Love is War (A Divergent Fanfic)

Chapter 26

Beep.

Everything is fuzzy.  And white.  Where am I?  I'm cold.  I close my eyes again.

Beep.

It's warmer now.  It's brighter, too.  Someone is next to me.  I'm too tired.

Beep.

I jolt upright in the bed, finally awake.  Noticing where I am now, I try to prop myself up on the hospital bed, but fall back.  What was that?

"Tris," comes a dry voice.  I whip my head to my left and see Tobias, his face red and his eyes cloudy.  He reaches out and grabs my shoulder, and I try to hold his hand.

But I can't.

"What happened to me?" I ask, suddenly, aware of everything going on.  The hospital.  Falling back on the bed.  Tobias, sitting on the edge of the bed, wraps his arms around me.  "I said, what happened?"  But he just keeps hugging me.  Eventually, I realize I have to look at my arm.  I have to.  I have to.

And I look down at the stump of what my hand used to be connected to.

"Tris, why on earth did you-- you could have..."

"I know," I say, still staring at my stump.  It's wrapped in gauze, and I can't see any blood or anything, but the part of my arm below my elbow is definitely gone.  "Now what the hell happened?"

Tobias eventually pulls away, only long enough to study my face and arm.  "You jumped.  What did you expect?  You hit a rock and tore half of your arm right off.  You're lucky that's all that happened."  I see a fire in his eyes now, something that tells me he's mad.

"Oh yeah," I scoff sarcastically.  "I'm responsible for two men's suicides, my left arm is missing, and my fiance doesn't seem to care about how I feel at all, but thank God I'm still kicking!"  After a moment, Tobias stands up and leaves.  I think he's gone when I first start to cry, but then I hear his voice in the doorway.

"I thought you knew better than this, Tris.  I really did.  Especially after how much you said about Al being stupid to have killed himself over you.  But don't go throwing yourself over the chasm after this argument."  He slams the door, and I'm filled with a rage I've never felt before.  I can't believe I wanted to love him last night.  Now I can't stand the thought of being in the same bed as him, let alone doing anything with him in that bed.

I stand up quickly, thankful my legs are both still attached to my body, and rip the IV tubes from my right hand.  They hurt when they come out, and I see blood spilling from my hand, but I just have to leave.  I search around the room and quickly come upon a stack of clothes.  As luck would hae it, I find a nice long-sleeve jacket that will cover my missing arm nicely.

Quickly changing out of my hospital gown and into black shorts and a very heavy dark sweatshirt, I leave.  I figured putting on a shirt would be useless, since my jacket is already so hot, and after about two minutes, I realize how right I was.  I'm burning, but there's no way I'm changing again.  I rush out the door and down the corridor, taking a not-too-crowded path back home.  The first thing I do when I get there is lock the front door.  Then I run into the bedroom, lock that door, and then into the bathroom within the bedroom.  Between all three locked doors, Tobias will never get to me.

This is the moment my body chooses to react to everything.  I sink against the door, sobbing uncontrollably at the loss of a man and a limb.  And then, I feel a heaving in my chest, and though I'm in the bathroom, I don't make it to the toilet in time.  I vomit all over my clothes-- or rather, the hospital's clothes-- and strip the jacket off.  Now, I know I'm only sick because of the medication withdrawal so suddenly, but I swear the sight of my missing arm brings even more food up.  Eventually, when I'm done, I toss all my clothes on the ground and get into the shower.  It's under the running water that I realize hoe wrong I am.

It's not my fault, or Tobias' fault that this all happened.  It's a combination.  And we need each other to screw up that badly.  So maybe I had it wrong-- I actually do love Tobias, even when I don't want to.

I slink out of the shower, dry myself off, pull on one of Tobias' tee shirts, and fall asleep in our bed, the rhythm of my imperfect heartbeat lulling me to sleep.