Roommates

Tell Me Baby

It took me half as long as last time to get an update ready for you!  Proud of me?  I'm not much for author's notes, so here it is.

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Tris
April

In the springtime, there are so many beautiful images to capture, but this is the first time I have had a good friend who shares my enthusiasm. Once or twice a week, depending upon our work and study group schedules, Marlene and I get together to take photos. Shauna comes with us when she can, but her course load is pretty intense this semester and she has been very busy as most of her study groups meet several times a week. Over the past few months, Marlene and I have grown a lot closer. She has proved to be a good, kind and loyal friend. The closest friend I've had in a long time. Other than Tobias, I guess, but while Tobias was my friend before we became more, it was always different than my friendship with Marlene.

I crouch at the shore of the pond and zoom in on a single-file line of baby ducklings trailing after their mother, leaving a ripple of a wake behind them. "How are things with you and Four?" Marlene asks.

"Good," I automatically answer. "How are you and Uriah?"

"Oh, we're fine. I know he seems like a goofball, but he's so good to me," she answers. She is silent for a minute while I snap more photos. "You're good for him, you know."

"Uriah?" I say jokingly.

Mar rolls her eyes. "No, you idiot! Four, obviously." She leans back on the sand with her fingers threaded together behind her head. "He's just always been so closed off and... well... kind of an asshole, sometimes."

I laugh. I've heard him referred to that way many times, and I was on the receiving end of it a few times this fall, but overall that assessment of Tobias has never made sense to me. "I don't know why people say that about him," I say. "I mean, yeah, he can be like that, but it seems like it's only when he feels like he needs to protect himself in some way." I bite my lip listening to my own observation. I've been seeing more of the closed-off, "Four" version of Tobias lately, and I don't know why.

Marlene shrugs. "That's because he's different with you. He always has been. Right from the start."

"Except when he was mad at me," I point out.

"Yeah, except then, but then he was worse than ever. I think that was only because you meant so much to him." She sits up again. "Do you know that I've been friends with Four for years, and never once been to his house? Uriah said he has, but only once or twice, when they were kids. The few times someone asked, Four made excuses. I've never met Four's dad, and only seen him once, at graduation. Even Christina only met Mr. Eaton twice. But he even took you up there for the weekend. I don't know, it's just nice to see him letting someone in."

I scroll through today's photos again to avoid looking at Marlene. I know exactly why Tobias never invited anyone over, of course, and I know that Tobias has never shared that information with anyone else but me.

Everything seemed so amazing when we drove home from Milwaukee last month, but as soon as we got back to the dorm, something changed, and I've been trying to put my finger on it ever since. Four is still sweet to me, but I can feel him holding back. I want to call him out on it, but then I realize that I am keeping my own secrets and it just feels too hypocritical. I can't demand he share everything with me when I'm unwilling to do the same. I will, I'm just not ready yet, and for now, I will assume that it's the same for him.

"Tris? What's wrong?" This is the downside to having good friends: they know how to read you, making it much more difficult to keep hidden the thoughts and feelings you want to hide away.