"Beatrice, hurry. You're going to be late for school," my mother says.
"Mother, I am hurrying, but I can find no clothing, only Erudite attire," I tell her.
"Honey, don't be silly, your drawers are full of Abnegation clothing. Why would you have Erudite wear?" I turn back to my drawers and flinch. I could have sworn that they were filled with blue fabrics a minute ago. Suddenly, a gunshot tears though the air, the bullet lodging itself in my mother's abdomen. Her expression goes from shock to pain. I am yelling for help, but she is already stumbling, falling, her blood pooling on the floor. My father runs in, and he too gets shot. I am crying and yelling, begging for someone to help. Caleb runs in, and I expect him to tend to our dying parents. But he doesn't help, for he is the gunman.
I wake with a start. Tobias is shaking my shoulders. I stare into his familiar deep blue eyes. Before I know it, my face is in his shoulder and I am sobbing.
"Tris, it's okay. Whatever it was it was only a dream," he says while stroking my hair. I know this, of course; but this dream brings up all the memories I have tried so many times to rid myself of. My mother's death. My father's death. But most of all, Caleb, my last family, betraying me for the Erudite.
"Let's go get some food. I don't know about you but I am starving. Now that I think of it, I should probably shower, too," Tobias says. I hadn't realized it before, but my stomach was grumbling, and a shower didn't sound too bad, either.
"Yeah. Yeah, me too. For food and a shower," I say. "Can we go quickly? I'm starving."
"Sure, but you know, if you want, we can save some time and shower together," he says with a very Tobias-like grin. For this I hit him on the arm, but I can't help myself from smiling. "Or not, you could have just said so," he teases. But as it turned out, we really did save some water.
After finishing a muffin, a glass of orange juice and an apple we walk outside together. It had stopped raining and the air smelled of petrichor. The sun casts warm rays on my face and I close my eyes and breathe in the fresh air. When I open my eyes, Tobias is staring at me with an amused expression on his face.
"What?" I ask.
"Oh, just thinking of the delightful shower I had this morning," he says playfully. I roll my eyes and feel a tiny smile playing on my lips. "We should probably get going. Christina and Will are probably looking for you," Tobias says, and my stomach drops. I haven't told him yet… I can't believe I haven't told him. "Tris what's wrong?" he asks. I feel tears in my eyes and I run away. After I start running I realize that I should've told him. I can't keep running away from that day. The day my parents died. The day I shot Will. Tobias is faster than me and catches up quickly. I collapse on the ground and begin to sob.
"I can't believe… but he would've killed me… I shouldn't have pulled the trigger… I should've ran…" sobs break up my sentences as salty tears run down my cheeks.
"What? Tris what happened?" Tobias looks concerned as the words leave his lips. I continue to cry and we sit together on the Amity trail, Tobias holding me, and the memory slowly becoming less painful.
Maybe I was afraid he would think that I'm a monster, but Tobias told reassured me that Will wasn't Will at the time, and if I hadn't shot him, he would've shot me. We trained until we were sore, and I didn't think of Will all day.