now I do, and I want nothing more than to keep him for as long as I possibly can.
We keep the kiss short—we are in a public park, after all—yet it is by far the most passionate one we have ever shared. It alone conveys our commitment to each other.
This is too intense to be some fling. It is too deep to be just dating.
And I don't know if this is love because I don't know how that feels, but if it is, then I will gladly embrace it.
xXxXx
It may seem a bit early for them to be talking about the future, but my reasoning for that will be explained next chapter.
Once again I don't know much about cancer, but I remember that in TFIOS Augustus's former girlfriend who had cancer had major mood swings and became grumpy all the time. So that's why Evelyn was rude, as Tobias mentioned.