All for You.

Chapter 74 - Dumb

Chapter 74 - Dumb

—Tris

"You alright?" Amar sits across from my desk, concern on his face.

I know I look like hell.
I didn't bother trying to hide it either.

These past few weeks I've been working from home, but today I was forced to come in to hold our monthly meeting. Of course, it only lasted fifteen minutes, ten of which were spent of the Jacobs messing around trying to smack the other in the face.

"Christina leaving you alone?" He asks when I don't answer.

"I haven't been talking to her again. We stopped training two weeks ago, she tried to pick a fight with me then, and we haven't talked since. I mean, she's tried to reach out, but I'm done. I have to deal with Tom missing Four and my own job and sanity. I can't be dealing with her and her creation of drama upon me right now."

"Good for you." He nods his head but I shake mine.

"She's my best friend," I run my hand through my hair. "She's gotten angry or jealous at me before, but not this aggression she's been doing the past few months. I know Christina, and this isn't her."

He nods apologetically, thoughtfully.

"Tom has finally begun to sleep through the night again, but now I'm keeping myself awake."

I've started remembering things about my past again.

Memories of training, sparing and sleeping in rickety bunks flood my mind each night I fall asleep.

I'm finally remembering eighteen year old me, and it's awful.

"Do you remember, you know, the brandings?" He motions to the visible genetically pure Bureau lines burned into my wrist.

"They were when I was seventeen, I think, I don't remember, but I recall back to eighteen now. I just barely can keep it all straight, and I can't find an order."

"Write it down." He says simply.

I toss the idea around in my mind when he speaks again.

"Do it in pencil, in a notebook you can rip pages out of. Then you can erase, add and change the order as much as you want."

And I do that.

Every time I lay awake, either from Thomas being upset, or from my own mind denying sleep, I write what I remember as detailed as I can.

I hear my phone buzz across the table and finish the sentence I am writing before shaking my cramping hand in preparation to grab the phone.

Looking up at the clock, I notice it's already three in the morning.

It's been just three days, and I've already blown through two notebooks of memories.

I notice the text us from Will, and he's asking if he can come over.

At three in the morning?

I say yes, knowing that through all of this he has never not been a friend to me.
He can't control Christina.

I compile the papers I've written tonight and clip them into the binder I have on the kitchen table. I close the cover just as a soft tap is on the door before the door answers.

I'm grateful he remembered my conversation about Tom barely staying asleep and us quiet.

Or maybe he's just a smart person who will be a natural father.