Tobias - after Allegiant ✔

34

I let myself fall onto the couch. I'm so tired and the shaking in my limbs has been bothering me for at least an hour already.
   
"There you are!" Tobias calls out. "I've been searching this whole building looking for you and you're just sitting here on the couch."
   
"Cwistina abducted me," I say. "She fowced me to go to that mall with her."
   
"And you didn't think to tell me?"
   
"I would've if I had the time to do that!" I say. I don't know why he's so angry about this. "Cwistina literally walked in, gwabbed my awm and took me with her."
   
He sighs. "Yeah, I'm sorry. Shouldn't have blown up about this. I just don't want to lose you again."
   
"You'we not going to lose me, Tobias. You'we stuck with me now."
   
"Good." He walks over to me and sits down next to me. I place my head on his shoulder. "How was it?"
   
"Exhausting," I say. "She noticed my wing and she couldn't shut up about it. 'Since when? How did he pwopose? And have you done the deed yet?' Imagine a Cwistina wiggling her eyebwows with these questions and you'll want to fall asleep wight away."
   
Tobias laughs. I glare at him.
   
"And what did you answer her?"
   
"It's not weally possible to lie awound a Candow, so I told the twuth."
   
"Really? And what is the truth?" he asks, grinning.
   
"Well, you should know, since you wewe thewe." I say, playing along.
   
"But what if I just want to hear it?"
   
"Then I'm sowwy, but I'm not going to say evewything again." I stand and walk to the kitchen to get a glass of water. "You want something to dwink?"
   
"Water is fine."
   
I open a cabinet and take out two glasses. My hands still tremble, so I hold the glasses tightly as I fill them.
   
But my hold can't prevent one from falling out of my hand. The tremble is too bad.
   
"Stupid giwl!" I say. "You can't even hold a glass of watew."
   
I place the glass I'm still holding on the counter and sit down on my knees to collect the pieces of glass.
   
"Everything okay?"
   
Suddenly Tobias is standing in front of me. A tear escapes my eye.
   
"I'm sowwy, Tobias," I say. "I was twying not to let them fall, but I did. And now it's bwoken and it's my fault."
   
"It's okay, Tris. I have too many glasses anyway."
   
"But that doesn't mean I can bweak them."
   
I sob and place my hands in front of me to get up, but I cut myself on a piece of glass. I take my hands from the floor.
   
"Oh, Tris," is the only thing Tobias says. Then he picks me up and he brings me to the bathroom. He takes care of the cut.
   
"I'm as clumsy as I was when I was little," I say shakily.
   
Tobias laughs a little. "Yeah. But that doesn't matter, does it?"
   
"It does, actually. I'm going to stay out of the kitchen fow a while, I think. Don't want to bweak more things."
   
"I could get plastic cups for you, if you'd like," he offers.
   
I don't want to look like a little kid who needs plastic cups, but I suspect I already look like one, so it doesn't really make a difference.
   
"You'we the best," I say.
   
"I know," he says grinning. "I'm going to clean the kitchen."
   
"I want to help."
   
"You don't need to. I got this. And don't think I don't accept your help because I think you're not capable."
   
Too late, I think, I already do. But I don't say it. I just nod and kiss him quickly.
   
When he walks back to the kitchen, I go to our bedroom. I wander around, trying to look at it with the eyes of someone who doesn't know us. The first thing people will see are the words 'fear God alone,' that for sure. Then they will see how little furniture there is.
   
My eye catches a notebook on the bedside table of Tobias. It's small and dark red, the color of blood.
   
I pick it up and turn to the first page. I know I shouldn't be looking into Tobias's possessions, but I can't help it.
   
He has written with a black pen. The first page is nothing more than black stripes, crossing each other until there's barely white visible. The second page has black dots from where he pressed to hard onto the paper with the pen. The third page is empty. On the fourth he begins writing. I sink onto the bed and try to read his writing – usually so neat, but now unreadable.