Chapter 3:
TRIS POV:
I sigh in relief when Four's motorcycle pulls into my grey driveway. It's not his driving, that's fine, it's how the motorcycle has no safety and throughout my whole life, I never planned on riding one. They are unsafe and pointless to ride, just to look cool, but as I ride it with Four I have enough time to find out that he doesn't ride it for publicity, but for his own nature. The more I think of it, Four likes that feeling of being free, as I do, and as the wind blows through your hair while you're zipping down the road, you feel nothing but free.
His foot drops to the pavement and he turns the motor off. I slid off the only helmet he owns, and place it on the spot of the motorcycle I was sitting in.
"See it wasn't that bad." Four says as he pats the shiny black head of the motorcycle.
"Um...ya." I say sarcastically my laugh and his in sink. "Lets just go inside, my parents aren't home and by the looks of it neither is my brother. I guess we have the whole house to ourselves this afternoon."
He smiles and goes to my front door, trying to open it for me but, like I always do before I leave my house, the door is locked. A big laugh escapes my mouth and I grab the key, thats wedged in between the wood made of the swing on the porch. He grins as I twist the key in the slot and open the door for him.
"Thank you madam."
I roll my eyes at his politeness and I force him to follow me up the steps and into my room. I grab my Macbook Pro and sit on the floor so he can sit next to me.
"We can start by making a sketch of different things we find on the internet." I explain as I put in my password unlocking my computer. I begin to type the necessary things I think we need to look at, but as I type faster Four slowly pushes the screen down. Soon the screen is far enough down that my fingers don't have room to type and I slip them out of the small crack. His hand is placed on the top of the computer and he shuts it when my fingers are not there anymore. He takes the computer from my lap, gently tossing it onto the bed, then turning so that he's in front of me.
"We can work on that later. I want to take this wonderful alone time to learn more about my friends, friends, friend."
I find myself doing the same I have been since I got off that 'death trap', laughing. I don't know why he is making me change so much, it's like I feel loose around him like I should around anyone of my friends.
"Well what do you want to know?" I raise both my eyebrows at him.
"Well...how about we pay a game of 20 questions." He suggests shifting his body weight around finding a comfortable way to sit.
"Okay, what's that?" I ask.
"Well the way I play is just a fun way to learn more about each other. For example I will ask you certain questions and all you have to do is answer them, then you ask me questions and I answer them. But it goes me, you, me, then you and so on." He explains and gestures a hand towards me. "Ladies first."
"Okay, what's your favorite color?" I question him and he laughs slightly.
"Well that's a lame question. And black." He answers anyway still chuckling at me. "How about, your favorite food?"
"Hamburgers," I reply easily, "and if that last one was too easy then I will ask harder questions like...Do you have an interest in anyone?"
The edges of Four's smile fall a tiny bit and I instantly, mentally slap myself for asking the question. I freaking met him today, is he really going to tell me that? No. But for some odd reason, I feel like we've known each other forever and I could tell him anything, or he would tell me anything.
"Not really, or at least not one I know would like me back so...I guess that counts." And his falling smile is replace with a large wide one. "What about you? Any guys caught your eye?"
"No." I say, looking to the ground, "And like you said earlier, it's not like they would like me anyway….What is your background? Siblings and family-wise." I state steering away from the boyfriend and girlfriend talk.
"No siblings and that's about as much as I can tell you. My dad is always away on trips, and my mom passed away a few years back. How about you? I know you have Caleb but I didn't hear about your parents."
"Well my mom doesn't really work but she hosts fundraisers for children with illnesses, while my father goes all over the world for his job of being a pathologist. I never really get to see them much but my dad makes a decent amount of money so my mom is not in need to work." I say and he looks at me with true intrust. "As a matter a fact, my mom should be home any minute if it's really 7."
I point to the clock sitting on my nightstand and he jumps up like something just clicked in his head. "I really have to go. I'm sorry and... just call me later about the project." He says bounding from my room in a rush to get somewhere, most likely home.
"and I don't have your number." I say to myself as if he's still there, but I can already hear his bike start back up and I keep listening until its loud engine has been out of earshot for a few minutes.
I pull myself to sit on the top of my comforter and I rest my back and head against the backboard. Even though it's only 7 I feel myself begin to doze off, and soon fall asleep waiting for my mom to call me to dinner.
FOUR POV:
"-As a matter a fact, my mom should be home any minute if it's really 7."
My mind begins to process the time and it only take a few seconds before I remember what my dad yelled at me about, this morning. He's getting home at 7:15 and I have to make him dinner.
I'm so screwed. It takes me 15 minutes just to get home, and I haven't even started to think about what I am going to make him for dinner. As fast as I can, I leap from my spot about to just leave when I see the pure confused and startled look on Tris's face.
"I really have to go. I'm sorry and...just call me later about the project." I say in a rush and sprint from her room, almost falling down the stairs. I bound out the door and quickly slide onto my motorcycle, placing my helmet on my head, not bothering to buckle it. My machine roars to life and I back out and speed down the road to my house.
As I drive I feel as though I'm hitting every light just as it turns red forcing me to stop faster than anticipated. I guess the universe just doesn't want me to get through tonight unharmed, and I'm just going to have to except that.
By the time I get home it's 7:17 and my dads black SUV is already parked in the front. I pull my motorcycle out in the front of the house and turn it off, not in a big rush to go in through that door, knowing what's going to be on the other side.
Slowly I make my way to the front door and slide in almost silently, but as I suspected he's literally sitting on the step waiting for my presence. My heart skips a beat when I see the black leather belt slung across his shoulder, and as soon as his dark, soulless eyes meet mine, he grasps the belt in his right hand. I stop dead in my tracks, not moving a muscle as he begins to stand up.
"So Tobias," He spits out my name, "when I got home, I happened to notice no food on the table, and no you in a room. So I took it upon myself to go through your room, just because no one apparently was occupying it at that moment, and you want to know what I found, this little letter. Seeing as it was addressed to your dead mother, I read it. Let's just say I'm not to fond of the things you wish you could tell her."
I don't get to say anything, nor would I if I had the chance, I learned the hard way that the more you decide to spill your juts and spread your feelings out, the harder the beatings are. Marcus points up the stairs and reluctantly I climb them in shame of myself for not paying attention to time.
I knew something would happen and this is possibly the worst that could have. I wrote that note the day after my mother's passing, my own father had been yelling at me for killing her and had beaten me till I thought I would die just like her, and just when I thought that it could never get any worse, he stopped beating me and shoved me into a closet where Marcus most likely predicted me to bleed to death. In those hours of bleeding and wrapping myself in my own shirt, I wrote that letter to my mother, hoping she would be looking down upon me, helping get out.
But in that time, I sat there waiting for the miracle police, or just to die, nothing happened and I found out that Marcus isn't the only one to fear, but it's God as well. God is the one that put me with this abusive father, and a mother unable to protect herself, less likely me. From then on I believed the one line, Fear God Alone, but of course the fear of my father wouldn't just vanish. Tonight as he drags me up those step and whips me with his belt in my own home, my own room, the only thing going through my mind is that line.
Fear God Alone.
And it's hours before he is finished and I listen, from the floor of my bedroom, as he walks away from my bloody body, and before he goes he turns and looks at me, pure disgust in his eyes. I see his right hand go to his pocket and grab a piece of paper that had been crumple up. He throws it at my almost unconscious body, then walks out the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
My shaking hand reaches out for the paper and I'm able to make out the first words of my letter and I continue to unclumble it. The letter is stained in my blood from that day when I was 13 but words that make it up are still legible.
Dear Mother,
It's been a full day since your passing and father is yelling at me that it's all my fault. He yells at me that I will never find a love, never get a job, never amount to anything. He tells me I should kill myself and I starting to believe that he's going to do it for me if I don't myself. Tonight was the worst it's ever been, I'm locked in a closet bleeding to death, the same fate you had yourself. I hope you are up there in heaven watching over me, and I pray that you will send police to get him, and find me a nice place to stay, but for now I know I'm stuck here, and as I sit I am feeling the things he says are true. You would always listen to my problems with father, and I believe that that is why he killed you. I also believe that you just left me, that being here was to much for you and you let father beat you to death. I miss you and I wish you would have stayed, stayed and helped me fight, but now it's too late to go back. I hope you send father to get what he deserves, and for now I will deal with the pain. I love and miss you.
Your son,
Tobias
I can't stop the singular tear that slides down my face and onto the paper, creating a new mark on the already stained white sheet. I know that tomorrow I will have to face school with a Four face on, but for tonight, I will loosen myself and slip into Tobias and be myself, even though I'm in agony. Just for tonight I will push through it, and even though I was 13 years old when I wrote this, I still believe in some stuff. Like the hope that it might get better because in all reality, how could it get any worse?
Please tell me what you think of this story and if you suggest that I continue it because I don't know if anyone likes this. I know there are only three chapters but I want to make them longer instead of them just being abundant. Please review!
~Divergent24-7