Life After Tris

Silent and bloody

Christina walks into the kitchen, wets a rag and begins to wipe the blood off herself. "Christina" Tobias says following her into the kitchen and sitting down at the table. She acts like she does not hear him and continues cleaning herself off. "Christina what happened to you?" Tobias asks with a little irritation in his voice. Tobias gave her some time to answer, but when she did not say anything he got up and walked over to her. Tobias looked at her arm and saw that Christina's hard scrubbing has done nothing to get the blood of. He reaches out to grab her arm and look at what wounds lie below the thick, and now dry blood, but Christina is to quick and she pulls away before Tobias can lay a finger on her. Realizing that he is not going to get a answer Tobias says "One wet paper towel is obviously not going to work with all of this blood and I'm almost out of paper towels so just go use my shower to get cleaned up. After you don't have blood all over you I expect some answers". Christina walked to the bathroom without making any eye contact with Tobias. Tobias sat on the couch as he heard the water turn on. He looked at the clock and realized that it was seven thirty and he had fifteen minutes before he should be at work. He walked back into the kitchen, called the office, but there was no answer. Tobias looked at the calendar and it was a Tuesday, so the office should be open. Not understanding what was going on, Tobias hung up the phone and began to cook some breakfast. He poured himself a cup of coffee and caught a glimpse out of the window. Out of the corner of his eye, Tobias though he saw a sky full of smoke. Before he had a chance to look at the window to see if there really was smoke Christina walked into the kitchen. She had a towel wrapped around her, and Tobias could not see her arms but there where gashes on the right side of her face and the left side was slightly bruised. "How did I not notice this when she walked in?" Tobias asked himself. For the first time she stopped looking at the floor and she looked up. Tobias opened his mouth to ask what happened but the look in her big brown eyes stopped him. She stared at him and Tobias could tell that she was holding back tears. She walked over to the couch and sat. Tobias followed and sat next to her. She looked away again like she had done something wrong. "Chris" Tobias said with some sympathy in his voice. Talking for the first time since she had walked through his door she said "Don't". He voice was stiff and again Tobias could tell she was holding back tears. "Don't?" Tobias asked. "Don't call me Chris", she said, "Tris was the only one who called me that." Tris, that one word was all it took to make Tobias's eyes shine with water. He was going to apologize to Christina, but before he got the chance to get any words out Christina said "and I'm sorry for getting blood all over your house". "It's fine" said Tobias "but it's your blood your cleaning it up". Christina gave a small giggle, but it sounded very forced. "Are you going to tell me what happened or did you just come here to make my apartment look like a slaughterhouse?". To his surprise Christina answered him, "Ya, but it's a long story, and don't interrupt me while I tell it or I'll leave and go home". Shocked with Christina's sudden sternness, "Understood" is all Tobias could think to say.