Tris
"You're joking, right?" a scoff escapes my lips.
"Don't blow me off, Tris," Caleb's eyes plead with mine.
"What proof do you have?" Tobias asks from beside me.
"I heard some people talking in the pit," he pauses, "when Christina gave me your letter, I knew."
"I'll have someone look into it, but until there's some actual proof, we can't just assume that Marcus had anything to do with it," Tobias shakes his head.
"No one has even seen Marcus," I tell Caleb. "We can't make random accusations, no matter how much we hate him."
"I saw him," he protests. "I saw him. He was at the memorial."
"That doesn't mean that he did this," I shake my head.
"Where at the memorial?" Tobias cuts in, sounding like Four again.
"I saw him in the crowd during Tris's speech and I saw him right before you two left."
"You don't really think..." I turn to Tobias.
He stays silent.
"I know he's a horrible person, and I know the things he did to you, but do you really think he would do something like this?"
"He abused Evelyn," he says quietly. "In every way you can imagine."
"But his son's girlfriend?" I make him look at me.
"I really don't know," he shakes his head. "I have to get out of here."
"Where are you going?" I ask as he stands up.
"Caleb, you can stay as long as you like. While you're here, take care of your sister," he says and then walks to the front door without answering me.
The silence in the room is deafening.
"I know you don't want to talk about it," Caleb starts. "But sometimes it helps."
"I certainly am not going to talk to you about it," I snap.
"If you change your mind," he adds and then looks at the floor.
"I won't."
"You at least need to talk to someone then."
The room is quiet once again. I feel myself getting tired, so I lay down and clutch my pillow.
"Do you need anything?" He asks carefully.
"No, I don't," I reply. "You can stay as long as you want."
I wait for him to say something, but he doesn't. I hear him leave the room and go sit on the couch in the livingroom. I close my eyes tightly and before long I feel myself drifting to sleep. I wake a while later, and Caleb is gone. I'm not sure how long I was aleeping, but Tobias isn't back yet. I need to talk to him. I pull my shoes on and carefully slip out the door. This is my first time really being alone in the past few days, and I feel very uneasy. I would never admit that to anyone, but it's hard to keep my mind off of what happened. I look for him in the pit, the cafeteria, in his office, and by the chasm. I'm almost ready to go back home when I realize where he is. When I get right outside the door, I can hear him grunting and the slamming of his fists against the punching bag. I open the door as quietly as I can, but it's never quiet enough for Tobias.
"Go home," he says, not once looking behind him or slowing down.
"No," I say calmly, taking a strange comfort in watching how fast he's moving.
"You need to rest," he grunts and punches the bag even harder.
Sweat is pouring from his body and his clothes are soaked.
"So do you," I say, moving closer to him.
I'm right behind him now and I can see the blood running down his knuckles. He's been going at this for so long and with such for that his knuckles are split open.
"Hey," I say a little louder, wrapping my hand around his large bicep.
He delivers one more punch with his other hand and then turns around and glares down at me.
"I can't," is all he says before he turns back around.
"You can't what?" I step around to face him, placing myself in front of the bag.
"I have to keep going," he shakes his head.
"Why?" I refuse to move.
"Because I can't do this, Tris," he yells.
He turns away from me and paces back and forth.
"I can't just stay home," he continues. "I can't take care of you and I can't look at you."
"Oh," is all I say in response.
I'm too numb to say anything else. I'm too frozen to move. I just stand there, staring at his back, my heart pounding in my chest. When I can finally move, I walk towards the door without a word.
"Tris," he calls after me, almost desperately. "That's not what I meant."
"What else could that mean?" I fire back when I find my voice.
"I didnt protect you," he yells. "That is my job. This should not have happened. I should not have let it happen. But I did. I wasn't there when I was supposed to be. If I had been doing my job, this wouldn't have happened. I failed you. And I can't just sit at home knowing it and every time I look at you I see it. Every time you wince in pain and every time you flinch when I touch you and every time I look into your eyes I see what he did to you."
His eyes are wild and his skin is red. The blood on his knuckles is beginning to dry, but then he swings at another bag and they start again.
"Stop it," I yell louder than I thought was possible.
He freezes and stares at me in shock.
"Just stop it," I say again, moving towards him again. "This wasn't your fault, Tobias. It wasn't. You had no way to know that it was going to happen. You couldn't have guessed that I needed you there. Nothing can take it away or change it, and that includes you driving yourself crazy. It's over, Tobias."
The room is silent, just like the apartment was with just me and Caleb. He stands in front of me, just staring at me. His eyes are still wild and his breathing is still heavy and his knuckles areally still bleeding. Then suddenly, his expression softens just slightly, and he just crumples to the floor. I've never seen anything like it before. His entire body is shaking and his sobs are echoing off the walls. His already-wet shirt is now being soaked with his tears and I almost break. I rush over to him and fall to the floor beside him, gathering him up in my arms. He clings to me like a child clings to its mother and I can barely keep myself together. When he finally calms down, he leans back with wide eyes.
"It's okay," I tell him. "It's just me."
He nods briefly and then looks at the floor.
"You can't blame yourself, Tobias," I say quietly.
I lift his arms up and pull his drenched shirt off of his body. I find the spot that's the least wet and wipe his face.
"Let's go get you cleaned up," I try to smile at him.
We walk back home slowly and silently. I glance at him every few steps but I can't tell what he's thinking. His eyes stare straight ahead of him and his jaw is clenched and I've never seen him look more like Four. I unlock the apartment door as quickly as I can and then usher him inside. I throw his shirt in the hamper and get a washcloth so I can clean up his knuckles. I set a bottle of water in front of him and then sit down on the floor.
"You need to drink," I say as I run the cloth over his broken skin. "Hydration is important when your body is healing."
"I'm fine," he mumbles.
I glare up at him for a moment, but then I get lost in looking at him. The sweat that still remains on his skin glows in the light from the window, his dark complexion looks even darker in the shadows. His breathing is still heavy and with every breath the muscles in his body contract. The stubble that has been growing on his jaw is a little longer now and the dark hair makes him look more intimidating. I finally find myself again and continue to run the cloth over his knuckles until the blood is gone.
"Okay, I'm done," I say, using his leg to pull myself off the floor. "You should go shower and get comfortable."
He gets off the couch and goes into the bathroom without a word. I've always known that getting him to open up is hard, but it's never been this hard before. I can tell he's burying himself even deeper inside so he doesn't have to deal with it, but that's just not the answer. I wait for him to come back out for some time, and finally he does. He sits on the couch beside me but doesn't say a word.
"Caleb said that he thinks I should talk to someone," I begin, hoping to catch his attention.
It works.
"But I told him that I certainly don't want to talk to him about it, and I don't want to talk to a stranger either. I can see you closing yourself off and I know that you don't want to talk about it either. But neither one of us is going to get beyond it if we don't talk about it and let it go. If we can't talk to a stranger and we don't want to talk to anyone else, then we at least need to talk to each other."
He's quiet for several more minutes, but then he looks at me and cocks his head to the side, contemplating my offer.
Finally, he says, "okay."