TRIS POV
"Okay, Tris, it looks like you're good to go," Marlene tells me with a bright smile. "Just take it easy for a while, okay?"
"I will," I promise, grinning back at her because it is infectious. Apparently besides being a nurse, Marlene was also one of my closest friends. Her positivity quickly makes me realize why I chose someone like her as a friend.
"Ready?" Tobias holds out a hand to me when I hop off the examination table, and I take it gladly. I will probably need him to steady me for a little while.
With a cautious step, I reply, "Yeah, let's go."
We came to the infirmary for two reasons: to get my boot brace removed, and to visit an old friend who is now recovering from being in a coma for a couple weeks. While I was excited to finally be free of the restricting contraption, I was dreading to come here today if I'm being honest.
Among the other challenges I have faced while trying to reconnect with my old life, there is the problem of friends. I am not too socially skilled since I have almost always been alone the past year, and it gets more and more difficult to handle when I meet new—or, I guess not really new—people. The faces are hard to pair with names, and I certainly don't have any memories to associate with them. Every encounter ends in an awkward lull which then propels me to the safety of Tobias's side once again.
But today I have decided to come out of my shell. Starting right now, I am going to visit Shauna, one of Tobias's best friends who became a friend of mine as well. Other people will be there too I think, since she was just recently transferred from the Erudite hospital.
"Can you remind me of who she is again so I don't mess something up?" I ask, trying to force the limp out of my walk.
Tobias glances over at me to make sure I'm okay before looking ahead again. He leads me down a side hallway lined with doors. "Her name is Shauna," he reiterates. "She and I are very close, and she is engaged to my best friend, Zeke. She has been through a lot; besides getting out of a coma, she lost her younger sister, one of our friends, about a week ago." I sense his melancholy and figure that it is a touchy subject.
But I'm too curious for my own good. "Woah, wait," I say. "You didn't tell me this. Who was her sister?"
"Her name was Lynn. I'll tell you about her later." Halting at a door, he sets his hand on the knob and says, "Don't worry about Shauna. She's really nice. You'll like her."
"Is my anxiety that obvious?" I mumble.
Without responding, he opens the door to reveal a sterile, white and gray room. A girl attached to multiple wires and tubes lies in the bed in the center of it. She is a pale brunette. Pretty, despite the dark circles under her eyes.
"Four," she croaks, somehow managing to put a fragile grin on her face.
"Shauna." He lets go of my hand to reach over and hug her as carefully as he can, avoiding all the wires hooked to her. "You scared the living hell out of us," he chuckles softly. "Well, not me. I always knew you'd pull through, but Zeke on the other hand..."
Shauna giggles momentarily before wincing and covering her stomach. "Yeah, he's never really believed in me like you have," she jokes.
"Hey!" Zeke exclaims from the other side of the bed, pressing a hand over his heart in mock hurt.
I remember his brother Uriah from the party the other night. If Tobias wouldn't have told me they were related, I probably would never figure it out by their features. Or maybe I would have because they make it their mission to constantly make people laugh.
"Tris! You're back," Shauna says, attempting to push herself up into a sitting position. She holds her arms out to me to offer a hug, and I gulp, unsure what to do.
I go with my instincts and step toward the bed to wrap my arms around her as friends would. "Hi, Shauna," I reply.
"Tris lost most of her memory," Tobias explains bluntly. "We're working on getting it to come back."
"Oh." Her faint smile fades. "I'm sorry to hear that."
There is really nothing to say, so I press my lips together in a polite smile.
"You should sit," Tobias suggests, pulling a metal chair up behind me.
"I'm fine," I argue, though I am having a difficult time balancing on my decent leg. I would never admit it to him, but my other leg is too sore to stand on for more than a few seconds at a time.
He lets a heavy breath out of his nose, his dark, pleading eyes meeting mine. "Please?" he murmurs.
And I can't resist him. So I give in and sink down onto the chair, noticing how Zeke and Shauna have been watching us the whole time. My face heats up.
"Trouble in paradise?" Zeke says.
It starts with a snicker, and then all of us end up laughing the situation off. Zeke is good company to have; I'll keep that in mind. Really, every friend I have met again has been kind and welcoming.
"So, are you feeling better Shauna?" Tobias asks to change the subject.
She shakes her head as the mood of the room flips. "I felt horrible enough when I woke up, and then I found out about Lynn..." she chokes out, holding back tears as she looks up at the ceiling.
I squirm on the chair. I don't know how to help people who are grieving. Zeke doesn't seem to know how either; he bows his head and doesn't say a word.
"I don't know if this will hurt or help, but," Tobias says solemnly, "I was with her before she died."
I stare at the back of his head in an accusatory manner. He never told me that.
But who am I to demand things from him? After our fight, I'm going to have to stay in the dark about certain facts for a while unless I want to contradict the words I threw at him.
Shauna sniffles and reaches up to brush away a stray tear. "Was she—how did she look?"
"Strong. Unafraid."
A pained look crosses her face as she squeezes her eyes shut. Tobias sits down on the edge of her bed as a fresh round of tears pours down her face. She sits up so she can cry into his shoulder, and I watch him run his hand up and down her back gently and hush her for a long time.
xXxXx
Tobias leaves me at the apartment, claiming that he has something he needs to take care of and that he will be back before dinner.
It gives me time to sort through my feelings as much as possible. I don't know why I'm so bipolar: half of the time I'm saying that I don't know him and therefore don't need him, and then the other half I'm wanting his attention and wondering why he keeps secrets from me. Like about Lynn, about the emotions he is dealing with, about where he is going right now.
It is strange. Sometimes I'll catch a glimpse of a smile on his face or discreetly watch him sleep in the morning, and I will be grateful that he is mine—if he even is. Other times I act like we're stuck in this position and think it is more awkward than it needs to be.
Why do I pretend not to like him when I clearly do? He is handsome, he dotes on me, he loves me, and he doesn't ask for anything in return. He waits and waits and will continue waiting until I remember him completely, and from what I do remember he is everything I could possibly want in a partner.
Why is this so hard for me to comprehend? Why can't I just love him back?
Because even through all of that, I just don't know him enough.
The problem is not even that I don't trust him; it's that our relationship is one-sided. He has shown me most of who he is. I don't know the other parts of him, like the romantic side, but I know the rest. Because of my leg, he has been taking care of me a lot, making me feel useless. He may know who I was, but he does not know me as the person that exists today.
All I do is take from him, and I never reciprocate. Because I just can't. Not yet.
And getting my memory back is so important to me now for a different reason: to be on the same level as him. I want us to be equals like we were before.
A knock on the door startles me out of my thoughts. I shove a blanket off of my legs, slide off the couch, and hobble over to the door, standing on my tiptoes to look through the peephole.
It's not Tobias, and I didn't think it would be because he has a key. I make out the brown skin and then the face of Christina in the dim, blue light. At least, I think her name is Christina.
Opening the door, I say, "Hey, how are you?"
"I'm great!" she exclaims, hugging me. Then she retracts her arms when she notices how stiff I am. "Oh, sorry. I forgot about the whole memory thing."
"You're fine," I laugh. "Come in."
She enters, and I shut the door behind her quietly.
"So..." What are you doing here, I mean to ask.
"I just thought I'd drop by to talk. You've probably been bored here lately. I haven't seen you around much, so I mean you must be hanging out here," she explains her reasoning, passing me to plop down on the couch like she has been here a million times before. And maybe she has. I recall Tobias labeling her as my best friend.
"It's...fine," I reply. I move to sit down in another couch chair. "It does get tedious at times, but Tobias keeps me company. Plus I have a lot to work through."
"Yeah. I can't imagine how frustrating it is for you to not remember virtually anything." She brushes a piece of her short hair out of her face. "Have you gotten any of your memory back though?"
I shrug and play with a loose thread on the blanket covering my legs. "Not much. It comes a tiny bit at a time. But my brother is working on a solution."
It takes a while, but I soon catch on to how conversing with a friend works. I think I can safely say that Tobias is not really a friend to me because it's different with him, so the only other friend I really talked to like this was Lauren. And she is dead, so...
Christina is okay. She is kind of too enthusiastic for me, but I don't mind. I still find her funny and understanding and a good listener. That's all I need right now. As much as I like Tobias, it is helpful to speak with a girl who can connect with me in a way only girls can.
Just as she is entertaining me with a story of a drunk man she saw picking a fight in the Pit a few months ago, the front door opens. Tobias takes one step in, and I am about to greet him until I notice his clearly unamused face.
Christina ducks her head, and he immediately looks away from her to meet my eyes. Clearing his throat, he deadpans, "I'll leave you two. I'll be back soon, and then we can go meet our friends for dinner, Tris."
"Sounds good," I say because I feel like I did something wrong, and I don't want him to be upset. He retreats out of the apartment without so much as another glance.
"What was that about?" I ask Christina. "Why do you two hate each other so much?"
She sighs and doesn't answer.
"Why can nobody give me a straight answer about this?!" I finally shout, throwing my hands up dramatically. I don't mean to be so hostile, but when you're clueless, it is not fun being left in the dark.
"I thought he would tell you, but it looks like I have to," she mumbles.
"Tell me what?"
She reluctantly begins, "I came over one time a few weeks ago and drank with him. Neither of us was having a good night, and I...wasn't thinking straight. I made advances on him, so to speak."
It takes me a few seconds to process her words, but when I do, I become nauseous with fear. Did Tobias cheat on me?
Who am I kidding? Cheat, really? I haven't been treating him well enough to call us together in the first place. And I was presumed dead at the time.
But God, this hurts. This really, really hurts.
"What did he do?" is all I can say.
"He yelled at me. Told me to get out." Her eyes well up with tears when I eventually glance at them. "I'm sorry, Tris. I'm a terrible friend, I just..."
Here I am trying to figure out my feelings for him, and she decides to spring it on me that she tried to get together with him behind my back. And I don't even know if she is telling the truth. What if she is trying to make it up to me by saving our relationship, by not admitting that they made out or something? What if she is attempting to save our friendship?
"Oh my God, I really didn't need this right now..." I groan, burying my face in my hands. Suddenly I don't feel well.
Is there an excuse for what she has done? Not at all. I don't believe it. She betrayed me, and from that alone I just can't consider us friends.
"Can you leave please?" I murmur, staring at my lap. On my command, she scurries out of the apartment and throws an apology at me over her shoulder.
I drag the blanket with me over to the window seat, curling up on the cushion that covers it. With a heavy sigh, I numbly watch rain drops trickle down the window.
It feels like my world has crashed and burned. This weight is almost as heavy as the guilt of killing Stacy, though this was not my fault. I did nothing wrong in this instance, and yet again I have been dealt the wrong cards. Can I trust Tobias ever again after this? Where will I go if I can't, what will I do?
Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt. He seems loyal.
But then again, how well do I really know him? It seems like I am finding out things about him one at a time from other sources.
This is just another one of those situations.
About an hour later, or at least that's how long I think it is, I hear the door unlock and creak open again. Tobias walks in, his boots hitting the floor. I listen to him shut the door, followed by silence.
"Tris?"
"What happened the night Christina came over?"
I turn my head to see him run a hand down his tired face. "So she told you," he states.
"Yeah, Tobias, I actually found someone who was willing to give me answers," I snap.
"Because that's a great conversation to have the moment you come home. 'Hey, by the way, your best friend made inappropriate insinuations towards me while you were gone.'"
I set the blanket down and stand up, ready to explode. "It's better to have the conversation than to ignore the issue! It only makes you seem like you have something to hide."
"What did she tell you?" he growls. "That I cheated? Because I didn't."
Tobias runs a hand through his hair before staring straight into my eyes and telling me, "I was drinking a few weeks ago because I had a rough day. She came over—it made no sense to me because we were barely friends—and she asked if she could come in and have a drink. I obliged because I didn't want to sound like an asshole for refusing her.
"We sat on the couch and started talking, and all of the sudden she says that she could help me...relax," he spits with a shudder. "She tried to grab me."
I raise my eyebrows, wondering if he means what I think he does.
"Yes. There." He looks harassed by the reminder. "So I immediately pushed her away and stood up, and I yelled at her until she left. Then I broke down because I saw those pictures."
I follow his nod to the small table next to the couch, where three picture frames sit. I crane my neck so I can see what is in them, and they are photos of us, together.
Somehow, I still don't believe him.
"You can just tell me, you know," I mumble, avoiding his gaze. "I would get it, I guess. She's pretty—"
He snorts. "No, she's not."
"—and you were lonely and—"
"Okay, listen closely, because I'm only saying this once. When I say that I would never cheat on you, I mean it," he swears, stepping forward so that we are inches apart. "Even if you had died, I wouldn't move on." I have only seen him cry once, and he blinks back tears now. "Hell, Tris, I was planning on killing myself if you didn't come home."
A gasp escapes my mouth. I knew he loved me, but I had no idea that it ran that deep.
"Why?" I croak.
"Because a life without you isn't worth living."
Tears unexplainably leak out of my eyes. I cover my mouth to stifle a sob, and he pulls me into a hug. I fist his shirt in my free hand while he clutches me even closer.
"I was trying to protect you," he whispers. "I didn't want you to lose a friend because of my idiocy. I shouldn't have let her in."
This isn't even his fault, and he is taking the blame for this whole situation even though he was the victim in all of this.
"I don't want you to trust me any less than you already do."
"Stop," I murmur. "I trust you, I do. You're the only person I know."
"No more secrets," he tells me, lifting me up slightly so that I won't have to fully stand.
I nod, agreeing. "Okay."
But I don't mean it. There are some things that I don't have the heart to tell him.
xXxXx
How'd you guys like that drama?🌚
By the way, I've been getting a few questions lately as to how long this story will be. There will be about 8 more chapters and a couple outtakes, but I can add more of those if I get requests.
Then after that I'll be starting a new story that takes place after Insurgent!! Except it's way different because Tris and Tobias will be broken up, the factions will be back, etc.
Thanks for your continued support!💖