Tobias Eaton woke up sweating with his heart beating rapidly. Disoriented, he tried to sit up, but found out he was too shaky to balance. Where am I? What is happening? Where is Tr-?
His memories came flashing back. Tris, landing in the nets in the pit. Tris, volunteering to take the place of someone she'd only known for weeks. Tris, telling him to breathe while he was in his fear simulation. Tris, kissing him like he wasn't the abomination he was. Tris, dead.
Tobias closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down. How old am I? 23. Where am I? My bedroom. Why am I shaking? The nightmares. The nightmares he had every night, of Tris with her eyes closed. Her skin, pale. Too pale. Then the nightmares would always jump to the same scene: Tris looking down at herself as if she couldn't believe she was shot. Tris falling to her knees, her eyes distant, as if she was looking at something that wasn't there. And just as she was about to fall to the ground, he would wake up.
This has happened every night since she died. He remembered the first few weeks he wanted to kill himself, to have a chance of being with her again. But in those weeks he would remind himself that even if such a place existed, a place where he could see her again, Tris would never forgive him.
Now, instead of wishing could die, he would talk to the others that shared the same grief. He didn't know exactly what made him stop. His psychiatrist told him it was because his mind was ready to heal, but there was one other reason that always bugged him.
It was the day she died, he remembered. He couldn't remember exactly where he was, but he remembered hearing two voices.
"What about the others? Tobias, Caleb, my friends?"
"They'll care for each other. That's what people do"
The voices had sounded so distant at the time, that Tobias thought he was going crazy. Maybe he was. But he liked to believe it was Tris and an angel from above, telling him that it was possible to heal.
Tris never wanted him to suffer, being the selfless girl she is. The voices had confirmed exactly that.
He was trying to get better, because that was exactly what Tris would want him to do.