A/N: The title of this chapter is the same as the song I wrote (just the lyrics). "The Darkest Hour" is completely mine.
(c) The Darkest Hour by Christina Wind. All rights reserved.
Over the next month Tobias visited Tris every weekend. They went on dates or stayed at the apartment and even if the other three were home they had fun together. Tobias only got glimpses of the unique relationship these four had over the years but being part of their group he could see how much they loved and supported each other. One Saturday Tris dragged him with them to the Laser Tag place they used to go to. They spent hours there chasing each other. Matt joined them and they played either boys versus girls or mixed the teams up. Tobias couldn't remember the last time he had that much fun or if at all. Those four lived to the fullest, like each day could have been their last. He admired that about all of them. They did what they loved regardless of what others thought or said.
Despite being together for a month Tris still wasn't ready to take their relationship a step further, but Tobias was patient and let her set the pace. Truth be told, they technically only saw each other on weekends and while talking daily over the phone or chatting on Skype there was still a lot to build relationship-wise. He was more than happy being her boyfriend and being able to hold and kiss her, even if it was just on the aforementioned weekends. Sometimes they spoke for hours if they had the chance.
Tobias often listened to the four of them jamming and he loved to see all of them so happy. When he went back after the first weekend he spent in New York and told his friends that Divergent agreed to perform at the party later that year the others freaked out. If they had only known how easy it was to convince the band. But as promised he didn't reveal that the band members were in fact related to them all.
"What do you want to do?" Tobias asked her as he was lying on the couch and Tris was lying on top of him. He rubbed her back and she nuzzled his neck.
"Can we stay home? I'm not in the mood to go out," she said a little sleepy.
"Come on, girl, we wanted to go dancing," Uriah said as he came into the room and heard her.
"I know, but I'm just tired," she protested.
"Well, I'm going," Uriah declared. "Who's with me?"
"I'm coming too," Lynn said and checked her pocket for her keys, some cash and her cell.
"Well, I'm not gonna stay at home all by myself," Marlene said and went to the door. Tobias chuckled.
"We're still here and not going anywhere," he called after his sister.
"Yeah, right. 'Cause being the third wheel is really awesome. No thanks, big brother," she said and Tobias could hear the elevator door opening. The other two said their goodbyes and closed and locked the door behind them. It wasn't the first time Tobias spent the night at their place but he always slept on the couch. He didn't want to make Tris uncomfortable and was okay with just being close by. She still hadn't told him her other secret, the bad one, but he didn't push either. She would tell him eventually.
"You asleep?" he asked when she hadn't said a word in a while.
"No, just thinking," she said softly.
"About?"
"Us."
"What about us?"
"It's still kind of weird, I mean, us being together," she said while drawing circles over his chest. He remained quiet, before he asked her what she meant.
"Do you regret being my girlfriend?"
"No," came her response immediately. She certainly did not regret that. If anything it was the only thing that made sense. "I'm just saying it's weird. We've known each other our whole lives and it took us so long to give it a try," she clarified. He let out the breath he didn't even know he was holding. He thought about it too.
"I think we wouldn't have worked a few years ago. We were in too different places in our lives and I think we just would have ruined everything," he said and made her think. Did he change his mind about their relationship? As if sensing the troublesome thought he added. "I'm just saying, that if we would have tried this, I don't know, two years ago I don't think we would have been happy. Everything that happened in our lives since then until we became a couple marked us and helped us grow. I don't think we would have lasted even this long and to be honest, Tris, I want us to last longer than a month or two or six or a year. You know," he said and hoped she wouldn't freak out by his boldness, but she remained silent. If he implied marriage at some point she sure as hell wasn't ready for that, but if he just saw them being together for a long time then maybe she could too. She cared for him, deeply, she knew that, but she was still confused and she felt that she needed to come completely clean before she could even think of taking their relationship a step further. But if she was honest with herself she was terrified that he would see her as damaged goods and leave her and she wasn't sure if she could handle his rejection.
She snuggled closer to him trying to memorize him, but her action made him aware that something might not be right.
"Are you okay, babe?" he asked her.
"Yeah," she lied. She couldn't talk to him. Not yet.
"You tired? Want me to take you to bed?" he asked and she smiled.
"Will you stay with me?" she asked. He was a little surprised by her request, but he would have lied if he would say he minded it.
"Of course, anything you want," he told her earnestly. He would give her the moon if she asked for it. He was head over heels for her and there was no turning back. He shifted a little and they both stood up. She started walking but then Tobias scooped her up and carried her bridal style to her bedroom. He laid her down on her bed and she quickly moved under her comforter motioning him to follow. He smiled at her and got into bed. He held her close and breathed in her scent until they both were fast asleep.
He woke up in the middle of the night with the urge to urinate. He untangled himself from his girlfriend and stepped into her small bathroom. He didn't turn on the light; he was already familiar with the space, despite never having spent a night in the room before. But sometimes they would remain in her room to have some privacy when his sister and their friends would be home. As he came back into the room he stumbled and almost fell over. He cursed under his breath and tried to assess what he hit when he came out of the bathroom. It appeared to be a trash bin, but it contained only paper. It wasn't wrinkled like one might expect. There wasn't much light in the room, but Tris still slept with a night light so he was able to see where the sheets landed and picked them up. As he gathered them he saw something familiar. It appeared to be the lyrics to Divergent's newest single that came out a few months back, "The Darkest Hour". He remembered the song vaguely. He didn't get the chance to hear it often, but the few times he did he noticed the sadness of it. Back when he first heard it he only thought of how beautifully written it was and how perfectly the author captured the feelings of the characters in the song, but now that he knew that Tris wrote them he wondered what hid behind those lyrics. He picked up the papers and decided to go into the living room. He turned on the light on the lamp next to the couch and looked for the sheet of paper with the lyrics scribbled on. Now that he could see he recognized Tris' handwriting. She definitely wrote that song. He sat down and started reading.
When we met it was magical/ You were entering, I was exiting
We met in between and our eyes locked/ I was already gone
You wasted no time and asked me out/ I was so thrilled and stuttered around
Our first date was unlike others/ We jammed all night and I was yours
We were happy/ Weren't we?
We were one / Did you want someone else?
I gave you everything / Wasn't it enough?
You knew my soul / And I thought I knew yours
But then came the hour/ Our darkest hour
People kept saying you are bad for me / But I was deaf
People showed me your dark side / But I was blind
People told me you would hurt me / But I was numb to the pain
Who knew they were right? / I didn't.
We were happy/ Weren't we?
We were one / Did you want someone else?
I gave you everything / Wasn't it enough?
You knew my soul / And I thought I knew yours
But then came the hour/ Our darkest hour
You left me alone when I needed you the most / Left me in the cold
I thought you loved me / But you don't even know what that is
And then I saw the real you/ The monster behind the smoking glass
You were the master and I was always your slave/ You possessed me without earning me
You took what you wanted without giving anything in return / It was only for you
You shared me with your friends and didn't even tell me / You killed my spirit and now I'm a shell
We were happy/ Weren't we?
We were one / Did you want someone else?
I gave you everything / Wasn't it enough?
You knew my soul / And I thought I knew yours
But then came the hour/ Our darkest hour
You wanted a toy and couldn't see the woman I was / I'm a shadow now
Thank you, but I'll go on without you / Thank you, but goodbye.
Tobias reread the lyrics several times. He opened his laptop and looked for the song. He downloaded it and used his headphones to listen to it while reading the lyrics. He didn't know why but each time he heard the song and read the lines in her handwriting something stirred inside of him. He knew from everyone that Tris usually wrote her best songs when she was either very happy or very sad, but this song was painful. Did the song have anything to do with what Tris still hadn't told him? Was this part of her second secret that she wasn't yet ready to reveal? What had happened to make her write this? The more he thought of it the more impatient he got. He kept reading the lines, hoping he would find an answer, but none came to mind, at least none that he was happy about. The words she used in the second part of the song, master, slave, possessed they frightened him. What if something terrible happened to her? As he pondered upon the meaning of her words and listened to the song he couldn't hear when someone approached him.
Tris woke up from a nightmare. She was a little girl again and a zombie chased her. It wasn't anything unusual or terribly frightening, but it did startle her awake. Once she realized her boyfriend wasn't in the room she went to look for him. She saw him sitting on the couch and called for him softly to not wake anyone else, but he didn't hear her. She got closer and saw the name of the song he listened to. It was the song about Drew. She gasped and immediately put her hand over her mouth. He found the song. It wasn't really hard, but she wondered why he would listen to it in the middle of the night. And then she saw over his shoulder the paper with the lyrics. She wanted to throw it away, many times actually, but that song was part of her healing. She couldn't throw it away. It was the first and only draft. She usually would go over and over again until she deemed a song good, but when she wrote "The Darkest Hour" she left it the way it was. It was filled with raw emotion and she needed to get it out that way. She didn't really intent to publish it, but her friends and uncle convinced her, told her that it was too beautiful to not share. She reluctantly agreed and the song became a hit right away. But now Tobias saw the sheet with the lyrics in her handwriting and he knew that she was the one who usually wrote songs based on her own experiences. She couldn't cower away. He would demand answers and she was afraid of giving them. What if he would leave her? What if he would resent her? She wasn't sure she could handle that. But she promised to give it a try with him and he did the same. But how can he if she lied to him? She needed to tell him. He deserved to know. She could only hope he would stay and not leave her.
She stepped in front of the coffee table and Tobias looked up. He put the headphones down and she could hear herself sing the song. He looked at her with a confused and maybe angry expression on his face, his eyes were piercing her, penetrated her very soul and she felt herself shrink back under his intense stare. Maybe she should just return back to her bedroom and pretend this didn't happen. But he would follow her, no doubt about that. He was always stubborn and she knew he would demand answers as soon as he could and her appearing right after he read the lyrics and heard the song must be divine providence.
"Tobias," she said in a whisper and her voice almost cracked completely. He stood up and almost took a step towards her.
"Please tell me what happened," he said and his eyes softened. Tris found herself at a loss of words. She had no idea where to begin and how to tell him what happened. "Tris?" he asked, his voice anguished.
"Sit down," she said and he did so. She pulled the one armchair on his right to where it now faced him. She sat down and stared at the paper on the coffee table. She just couldn't bring herself to look at him while she spoke the next sentence. "I was raped," she said. It took all her courage to say those words. Everything before that and everything that followed that moment was irrelevant. The fact that she was used and discarded like an old sock made her feel dirty and unworthy, little and weak.
It took Tobias a moment to fully understand what she told him. Did he hear her right? Raped? Who did that? Who would hurt her like that? Why didn't she say something sooner? When did it happen? Where is that low-life so that he could end his pathetic existence for ever even thinking of hurting her? All those questions remained unanswered for the time being, because he realized she started crying. He stood up and went over to where she sat down. He kneeled before her and tried to make her look at him, but she refused. He remembered what he learned at a seminar after a series of rapes on campus. One of the victims was a friend of Shauna's. The college practically forced every student to attend those seminars to learn what to do when something like that happened to oneself or a person one knew. The first thing that popped into his head was that victims usually blamed themselves and thought they deserved what happened to them. He could only hope that wasn't Tris' case. She still refused to look at him so he just picked her up and carried her back into her bedroom, closed the door behind them and sat down on the bed with her still in his arms.
"You don't have to tell me, if you're not ready. I'll still be here when you are," he told her reassuringly. She wrapped her arms tighter around him, one around his middle and the other around his neck, holding on to him for dear life. He had no idea how much those words meant to her. She nodded slightly, almost imperceptibly as she cried into his shirt, soaking it with her tears, but neither cared. All he wanted was to hold her and all she wanted was to feel him close to her.
It took Tris a long while to calm down before she could even try to speak again. Tobias shifted a little and leaned against the headboard with her sitting between his legs. He held her close to him while she laid her head on his shoulder. He kissed her forehead and temple and tried to figure out how to help her. The sole thought of someone laying a finger on her enraged him. Whoever did that to her deserved to die and he would gladly go to jail if it meant that bastard was dead and out of this world.
"I met him in a local bar where he and his band performed one night," Tris started speaking again, her voice hoarse and shaky. Tobias listened intently to every word she spoke. At first he didn't understand what that had to do with anything, but as she continued he realized her ex-boyfriend was the rapist. It made sense. She wrote about it in her song. Tobias kept quiet allowing her to tell her story without interruptions. "Everyone kept telling me that he was a bad influence but I was too stubborn to listen to them and it meant my downfall." He started understanding why these four always shared every secret with each other. They supported each other unconditionally and protected one anther even against their will. "I felt sick, I had a bug or something and instead of staying with me that bastard just left to celebrate that his fucking band landed a song on national radio," she said scoffing. "I didn't insist for him to stay. I knew we would end up fighting and I didn't feel well enough for that. He left and I tried to sleep but couldn't." She stopped and took a deep breath. Tobias could tell the bad part was coming. He tightened his arms around her trying to show her that he was there for her no matter what. He could only hope that she would let him. "I looked for a movie on his laptop but he didn't have any. I found however some videos. I opened them to see what they were. At first I thought they were porn, well you could say they were, but I was starring in them," she said and Tobias couldn't stop himself from asking.
"What? He filmed you?" Tobias asked incredulous. How low can someone sink to do that?
"I swear, Tobias, I didn't know he was filming me, us. If I'd known I would have never slept with him," she said and started crying again. Tobias halfway regretted speaking. This was difficult enough for her.
"I believe you. I know you would never agree to anything like that," he told her reassuringly as he held her tighter and kissed her temple. Tris took a few calming breaths before she continued.
"I went through all the videos he had; each time I was over there he filmed us having sex and the most disturbing part, there was more than one camera. I got to a video that was dated from Valentine's Day. That night we went out to a club. He brought me several beers and at some point we were invited in the VIP lounge. I was already entertaining a buzz and wanted to leave but he insisted that we tried something out before we leave. I agreed and he gave me cocaine." Tris paused to sniff her nose. Tobias tried to process what she had told him so far. He had so many questions and the rage was returning with each of her words. When she leaned back against him he embraced her once again and let her continue. "I don't remember what happened afterwards, I practically forgot the following ten hours. I remember waking up in his apartment, in his bed. I was cuffed to the bed and I had a terrible headache. I could barely move when I saw what he was doing," she said and Tobias gripped her tighter. Whatever she was about to say Tobias knew he wouldn't like it. "He was licking me," she said. He knew what she meant. "That should have been a clue. That and the fact that I had no recollection of the events of that night and the fact that my entire body felt like it worked out for hours. I didn't know at the time what happened and he avoided answering, kept telling me we had a fun night, but nothing more. I was to find that out the hard way a week later. I clicked on the video that said "Valentine's Bang" and I think deep down I already knew what I was about to see."
"You don't have to tell me," Tobias assured her. He didn't really know if it was for her or his sake. He wasn't sure if he wouldn't go and find that bastard and kill him with his bare hands.
"I want and need to tell you. You deserve to know. I will spare you the gruesome details, though. I recognized myself slumped on his bed. I wasn't alone in the room. There was Drew, my ex, and two other guys. They undressed first and then undressed me. Even in my drugged state I tried to fight them, but they were stronger and I couldn't focus. They violated me a few times before the two strangers finally left and I was alone with Drew. He continued even after I passed out and cuffed me to the bed in case I would've woken up and wanted to leave."
They don't say anything for what seems like forever. Tris started crying again, while Tobias tried to wrap his head around what she told him. How could anyone do something so despicable and cowardly? How can anyone take advantage of a girl who clearly couldn't defend herself but still told them no? At that point Tobias hoped that those low-lives were either dead or in jail because he was out for blood.
"I'll understand if you break up with me now that you know. I'm damaged and who wants to be with someone like that?" she said with a sarcastic chuckle. He couldn't believe what he heard. Did she really think he would break up with her because of that? If anything he admired her strength to go on. Not many people go through something that traumatic and find the courage to live on. Most abuse victims who can't handle the situation commit suicide or go down a very dark path, filled with drugs and alcohol, but she didn't. She went to therapy, looked for help, she understood that she couldn't work through this on her own.
"Tris, listen to me. I don't think you're damaged and I will definitely not break up. I," he stopped himself. He wanted to tell her how he felt but maybe it wasn't the right time. She might think he only did it because of what she shared. "I care too much for you," he finally said. He did more than that, but the timing wasn't right for what he really wanted to say. "I'm not leaving," he said sternly. Tris turned around and straddled his lap. He held her close as she cried and he tried to comfort her as best as possible. He would help her go through this. They would do it together.
A/N: Please let me know what you think of the confession and the song.
