Love is War (A Divergent Fanfic)

Chapter 19

I wake up breathing heavily, Tobias shaking me awake.  His hands are steady, strong.  I miss it when I just loved him and nothing else in the world mattered, when we were just two members of Dauntless with no issues and no pain.

It's strange to think that was only a few weeks ago.

"Tris, are you okay?" he asks.  I feel my heart beating out of my chest, but I don't know why.

"Yeah, I g-guess so," I stutter, running my fingers through my hair.  "What happened?"

"You were screaming... something about crows?  And a wedding?  I don't really remember..."

I try to call back the dream, but it's gone.  But if I was dreaming of crows at my wedding, I can tell that I'm not too excited about getting married.

"Hey, are you okay?" Tobias asks in a heavy voice.  He's fighting to stay awake.

"Yeah," I lie.  "I'm okay, Four.  Go back to sleep."

He stares at me for a minute, his brow furrowed, and eventually closes his eyes and sinks into the mattress.  I wonder if I'm that easy to read, if he can tell that something's wrong, when I realize I called him Four.  He knows I'm not okay when I use that nickname.

I don't sleep for the rest of the night, and eventually, at five in the morning, I slide out of bed and get into the shower.  Tobias wakes up at the sound of the water, and I hear the bed springs creak as he gets out.  I pretend I don't hear it and make the water hotter.  Too hot.  It burns my skin, and I can see my arms and legs getting red splotches on them.  But I don't stop.  The pain wakes me up, and the steam fills my lungs with new air.

I'm Tris Prior.  And my life isn't perfect.  But I can't keep hiding from it when the monsters come out.

Slowly, I turn the water off, shivering in the sudden cold.  I don't reach for a towel, though.  I just stand in the cold, bare shower.  It feels good, the contrast between hot and cold.  It reminds me that I can't be just one person.  I can't be one girl with a perfect life.

I step out of the shower and dry myself off, then walk out with a towel hugging my body.

"Tobias?" I say, the room so dark that I can only make out the outline of the bed.  I see movement to my right, and turn on the light.  Tobias stands near the dresser, pulling on a black tee shirt.

"God, Tris, warn me before you turn on the lights," he says with a chuckle, squinting at me.  I smile, but I can't get too amused.  I have to tell him.

"I really have to talk to you about something," I say with a shaky breath.  The smile drops from his face, and he sits on the edge of the bed.  I scoot onto it, too, my wet hair dripping onto my shoulders.

"What's wrong?  Tell me the truth," he commands, his voice stern.

"Well..." I begin, but I choke on my words.  I clear my throat and try again.  "The wedding."

His eyes grow wide, but other than that, he remains calm.

"I'm not sure if we're ready," I mutter.  "I'm not even twenty."

He wraps an arm around me and kisses my forehead lightly.  I sigh and lean into him.

"That's okay," he says, his voice on the verge of breaking.  "I just want to know... will you be ready?  Sometime?"

I nod my head.  "Yes, I will be.  Maybe really soon.  But not right now.  Not with all this going on.  And not when we have to train initiates in eleven months.  We'd want to have kids, and then we'd have a newborn child to tend to..."

"Tris, we don't have to have kids right away," he says into my hair.  "But if you want to wait, we can."

I force the tears to stay in my eyes, to not spill over, and I shake my head.

"Can we wait?  Just  until next year, after the initiates have come.  Then we'll have a few years to get ready until it's time to go back to working."

He pulls away from me and studies my expression.  "Of course," he says.  I smile, then get up and walk over to the dresser.  I pull out a long-sleeve black shirt and black jean shorts. 

"I love you," I say to him.  He smiles at me and walks into the bathroom.  Right before he turns on the razor to shave, he says, "I love you, too."