With Dauntless Abandon

Chapter 13

"Hopefully things get easier for you from here on in," he says with a smile, raising his glass.

Four smiles, raising his glass too. "They already are."

~~~

"Tris!"

She looks up from her view of the window, confused but smiling. "Hey."

"He wrote back! He emailed me back!"

She takes in his excitement and nervousness. "Did you read it yet? Let me see."

"I can't... I set my email up at the library, so..."

"Right. Well, what'd he say? Quit keeping me in suspense!"

"He was... sorry. He said he was sorry about what mom and me went through. He said that if he'd known, he would have gone after Dad himself. He says he wants me to fly out. I..." he sighs. "This is totally overwhelming. I mean... he says he wants to meet me, and he even sent pictures, of like, his family and stuff and..." He frowns. "I could never fit in with that family," he whispers. "I mean, they're like, this perfect family and I'm this fucked-up ex-gangbanger from jail, and I just..."

"He will love you because he loved your mother," Tris says sternly.

"But..."

"Tobias," she interrupts. "You're smart and charming and thoughtful."

"Yeah, but you like me, you're supposed to say that stuff."

She grins. "Am I?"

He frowns.

"Actually what I think I said was that you're not nice, and that I like you."

His eyebrow quirks. "You remember that?"

"Yeah. I was high but not that high." She giggles. "I still like you."

"Uh huh," he mumbles, leaning forward to kiss her lips. "That's still encouraging."

~~~

A man, taller than her-taller than Tobias, too, actually-with a thin frame and wearing a suit, slips into her room, his expression harried. "Beatrice! Oh, honey, are you alright?"

Tris rolls her eyes. "Now you show up? I got shot more than a month ago. And it's Tris. I prefer Tris."

"So it's true?!"

"Yes, Dad. I'm so glad you care," she snips, sarcasm coating her words like venom over the sharp teeth of a snake. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you," he says, hurt.

"Well, now you saw me. So, now you can leave."

"What is your problem with me?"

"My problem is that they shot me three times. They injured two major arteries. Two. My carotid artery, which by all accounts should have made me bleed out in a minute by itself, and an artery in my side, the one that feeds your important internal organs. They told me that I stopped breathing, and that they used six times my blood volume to keep me alive in the operating room. Where were you when I was dying?" She whispers. "What the fuck was more important than being here?!"

"I had to work," he says with a frown.

"Work," she snorts. "Always work. Never an ounce of shit to give for your own kids."

"I am your father, you don't get to speak to me that way," he snaps, agitated.

"You haven't been a father to anybody since Caleb and I were young."