(Tris)

We were sure it was a girl the way Caleb and Cara were sure Callie was a girl. We spent seventeen weeks intoxicated by her magic. Her light was extinguished inside me.

The next morning, they put me under and take her out of my body. After they confirm that, indeed, she was a girl, I lay next to Tobias, my head swimming.

I cry for her and all she represented to us. I cry for the cousin Callie won't have. I cry when I lean down to kiss Ethan in his hospital bed and he grips my hand and cries for her, too.

I cry because life is not fair and I still have it better than most.

I cry because she will never know the comfort of my touch.

I cry because she will never know how much we loved her.

I cry when our friends come in and hug me and sobs rack their bodies that let me know they feel it too. They feel my pain, and they want to take it away.

I cry for the one shining star of a human that has not left my side for a minute - because I know he is in the same agony.

He is heartbroken, and this, impossibly, breaks me even more.

"Tobias," I say. He looks at me wearily from where he lays at my side, one arm draped over my middle. Where there is no baby. "She was not a lost pregnancy or a miscarriage. She was not a tragic circumstance or a sad thing that happened to us. She was a baby. Our baby."

He smiles and kisses my tear stained cheeks. "And she still is."

I replay the minute I found out she was gone.

I never knew until that moment how bad it could hurt to lose something you never really had.

(Tobias)

We go home two days after our baby dies. We ask everyone to leave us alone.

I do not want their pity. I do not want them to watch what they say and tiptoe around our feelings, because nothing they say could possibly make us feel worse.

Marcus is dead. Shot dead by Evelyn.

Ethan is still recovering from the injuries Marcus inflicted on him.

God damn it, I think. Why is it always us?

The pain inside my chest brings me to my knees and stops me from breathing. I can't mask the feelings of sadness and despair. The thought of my child is a stab in my chest.

On the way to our apartment, I hear a child laugh. And instantly, I am reminded of how I will never hear hers.

Now, as we lay in our bed in the dark, that's what matters. She was what mattered to us.

...

I wake to find Tris gone. My pulse accelerates and I shoot out of bed and into the living room - she isn't there, but I smell the waftures coming from the kitchen.

"You're cooking?"

Tris flips the eggs and doesn't look at me. "Yes. I need to feel like a person."

I nod, even though she can't see me. "Don't we have breakfast with everyone in the café today?"

"Oh," she says. "Damn it. Yeah." I lay my hand over hers before she can turn the stove off.

"We're not going today."

She looks back at me and nods. "Okay."

I pour the orange juice and make the toast while she finishes the eggs. When we've managed to eat what we can, we brush our teeth and wash up, going through the motions.

"We need to pack up the baby stuff," Tris decides. "Then bring it to Cara. Then work. And visiting Ethan."

That's quite the agenda, I almost say, but I know she deals with sadness by keeping busy. So I agree.

It doesn't happen. She falls apart as soon as we step into the baby's room. However, Zeke and Shauna show up like saving graces.

They clean our apartment. They put the baby things in boxes to take to Caleb and Cara. They bring meals to put in our freezer. They don't look at us with pity, they don't push us to do more or offer any words of sympathy. And I know how lucky we are to have friends like this.

...

Somehow, impossibly, our lives are still moving. Time is still going by. In the depths of our misery, the sun is still rising and setting.

So why does everything feel so frozen?

Just when we thought we had it all figured out, just when we finally began to plan something, get excited and feel like we knew which direction we were heading in, the paths changed, the signs changed, the wind blew the other way, North suddenly became South, and West was East.

And we're lost.

And yet, life is moving. We have no choice but to move with it.

When Ethan is released from the hospital, his only request is to spend time with Tris and me. We agree, of course. He seems to be coping well, emotionally speaking, after everything that happened.

Tris is curled up on the couch. "Christina has been acting really distant again," she says suddenly. "Do you think something happened with her and Matthew?"

I've noticed her strange behavior, too. I remember how small she seemed, how afraid she looked at the reception. "I don't know."

"Did Matthew hit her again?" Ethan asks innocently, as he walks by with a book, heading toward Annie, on the other side of the room.

I don't understand exactly what he just said until Tris says loudly, "Ethan Johnson, get back here right now."

He stops and turns, sulking back over to us like he's in trouble. "It's okay, Trissy. She was okay."

"Ethan, what are you talking about? When did Matthew hit Christina?" I demand, my throat closing, because suddenly, it makes sense.

"Last week," he frowns. "In the hallway."

And then, Tris is on her feet and across the hall with me on her heels. There's screaming coming from Christina's apartment.

I throw the door open just in time to see Matthew swing his fist and connect with Christina's jaw. Her scream chokes off with a cracking noise that rings in my ears as I respond instinctively. I seize Matthew and slam him into the wall, my knuckles pounding into him immediately, my anger surging with each blow of my fist.

I can hear Tris and Christina sobbing and screaming, but that has nothing to do with what I'm doing to Matthew.

He's almost too shocked to fight back. His face is bloody and his eyes are listless when at last, I throw him to the floor, his skull hitting it with a deafening thud. I kneel over him and make sure he can see me through his slitted and blank eyes. "If you ever hit your wife again," I seethe, "I swear to God I will kill you."

...

(Tris)

I cling to Christina and cry and ask her why she never told me and how long has this been going on and God, how could I have not known?

And she just sobs into my shoulder while Tobias beats Matthew senseless and everyone is screaming. So much screaming.

And then... and then.

"Beatrice?" I hear a soft voice. No. This can't be real.

I look to the doorway. Ethan is standing there.

And so is my mother.

The world tilts.