Red

26

I sit down and Van takes a seat next to me. "Alright, I'll leave you two to it," Bondy says. He tips his hat toward us before walking outside, probably to get information from someone else about what happened. I felt bad for keeping Bondy here. Well, Van technically kept Bondy here to look after me, but I still felt bad. I wish Van realized I don't need a babysitter around constantly.

"Hey," Van waves his hand in front of my face. "You still there?" He caught me in a trance.

"I-" I say, turning toward Van. The words stop when I see the smirk he had on his face. I huff and look away, my cheeks warming as they usually did around Van.

"Aw, hey now," Van says, his voice softer. "What's got ya so down?" He puts his hand on my shoulder and I turn away from him. He didn't like that, though. "Tris," a little bit of edge returns to his voice. "Don't look away from me when I'm speaking to you, remember?"

I turn back around to face Van, his harsher tone was enough to make me do nearly anything, but I refuse to look up at him. Van didn't say anything for a moment, and I feel the tension rising between us.

"Don't you want to know what's been going on?" Van tempts me. He already knew the answer to his question.

I nod my head.

"Then I'm going to recommend that you look up at me, love," Van says. He places two fingers under my chin and guides my head up to meet his gaze. I try looking away, my eyes were starting to water and I didn't want to deal with his smirks and snarky comments when he saw my tears, but he wouldn't allow me to look anywhere but him.

"Tell me what's going on," I say, looking at Van through my teary eyes.

He purses his lips and shakes his head. "No, I-" he starts.

That's when I lost it. I cut him off and push his hand from under my chin away. I stand up and move to the aisle of the plane, away from Van.

My breathing was starting to speed up, I could already tell. "I hate you so much!" I yell, thankful that we were the only ones on the plane. I don't bother wiping my tears from my eyes, I was too flustered to care about him seeing me like this. I grab the roots of my hair with my hands and turn away from Van, my breaths quick and shallow.

Van must've gotten up because he grabs both of my hands and tries to ease them away from my hair. "Get off of me!" I say, frustrated. I try to walk away, but Van moves one of his hands to my stomach, preventing me from going anywhere. His hand moves up and down with my breaths.

He pulls me into him, my back resting on his chest. My breathing was still heavy at first, and I tried to escape from him, but I soon realized that it was no use. Van's hold of me wasn't getting any looser.

We stay there for a few minutes. My breaths slow down steadily and I drop my hand from my hair down to my side, Van's hand that was still holding onto mine falling with it. I finally allow myself lean my head back on Van's chest. "Let me finish what I was saying," Van says calmly.

He eases me back down to the ground. I don't look at him once we're both sitting, but he doesn't make me right now. "I'm going to tell you what's going on, but not until you tell me what's going on with you. What's with this attitude? Sleeping outside? Not following my rules? I just don't understand," he says, keeping his calm tone, but something in his voice sounded off. He almost sounded disappointed.

I shake my head.

"You know as much as I do that neither of us are going anywhere until you speak up, darlin," Van says. I continue looking down and playing with the end of my shirt, debating whether I should speak or not. I end up simply shrugging my shoulders.

I hear Van sigh. "You let me know when you're ready to speak," he's says. I can tell he was annoyed with me by the tone of his voice and it made me feel a little guilty.

We sit there in silence for a few minutes. And silence becomes deafening after a while. I can't bring myself to speak, mostly because I simply don't know what I would say. He already knew why I was upset. I've told him before.

I look up at him, only moving my eyes in an attempt to have him not notice. Of course he did, though. He had his eyes glued to me already. I should have known better.

"Tris," he hums, he was getting impatient, I could tell. "Say something, say anything."

"You already know... why I'm upset," I grumble. Times like these are when I really wish I had more confidence in myself. It seems anything and everything I do around Van is so timid. And Van could tell, too.

"Well, I want you to tell me," Van demands. "You're making this a lot harder on yourself than you have to." He grabs my face and brings it up so he can see. He looks at me with expecting eyes and waits.

I sit there looking him in the eyes until it became unbearable to do so for any longer.  "So you'll... tell me what happened if I tell you?" I ask through glassy eyes.

Van nods his head. "Mhm," he hums. My hands, which I didn't even realize I was making fists with, were grabbed by Van and he holds my fingers loosely in each of his hands. I look down at his hand for a brief moment. He was rubbing small circles on my palms with his thumbs. "Go ahead," he encourages me.

"You treat me like a child... it's not fair," I frown, daring to look him back in the eyes. "I want to do things... w-without your permission." A tear spills from my eye, a tear that I do desperately tried to hold back. I know crying just made me look weak, but that's exactly what Van did to me. He made me feel weak.

"Not now, love," Van says. He wipes the tear with his thumb and pushes my tangled hair from out of my face. "It's just not safe for you to be doing things alone."

"I won't be alone," I argue with him. "Sam... he can go with me." I know that wasn't the best thing for me to say; Van didn't like me and Sam together, not after we fooled around while getting water.

Van sighs. "Listen, Tris," he says, his hand moves to my shoulder. "I know it doesn't seem fair, and, believe me, I don't want you to feel trapped under me all the time, but there are just too many uncertainties right now. I'm not letting you hurt yourself, or get lost, because I failed to look after you. That's... it's not a risk I'm willing to take at the moment."

I huff, clearly upset with his response. I've heard it all before. "But there are other people here, too. You don't look after them like you do for me," I say, annoyed. I shake his hand from my shoulder and cross my arms.

"Tris, you're young, and you're a girl," Van says sternly, he raises his eyebrows at me, letting me know that I should probably drop my attitude.

I roll my eyes. "I can't have freedom because I'm a girl?" I scoff. "You're young, too. Everyone here is."

"Don't you go putting words in my mouth, darlin," Van says. "I never said you can't have freedom because you're a young girl. I'm saying you need to be looked after because you're a young girl. I think you'll feel differently about me trying to protect you when you hear about what happened today." He puts his hand back on my shoulder and I don't push it off this time.

"Tell me, then," I say.