notes:

I totally stole this idea and various snippets of dialogue from the film "Sex, Lies and Videotape". Bless James Spader.

Thanks to my lovely beta Ninazadzia for being awesome and American, as I suck at AE. Check out her profile on for more Petris!

Light is seeping through the trees outside the window, dots of green swaying with the wind. I keep watching those trees, ages old and rooted in the ground and wonder what they've seen. How many people have passed them. How many weeds have sprung up at their feet. How strong winds bent their twigs, and yet they keep standing. Keep rooted. Keep surviving.
My name is Tris. I'm twenty years old. I was in a civil war and I survived.

You would think I'd be in therapy for the emotional trauma the war caused me, seeing my loved ones die, and struggling in a new world where none of the rules I'd grown up with apply anymore. I've been uprooted and replanted and torn out again and when I look in the mirror now I can see a wilting woman. 20 is supposed to be your prime, isn't it? When your buds open up and you unfold like so many flowers. When you know where you belong.
I just don't know anymore.
I look down at my hands, at the lines in my palms branching out, trying to figure out which one is which.

"You shouldn't be alone with this," Christina says.

She's sitting opposite me in the big black leather chair that occupies her bright white office. The white walls are cleansing, she says, but I suspect it's a remnant of her upbringing in Candour. It fits, because if you can't be honest with your therapist, when can you be? Still, I don't tell Christina everything. That I hate white, for example. I don't tell her that for me, white means my cell at the Erudite complex. White means lab coats. White means death.

"I'm not alone," I say, looking at my fingernails. "I have you."

Maybe that's all connected, the horrors of the war and my inability to have relationships. But there are dozens of issues to be sorted out and dozens of issues that never will be: I can't make my parents come back to life and can't take back the bullets I've fired into the heads of my enemies. What can I do? That's the question that's been nagging at me since I've started therapy, and started watching the trees.
What is there even left to sort out.

"You know what I mean. You're isolating yourself. When's the last time you went anywhere except the clinic?"

Christina looks dejected today. It's one of the disadvantages of letting your best friend therapy you. You can always read them, no matter how professional they usually are. And Christina is worried about me.

"I went to that art exhibition last week," I say.

"You went alone."

That's true. The exhibition was called Lost places. - Photography of abandoned buildings and rotting playgrounds. Very fitting for my current state of mind. Yes, I'll stop being melodramatic now.

"I think it would really be beneficial for you if you tried dating again. Alan was a good start," Christina goes on.

I shake my head. No he wasn't. "I'm not ready. I can't — "

Alan had been nice enough. Considerate. Charming. The last person who tried to reach out to me, and I almost stabbed him. He really didn't deserve that ugly memory, but it's what happens. I've never been very touchy, but now I shudder at the thought of someone else's hands on my body. At first it's nice, knowing there's someone who cares about me. Next moment, they're deadly hands, attacking me. The war is over and my life is not in danger anymore, but in those moments I can see it slipping away under someone else's fingertips.

Above the shelf in the office, there's a picture of Christina and William, one they'd taken during Dauntless training, arm in arm and smiling from ear to ear. I wish she would take it down for my appointments. I don't know how she deals with it.
Christina was the one who suggested it, that I take therapy, after she finished her studies at the university. We could have done it at home, her place or my place, and I wouldn't care, since she refuses to let me pay her anyway. But she claims coming to the clinic makes it more official.

If she didn't, it's possible I'd never have seen Peter Hayes again. Fate is almost cruel this way.
When I'm walking down the hall after my session, he's standing in the entrance foyer, wheedling a snack out of the vending machine, and I stop short.

"Did you pay for that?" I ask, gesturing at the chocolate bar in his hand, and slotting in a few coins to get one for myself, or rather to get a pretence for finding out what the hell he's doing here.

"Of course. What do you take me for?" Peter asks, feigning hurt.

"A liar and a traitor," I say, gnashing my teeth.

I can feel his gaze on my profile as I focus on pressing the right buttons.
He snorts.

"What?"

"Things have changed, Tris. It's been years, if you haven't noticed. The war is over. There are no sides anymore."

"Some things never change," I say, but I notice the scars that encircle his face now, and how his build has become much leaner. He's not training anymore.

"Right. I still hate owing things. So don't worry, because that extends to vending machines. I don't steal."

I lean against the vending machine in question and unwrap my chocolate. "So why are you here? Not just snacks, I'm guessing."

Peter rolls his eyes. "Are you really that stupid? This is a therapy clinic. I'm in therapy."

Yeah, that should have been obvious. But why here? "With Christina?" I ask.

"Yes," he says and staggers off in the general direction of her office.

"I met Peter Hayes last week."

Christina looks up from her clipboard only briefly, as if this wasn't groundbreaking news. "Yeah, he's my appointment after yours."

"And you didn't tell me?"

This time she holds my stare, and raises an eyebrow. "Tris, why would I tell you that?"

I feel something starting to prickle in my veins and grip the sides of my chair. "Because he's dangerous? Because he's a traitor?"

Christina sighs. "Some people would say the same about you. Can we start now?"

"What's he in for?" I ask. "I mean, what's his problem, beside the obvious psychopathic streak?"

"He's my patient, Tris. I can't tell you anything."

Whenever Christina is majorly irritated with me, it results in constant repetition of my name. I can tell the severity of the situation that way.
One Tris: Yeah, go ahead. It might be a coincidence.
Two Tris: Yep, she's getting pissy.
Three Tris: Better shut up if you want to stay friends.
I do a quick replay of our conversation in my head, concluding I've got exactly one question left.

"Is he post-traumatic?"

"Tris!" Christina shakes her head and sets down the clipboard. "This is no use. Why don't we cut this short and go out tonight?"

"You know how I feel about going out," I say.

"A pub. Not a club. You won't need to talk to anyone. You won't even have to look nice. And now off."

She shoos me out of her office and I can hear her exhaling after the door falls shut. I know she's trying to help, and get me out of the house, but I'm not sure whether the proposed shock treatment of hanging out in a place where there a bound to be more people than I see in a whole week is the best approach.

Peter is sitting in one of the chairs in the foyer again, not eating snacks this time but reading a newspaper. I check my watch to see he's forty minutes early.

"Don't you have a home?" I ask, walking past him.

"Tris," he calls after me.

I stop. "What?"

"Are you okay? You're off early."

"None of your business, is it?"

He tries folding the newspaper but none of the pages fit, and he awkwardly shovels it onto the table. "That's true. But since we both have nothing to do right now, we might as well go to the café around the corner and get some ice cream?"

I narrow my eyes at him. "Why would I do that?"

Peter shrugs. "Catch up for old time's sake. You're curious, aren't you?"

"Okay, then, why would you do that?"

He shrugs. "Consider it an apology."

Huh.

The ice cream place around the corner is one of those that have a window spanning the whole of one wall, which gives me an excuse not to stare at Peter's face too much but look at the people passing by outside and the trees. It's windy again today and the clouds fly like they're in a hurry, letting patches of clear blue sky peek through. We're sitting opposite each other across the small table, on bar stools that are uncomfortably high but still it's less caging than Christina's office. It was Peter's idea to share a strawberry bowl, which he's paying for. With both of us working away at the mountains of cream I know what it must look like. Like we're a couple.

"So, I'm curious," I say. "Why are you in therapy?"

Peter traces the lines on the table.

"Cat got your tongue?" I ask.

Peter scratches his neck and twists the spoon between his fingers. "This is not exactly easy."

I cross my arms and lean back, letting him fidget. It's the first time I'm seeing him this uncomfortable, and damn if I'm not going to enjoy it.

"Well, it's not like I should be afraid you'll have a bad opinion of me," Peter says.

"I already have a bad opinion."

"Exactly." He beams at me. "So, the thing is I've had ED for a while now, and Christina said it's not caused by my biology, so it can be treated."

"ED?" I ask, chewing a strawberry.

"Erectile Dysfunction."

The strawberry gets stuck somewhere in my throat and the resulting coughing fit makes my eyes water until Peter is just a blurry spot on my vision. I calm down enough to press out: "Your you-know-what doesn't work?"

Peter shrugs. I can feel colour shooting up into my face. Of everything he could be in therapy for, I hadn't expected this. Neither that he'd tell me outright.

"It never has?" I ask.

Peter looks me in the eyes now and I'm taken aback at how he can be so open about this. How he's not avoiding my gaze when I'd be a stuttering, blushing mess if I was in his place.

"Well," he says. "It works when I'm alone. Just not when I'm with other people."

"Since when do you know?" I ask, unable to hide my curiosity.

"Dauntless training. It was the dormitories."

Yeah, I remember that. It had been tough to sleep in the same place with everyone else, dress and undress in front of them. I hated it. And what did Peter do? He called me Stiff all through training and constantly made fun of my reservations. My jaw clenches at the memory. What a fucking hypocrite.

"I'm not proud of the way I acted," Peter admits, stirring the leftover cream in the bowl. Another thought crosses my mind.

"So you've never slept with a woman." It's a strange notion, with how popular and strong he was. I'd expected girls to throw themselves at his feet. Well, maybe they had.

Peter's eyes crinkle. "You must have a very limited understanding of what counts as sex."

My face feels like it's going up in flames now and I know he can see it, because he's chuckling provocatively. Knowing how flushed I must look is making me even more embarrassed. Is this why he wanted to talk? So he could embarrass me?

"Is therapy working for you then?" I ask, my voice much too high to my own ears, trying to change the topic.

Peter smiles. "I've found a way to therapy myself by now. Seeing Christina is just a habit."

"Oh? So what are you doing?"

He shakes his head. "I'm not sure you want to know."

"Is it illegal?"

He laughs. "No. Not that I know."

"So you're not gonna tell me?"

Peter's face becomes more serious now, with a stray ray of sunshine catching in his lashes as he looks at the table, and he looks almost vulnerable.

"I don't think you would understand it."

"You're right. I've never understood you." I gesture around the room. "This. Why?"

The corner of his mouth tugs up. "I'm not the person I was back then. Thankfully." He checks his watch again and gives me an apologetic look. "My appointment is in five minutes. I should head back."

He puts a few notes on the table, shrugs into his black jacket and leaves before I can thank him for the ice cream.