I try not to look at the faces of people as I walk to school, but it gets pretty hard, because the moment I'm at the school gates almost every eye is on me. Caleb, who is standing with a few of his Erudite friends, is clearly trying to ignore me, but utterly fails when Tobias jogs up to me. I beam when I see him, smiling as he boldly kisses me on the cheek, and takes his hand in mine. The few abnegation around look a bit uncomfortable, but they don't say anything, but some of the Dauntless girls are giving me dirty looks, and Caleb is walking over to us with a demeanour with such intent it almost makes me laugh, but I don't.
He stands tall, the same height as Tobias, and both of them just look each other up and down for a moment, sizing the other up with coldness in their eyes. I roll my eyes at how much toxic masculinity is just radiating from this area right now, but I don't pull my hand from Tobias'. We knew this would happen, that all the attention would be on us after the Christmas holidays because Tobias, or Four as they know him, is very well known among the Dauntless, especially the girls.
When the pair of them have finished sizing each other up, Caleb speaks firmly and with a kind of aggressiveness in his voice.
"You're my sister's boyfriend, then?" he asks, clearly trying not to come off as rude or hostile, but failing completely. Tobias' face floods with understanding because he mustn't have realised this was my brother before. He just nods, but Caleb doesn't just leave it at that. "Just watch what you're doing, because she's my little sister, not your object." he snaps, but just as he turns away, Tobias just had to make a comment that would easily outrage Caleb.
"She's not your little anything." he snaps coldly, and Caleb whips around, his mouth in an enraged snarl, his eyes burning with an anger and protectiveness I didn't know he could possess. What surprises me is that Caleb balls his hand into a fist and hurls it at Tobias' face. I gasp, releasing my hand from his and stepping between the pair of them.
The punch Caleb through apparently went nowhere, because Tobias has ninja like reflexes and caught his fist in his hand before it touched him. It doesn't help that Tobias looks ready to beat him to a pulp, but there is a resistance battling with that, I can see it in his eyes, warning him not to beat him up because he's my brother.
"Both of you, stop it! I don't belong to either of you, so if you don't stop being such arrogant idiots I'll beat both of you up myself." I spit coldly, before stepping away, not looking back as I walk into school, not bothering to wait for either of them, though I want to wait for Tobias. I don't though, because that would only defeat the point of what I just said. They mustn't have fought, thank goodness, because I can hear Tobias' footsteps hurrying after me, and before I know it, his hand is intertwined with mine once again.
"Hey, Tris, I'm sorry, but it's not my fault your brother's a lunatic-" he starts, trying to get me to make eye contact with him, but I give in, walking slower and letting him walk with me.
"It's okay. He's just over-protective. You know everyone's looking at us, right?" I ask, lowering my voice for the last sentence, because as we walk into homeroom, our hands holding each other's, and our shoulders touching, everyone is looking at us. He merely nods, and says in my ear,
"They can look all they want, you're my girlfriend." he reminds me, and I can't help smiling and blushing. We sit together, and our entire group turns around to look at us, looking like hungry wolves for the gossip. I look at Christina and Marlene, who are grinning like hyenas, and open my mouth to say something, but Christina interrupts me before I can get the words out.
"Spill the damn tea." she says bluntly, and we all laugh. I shrug.
"Well, um, you know the New Year's party? Well, he kinda kissed me on the patio, and now we're dating." I explain, but keep it brief because I'm not going to brag about my relationship. Both of them squeal, getting all excited, but I just tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear and smile at the table. I turn to my side, and Tobias has apparently just told Zeke, Uriah, Will and Shauna the same story.
All of them look at us, as if expecting something, so I raise both eyebrows, not able to raise just one like Tobias does.
"What?" I ask, but then they're all silent, until Zeke says,
"Kiss or something then, we need confirmation." he laughs, and I blush, but they don't see it, because Tobias is taking my face in both of his hands, and kissing me firmly on the lips. It's modest and closed lips, but it's long enough to convince them, because the girls start squealing and the Uriah wolf whistles. We both pull away at the same time, but our hands linger on the other's. It's only then do we realise that the entire class has gone silent, every eye is on us, and the Abnegation homeroom teacher we have is standing right behind Zeke and Uriah, who are the only ones still turned around.
My eyes widen and I blush heavily, but apparently my embarrassment means nothing to him, despite him being an abnegation, because he shouts at us to get out the room. I look at the ground when I leave, but Tobias doesn't seem too bothered. We both lean against the wall when we get outside, the door closing with a snap behind us.
"Okay, let's not do that again." I say, and I know he'll understand what I mean from our last date. We decided we'll just figure this out together, and not try to make it 100% perfect.
"Yeah, that was kind of stupid-" he starts, but we're interrupted by the homeroom teacher, I still don't know his name, slamming the door behind him as he faces us, his face stony and arms crossed.
"Well? What do you think you were doing?" he snaps loudly, the question mostly directed at Tobias. I stay quiet, too mortified to say much, but Tobias steps in anyways.
"I was kissing my girlfriend." he says bluntly, and I try to hold back my laugh, but fail because I snicker. The teacher's eyes are on mine, in an instant, and my brief moment of laughter is long over, because then he's commanding us both to a detention at lunch, which we both groan at.
"You two need to learn that public displays of affection are entirely inappropriate, especially in a school environment. You'll come straight to the Abnegation building at lunch, for 20 minutes. Bring your lunch with you, because you'll be spending your entire lunch in detention." he says, and we both knit our eyebrows together, lost at what he just said.
"Is it an hour or 20 minutes?" I ask, and then shut my mouth because I asked the question in a really snappy way.
"Lunch is 20 minutes." he says, with a tone that makes me feel stupid, but lunch isn't 20 minutes long, it's an hour.
"Lunch is an hour in Dauntless. That's why it's called lunch hour." I say, and he turns back around. He doesn't say anything, but doesn't change the 20 minutes to an hour, so I take it as a win win. Tobias rolls his eyes, and I follow him back into the classroom.
I sigh, resisting the urge to lie my head on the desk as I copy out the words "I will keep all relationships outside of the school environment." for the 76th time. Just 24 more to go and then Tobias and I can get the hell out of here.
The rest of my morning, after our homeroom teacher sentenced us to lunch detention and me to an eternity of embarrassment, was just more of the same. About 20 people have come up to me and asked if it's true, that I'm dating Four, to which I just nod and say yes, I am, but it doesn't mean it got old fast. I kind of enjoyed it at first, because it still amazes me that I am dating Four, who I know as Tobias, but after the first few people, I grew bored and wanted people to stop asking me the same questions. Even some of the guys asked about it. I've also had a lot of people compliment me all of a sudden.
It isn't like these people are my friends, because most of them I've barley spoken to before, and some have even been quite mean or rude to me before. If it isn't my eyebrows they're complimenting, it's my earrings or my clothes or my skin or my hair, and it's driving me nuts. They don't even mean a word they're saying, because I'm just wearing small, silver hoop earrings, and my clothes are just your average Dauntless'. They're just trying to be my friends all of a sudden because I'm dating Tobias, and it's really shallow and petty.
Christina said I should just ignore it, because the only reason they're being like this is because they think that if they're a friend of mine, they'll spend more time with Four and have a shot with him, but when I told Tobias this, he just scoffed and said he only likes me, and only me. The mere thought of that makes me want to jump for joy, because he isn't being over the top and saying he loves me forever, because I never liked it when people said their boyfriends love them, that they would die for them, because in my opinion, it's stupid, because they break up within a few months anyways.
Hopefully, because Tobias and I are taking this a bit slower, and are just working the relationship out together, we'll last longer, but I don't ever want to think this relationship will end, as stupid and cheesy as that sounds. I know I dislike relationships that go from 0 to 100 in an instant, but I don't ever want to break up with Tobias, because in the 5 months I've known him, he's quickly become one of the best people in my life.
He's glaring daggers at our homeroom teacher, still writing the lines out, but his hand is pressing into the pencil so hard the lead is under so much stress I'm wondering how it hasn't broken yet. I don't blame him, because this is pointless. We all know full well that Dauntless get in relationships, kiss and have PDA everywhere, because they aren't nervous or uncomfortable, so this is the kind of detention they would give Abnegation, which we both were, once, but now we're Dauntless, and things are different.
He turns to me, and my phone lights up with a text. I look down, and sure enough, he;s holding his phone on his lap under the desk, texting me. I hold in another laugh.
4: This is so pointless
T: Yeah, it's stupid. People keep asking why ur name isn't on my Instagram bio and it's driving me insane
4: Ugh, it's like the goal of every relationship or something. It's stupid and shallow, but we should do it anyways cause we'll never hear the end of it if our names aren't on each other's bios. I don't even have an instagram anyways
T: U do, u just don't post. I'll put it on, cause I've already had 3 girls say that we're making everything up because our names aren't on each others bios.
I do put his name in my Instagram bio, and he does the same. And now, everyone can see that Tobias Eaton, the one every girl wants, wants me to be his girlfriend. The feeling is both nerve wracking and empowering, almost.