Chapter 21: Saturday, 7 days until initiation
Tris
When I wake up, the sun is already lighting the room and dazzles my sleepy eyes. I glimpse over to the boy still sleeping at my side. I take in a deep breath as memories of last night come flooding back into my mind. I can still feel his tight grip around my waist, holding me as close as possible to his trembling body while his lust built, and hear my name falling from his lips in a groan when he came.
We crossed a new line last night, and we both knew it. I'm in awe that he allowed me to see him so vulnerable. Thinking about it, that's probably the part about everything that touches me most and deepens my love for him: That he, always so guarded and intimidating in public, let all his defenses down in front of me. I feel light as a feather, appreciating his trust in me.
I lay my head on Tobias' chest, right over his heart, and listen to its steady beating. It's a lot slower than last night, calm but strong.
As he slowly wakes up, he kisses my head and I turn to look into his beautiful blue eyes. They glow in the autumn sunlight.
"Hey," he greets me, his voice still throaty from sleeping.
"Hey," I reply, smiling at him.
"I had a wonderful dream about us, although it felt too real to be just a dream," he says, returning my smile.
Oh, I like his playful side! It comes out far too rarely.
"If you tell me what it was about, maybe I can help you figure out what's real and what's not," I offer.
I swear I see him blink timidly for a second before he finds his voice again.
"Let's see. You and I ended up in my bed after having drinks at the bar. True or false?"
"True."
"We took off our shirts while we were kissing."
Tension starts to build again between us, and I swallow.
"True."
Tobias' voice is just a whisper close to my ear now, "We made me..."
He leaves the rest unspoken, but we both know what it is that he doesn't say. Its meaning lingers in the silence between his words and mine.
"Partially true. Actually, you did."
"No, I said we because I meant it. It's... never like that when I'm on my own. Not that intense," he confesses, and I wonder if he keeps hiding his face in my neck because he's blushing.
We spend more time in his bed, cuddling and kissing, until Tobias gets up to make breakfast and I take a shower in his bathroom. When I come out, dressed again in my clothes from yesterday, I make a mental note to bring a set of clothes over and store them somewhere in his wardrobe. Tobias has set the table for us, and the welcoming smell of coffee swirls through the air.
"Do you mind if I take a quick shower, too, before breakfast? It'll only be three minutes. You can start with a cup of coffee, if you like. I had one already."
"Sure," I say and peck his lips before taking a seat at his kitchen table.
I pour milk in my coffee and stir it. Since I'm Dauntless, I've come to like drinking coffee. Before, in Abnegation, I hardly drank any at all because most of the time it tasted too bitter, without any milk or sugar added.
I look up from my cup when Tobias comes out of the bathroom. He's wearing nothing but a black towel around his waist, and my gaze flies to the spot where he has tucked a corner of it under the side to keep it from falling down.
"Sorry, I forgot to take fresh clothes into the bathroom," he apologizes, fishing some pants and a shirt out of his wardrobe before he disappears quickly into the bathroom again.
Phew, what a sight. It does much more to wake up my senses than the coffee.
After breakfast, we have to say goodbye and my good mood slips away. I'm worried about the plan. What if it doesn't work, or if Eric becomes suspicious towards Tobias? Will he put him in danger? And if everything goes as planned, and they receive the data from the computer — I'm afraid what we might find there. It feels like a threat hovering over all of us, one that we can't see or define yet. But it's there, unavoidable, like thunderclouds growing on the horizon.
Of course, I want to know what all this is about, but I can't stop the premonition that we're about to discover something powerful, something that could change our lives. Neither do I know where that fear is coming from nor can I put it into words; it's just there, in the back of my mind, sticking around.
Tobias' thoughts are too far away already, focused on this afternoon's task, to notice my strained mood. Maybe today is easier for him than for me, since he has a mission to complete that he has to concentrate on, so he doesn't have as much time or capacity to worry about the outcome of it. I wonder if I should ask Christina out for coffee again to distract me. Or, if she's not home, I could go to the gym for a workout.
I kiss Tobias goodbye and hope we'll meet again safely tonight at Zeke's.
XXX
Christina and I are not the only ones in the big training room, so it's impossible to talk about anything private. Instead, we keep chatting about this and that between the different exercises we're doing. Eventually, Marlene joins us when she spots us hitting the punching bags in the far corner when she comes in.
She's a nice girl, almost always in a good mood, and she's easy to talk to. I think we could become friends if we were able to spend more time together. She's around often, but I have rarely talked to her alone.
After an hour of training, we sit down on one of the dark mats lying around on the floor for fight training. It's almost lunchtime, and nobody uses them right now. We sip on our water bottles, and I wipe the sweat off my face and neck with the towel I brought.
"So, Christina, I'm dying to know about your date yesterday," Marlene beams, putting a hand on Christina's arm to get her attention.
Okay, that was straightforward. I've wanted to ask her the same question, but would never have dared to put it to her in such a public space, with other people around. They're probably not paying much attention, some not even within earshot if we keep our voices down, nonetheless it seems inappropriate.
Well, obviously only to me, because Christina beams back at her, a content grin spreading all over her face.
"Good," she says, her voice full of excitement.
"Just good? Come on, spill us some more."
"We went out for drinks in that cocktail bar halfway above the pit, and Will was so cute all evening, like a real gentleman. He wouldn't let me pay, not even the snacks."
"Did he take you to his room later?" Marlene continues her interrogation.
"Yes, he did." Christina's grin gets even wider.
I feel strangely put off listening to their animated conversation, Marlene asking all the questions I would like to ask. It's one of these moments when I notice all the different characteristics are present in my thinking.
My Abnegation side wants to keep quiet and just listen and ignore that it makes me feel bad. My Erudite side is burning with curiosity, so many things I want to know, now that Tobias and I are going deeper into this unexplored territory together, too. My Dauntless side wants to just throw those questions at Christina, no matter where we are, and to join in on the conversation.
It's a quick fight. Erudite and Dauntless win.
I place a hand on Christina's shoulder, causing her to turn to me.
"So tell us what happened there."
Surprise flutters over her face, only for a second, her eyebrows raised, before she starts filling us in on how their night went. She doesn't give too many details though, which I'm thankful for. I don't need to know everything.
But what she says is quite enough to make me blush, I can't help it. She tells us how they undressed and how Will walked her to his bed and kissed her body from head to toe.
I cringe at the questions Marlene asks her. She wants to know in which positions they had sex and how long it took until they were done. I'm relieved when Christina refuses to answer them, telling her this was too private to share with anyone.
I'm not sure if she'll answer my questions, but I try, since I'm burning to know.
"You can say if this is too private, too, but I was wondering... did it hurt?"
"Well, yes, but only a bit and it dissolved soon enough. Definitely less pain than any fight I did during first stage, and without the bruises," she winks. "And the reward was much better."
She chuckles and playfully bumps her shoulder against mine. Curiosity feeds my braveness.
"How did it feel?"
Christina takes her time thinking about it before she explains what it was like for her.
"It felt pretty weird in the beginning, with the pain and the awkwardness between us. I thought we were both comfortable, but I guess you can't avoid the lack of experience when you're doing it for the first time. But from the moment the pain was gone and I got used to the feeling, it only got better. I think there are some... things we still need to practice a bit. But that's okay, I'm looking forward to it."
She gazes to some invisible point at the far wall, her mind drifting away with the memories, a smile playing at her lips.
"So you don't regret taking that step?"
"No, not in the slightest. I was looking forward to it since Will and I first got together, and I'm not someone who regrets things. I usually do what my inner voice tells me to do, and that's what's right for me."
I nod, thinking of our earlier conversations about my fear of intimacy. What she says now still is what she said back then. I wish I could have her straightness and her self-confidence, and could trust myself the way she trusts her instincts.
"I'm happy for you two," I tell her and Marlene agrees, "Me too."
Maybe I can ask Christina for advice another time, when it's just the two of us. We get up to resume training, Marlene giving a last comment on the issue.
"Thanks for telling us about it, Christina. — Though I think Tris' questions were far more private than mine."
I think about her words while we throw knives at the targets in front of us.
DISCLAIMER: I own neither the Divergent world nor the characters, they belong to Veronica Roth.
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