TRIS
I grab the door handle, but hesitate before opening the door. I can hear the music from outside. I don't know what to expect when I walk in. I've never been to a Dauntless party, but obviously Christina has by the way she slings the door open and struts inside. I try to walk in as confidently as she does, but I falter when I see how many people are here. Suddenly I feel like I'm separated from everyone by a long tunnel; I can see and hear them, but I can't get to them. It's worse than in my fear landscape. There, they were behind glass, but it still felt like they were within my reach. But here, I can't get to them at all. Through the tunnel I can see Chris weaving through people. I move forward, trying to follow her, when I bump into someone. Peter.
"Hey, Tris," he says.
He had that innocent look in his eyes, but I see through it. His smile is strained. Forced. Just beyond his eyes I see the black pits that stared at me as he tried to kill me. What if the serum didn't work on him? Peter's Divergent. He fought the serum. What is he planning to do?
My head is spinning. I see Christina on the other side of the room. There's a gap between people and I can see her talking to some people standing in the corner by a table with bottles of alcohol all over it. I see Zeke, Shauna and Cara huddled in one spot, Caleb and Christina, and then I see Nita. She's standing close enough to Tobias that if she moved at all, she'd be touching him. Tobias. What is Tobias doing here? Before his gaze met mine, I walked over to the table and grabbed a bottle, not even looking at what it was.
"Hi, I'm Zeke, the keeper of the party," he said extending his hand.
"Zeke...really?" I asked, slightly annoyed.
"Tris!?" He said with wide eyes.
I glance over and see Tobias staring a hole through me. Nita is doing the same, but she has hate in her eyes.
"You look hot, Tris!" Shauna laughs.
"I knew it was you the whole time," Zeke says.
"Oh yeah, you totally knew," Cara laughs loudly.
"You look good, Tris," Tobias says, his eyes staring straight into mine.
My cheeks grow hot and I know my skin is turning red. I still remember the first time he said that to me. Seeing the bottle in his hand, I hope this time he didn't say it under the same circumstances.
"Let's dance, Tris!" Chris says pulling me away quickly.
"I can't dance," I tell her as she pulls me to the center of the room.
"Just do what I do," she says moving her hips side to side. "We're only dancing anyway to keep Four at a distance. We want it to get to him."
I copy her movements and soon I hear Zeke, Cara and Shauna cat-calling at us. Suddenly someone grabs my wrist and spins me around. Tobias. I open my mouth to speak, but he puts his index finger to my lips to silence me.
"You look beautiful, Tris," he says, his voice low and his eyes fixed on mine.
"Don't say that too loud, wouldn't want your girlfriend to hear," I say sarcastically.
"You're my girlfriend, Tris," he responds looking slightly confused.
"I'm referring to the one that has your name tattooed on her hand," I roll my eyes.
"Alright fine. Yes, Nita wants to date me. So what? Doesn't mean that I want to date her."
"Oh yeah, right. It's not like you've been avoiding me all day," I say.
I feel my pulse quicken and I see that people are starting to stare at us.
"This isn't the time or place for this," I say quietly.
"You're right, it's not. But I don't care," he says adamantly. "I love you, Tris. I haven't been abiding you because of Nita. I've been avoiding you because I know you have a thousand questions and there are some that I don't want to answer. There are some questions that don't have simple answers and I haven't had the time to be able to explain it to you, and there are some that I don't want to answer because I'm a coward, okay?"
His eyes are wide. He's sweating slightly. I can't remember the last time I saw him look this way.
"You're not a coward, Tobias," I say quietly. "You're the bravest person I know. Whatever it is, we can talk about it and get through it, okay?"
"Okay," he nods slowly. "You really do look absolutely beautiful," he says after a while.
"Thank you," I say as my skin turns red and I look at the floor.
He gives me a small, sweet kiss before we hear Zeke yelling something about a game. The room starts to clear out as many people leave. Before long, the only people left are Zeke and Shauna, Cara, Peter, and Caleb, Nita and Matthew, Christina, Tobias, and me. Zeke and Tobias pull the chairs into a circle along with the couch and we all sit down.
"Alright everyone," Zeke starts, "for those of you who are lame enough to have never played this game, it's called Candor or Dauntless. Someone will ask you to pick one. If you pick Candor, they will ask you a question and you have to answer truthfully. If you pick Dauntless, they will dare you to do something that is probably outrageous. If you want to be a pansycake and avoid answering your Candor question, you have to kiss the person that you find the most attractive in the room. If you want to avoid your Dauntless dare, you have to take off a piece of clothing. Hats, shoes, and socks do not count. Everyone got it?" He smiles an evil smile and we all nod. "I'll start. Four! Candor or Dauntless?"
"Dauntless," he says casually.
"I dare you to shoot a strawberry off of Tris's head."
"I thought these were supposed to be crazy or something," he jokes.
Zeke gets a strawberry from the fridge and grabs one of his guns. After carefully balancing the strawberry on top of my head, he hands Tobias the gun. Tobias points the gun at me lazily, an for a split second my mind goes back to when he was under Jeanine's simulation and almost shot me. I can see a slight glimmer of fear in his eyes before he pulls the trivet and the strawberry flies across the room, completely split in half. Tobias then focuses on his next victim. After a little while, everyone in the room has gone except for me.
"Tris," Zeke smiles devilishly. "Candor or Dauntless?"
"Dauntless," I say confidently.
"I dare you to," he pauses for dramatic effect, "tell us your most intimate moment with our man Four."
I look around the room and see that everyone is waiting for my response. Tobias's face is bright red. I quickly untie the ribbons behind my back and I pull my top over my head. I struggled a little bit with the pain, and when I open my eyes, everyone is staring at me. At first I thought that they were staring because they never expected little Tris from Abnegation to be standing in front of them in only her bra. Then I think it's because of the bra that I'm wearing. But as I focus on all of them, I realize that they're not looking at my chest at all: they're staring at my wound. The bandage wouldn't fit underneath the top that I was wearing, so Christina and I had agreed that it would be okay to leave it off for just one night. I immediately began to regret that decision. My cheeks grew hot and I twisted the ends of my hair as I looked at the floor. I glanced up momentarily, and Zeke was holding up his bottle of beer.
"To Tris," he said.
His jaw was tight and it appeared as if his eyes were welling up.
"To Tris," everyone else echoed one by one.
I sat down quietly and the game resumed. By the time everyone was ready to call it a night, the majority of our group was at least partially wasted. It was 2am and we all got up, ready to head for the door when Zeke declared one last dare.
"Everyone's gotta do it," he slurred. "You can't leave until you kiss the person in the room that you're attracted to."
Christina furrowed her eyebrows and looked around the room. We all knew the only two people that she would have wanted to kiss, so no one commented when she pecked Caleb on the cheek and left the room. Caleb turned red and ran out immediately after. As I turned to kiss Tobias, I saw Cara and Matthew give each other a kiss on the cheek. As soon as Tobias and I broke apart, Nita pushed past me and gave Tobias a sloppy kiss. Before I could claw her eyes out, a hand was on my shoulder spinning me around. Peter gave me a hard kiss on the lips and then bolted. Nita brushed by Tobias seductively, taking advantage of the fact that I was frozen in place. Everyone stared at Tobias and I as we stared at each other in disbelief.