All for You.

Chapter 20 - Trapped

Chapter 20 - Trapped

— Tris

I don't like physical therapy. It makes me feel exposed.

It's nothing against the woman who is my physical therapist, she's the sweetest person, but I'm just not interested in someone touching my cast and bare leg right now.

Or ever.

The first day I showed up, Caleb offered to go in the room with me, not to be nosy, just for moral support. Of course, I denied.

I'm glad I did. I haven't even gotten to their apartment yet and I had flipped shit at my physical therapist, Molly for being confident with touching my casted leg.

She apologized up and down about how bad she felt, and how she should've thought about what I've been through.

I feel bad.
I wish I could be normal.
I mean, who reacts in such a way with a simple touch to one's leg.

She took that first appointment to just talk about what exercises she will start me on to further down the road towards walking. I wish I could say I listened, but I didn't hear anything she was saying over the speed of my pounding chest.

That day I was in a daze. I know Caleb and Cara assumed it was on the stress of moving, but that was just an added stress to the fear I had of going back to PT.

I didn't sleep that night. I sat alone, in the dark on the twin mattress that filled the small light grey walls of the bedroom.

Cara still found me. She came into the room after her night shift around five in the morning. Twice a week she works at night, once a week she works in the afternoon till dinner time.

She sat with me and just talked. I enjoy her company every time she can tell I'm at ease. She asked me how physical therapy went, and I begged her to just not ask.

She's an Erudite born, but she's also compassionate.

She's the scared pregnant woman who used blankets to keep me from bleeding out.

She's the woman who named her daughter after me, the same girl who she stated had way too big of a nose.

I sobbed, telling her about my paranoia, how the woman didn't understand that my leg isn't just injured, but it's a mental thing.

She continues to be there for me, as does my brother.

That's all I really need

It's two days later now, and Caleb walks me from their apartment to the PT place which is literally down an elevator and across some sidewalks. I've accepted that the only way I'm getting around Erudite is in this wheelchair.

Ultimately, the main reason I give in is because I can. Dauntless is not equipped for handicapped people, and there is no talk of there being plans for it to change in the future. There is small flights of stairs everywhere in the compound, along with cracks in the asphalt that would simply eat a wheel of a wheelchair.

Erudite is the complete opposite. Wheels roll smoothly on top of the tile that covers the compound. Even the sidewalks have minimum cracks to get stuck in. Even for a small flight of stairs, there is always an accessible ramp right next to it.

My second day of PT consisted of standing on one leg. Molly has me use a walker to stand, although I tell her I've been getting around on crutches for over three years now.

That's my main issue with the wheelchair: it's associated with weakness.

However, the swelling has been down massively in my leg with keeping it parallel to the ground in this wheelchair.

It means I no longer have to go through the pain of icing it when all ice does is cause a series of painful cramps.

Wednesday is when both Caleb and Cara have off. The night before, Caleb comes into my room and sits at the foot of the bed I temporarily call mine.

Earlier that night, I decided it was time I showered.

Erudite is about practicality. Dauntless, however, is not so much.

In Tobias and my apartment, we have a bathtub and a shower separately. The shower is only inches from the ground.

This apartment has a shower and bathtub combined.

I cannot balance enough to use my knee or butt to get in the shower alone.

And, I'm embarrassed.

And again, I wondered how Cara knew my needs.

Before I could even panic, she was knocking on the door asking if I needed help.

I had no choice but to agree.

I take my cast off without looking, then stand near the shower; Cara helping me to balance and get the rest of my clothes off. She helps me balance and swing my legs over the tall bathtub, then stand back up.

She tells me again she doesn't mind helping, stating that it's the least she can do, but I still feel like an extreme nuisance.

Once I'm sitting back on the bed with Caleb near my feet, I realize I have run out of things to talk to him about.

Cara and I get along off of gossip and a great amount of mutual friends. Cara also is a talker. My brother and I, however, don't know much of what to talk about.

"I was thinking of inviting Mom and Dad over for dinner this weekend. Four is welcome to come as well if he would like. Now that mom is mobile again, and you're already here, I figured it would be nice, if it was okay with you of course..." he says hesitantly.

"Are you asking me if it's okay to have Mom and Dad in your apartment?" I question.

"Well, I mean," he stumbles. "Yeah."

"It's fine with me, I guess. I'll ask Four if he's able to get off of work when he calls later."

"Sounds good. Good night, Tris. Love you." He says.

Something almost disappoints me when he calls me Tris; he was always the only one who would still stumble on it other than my parents.

"Good night, love you too."

Tobias never called that night.
My automatic thought was worry.
Was he okay?

Before I had left, we had agreed he would be the one to call, because he was the one with a weirder schedule than me.

Leader meetings can run late, Beatrice. He's fine.

This is the first night since arriving that I am in extreme pain. I assume it's from the movement of in and out of the shower that causes it.

The pain causes me to pace.

I pace back and forth in the small bedroom with both my crutches.

There's a soft knock on the door, and there stands Cara.

I immediately apologize, thinking the sound of my crutches woke her up.

"I always come back to that moment when we were in the cells, you, Christina and I, and you were always pacing and asking for the time. I remember analyzing your tactics like you were a pacing, caged animal."

I sit back on the bed.

"Do you feel trapped, Tris?"