Chapter 10

Tris

Throw 'em back till I lose count,

I'm gona swing from the Chandelier,

Tris walked up the stairs to the overly large mansion and sighed. She wondered what consequences waited for her when she knocked. What would he do to her? Would he even be back or would he still be out? Would he be expecting her completely surprised to see her back? Tris knocked, loudly, slouched her bony shoulders and bowed her head. She was waiting for a scolding or a beating, it was what he would do right?

The door swung, open and their stood a flustered Lauren. Why would she have opened the door? Tris doesn't even pause to talk to Lauren, she pushes past her and makes her way into the house, searching for any sing of Peter. Tris dropped the bag she had brought with her from her old apartment on the floor and ran down the hall. She needed to apologize for running away, she needed to tell him that he needed to let her go. If he truly loved her, he would let her go. Let her be free, be wild. Tris could only hope that he would love again, maybe find someone else, someone who needed a little bit of grounding, less of an airy feel to their life.

Lauren called her name but she didn't listen, Tris had an idea on were Peter might be. It might have been that that would have been the place that she would have gone to, if it had been her. She followed her gut as it lead her to the backyard. She ran out the doors, not bothering to close them or even have changed out of the clothes she found at her old apartment. She slowed her pace when she saw him.

Peter was perched on one of the branches of the willow tree, directly in front of her eyes. She smiled, not out of love or desperation for him but rather because for once, in the time she had been with him, he was peaceful, almost at ease. His eyes closed, head back against the rough surface of the tree, itself. He looked handsome, his features calm and softer than the intenseness of them that he usually wears. She wished she could freeze the moment, make him always like this. Maybe she should just tell him that he would have an easier time with the ladies if he was always like this.

Tris didn't want to call out his name for she feared it would take his peacefulness and replace it with the Peter she has come to know. She sighed and bowed her head when a hand found its way on to her shoulder. Tris almost jumped and screamed but kept herself composed, for Peter's sake.

"He always does this," Lauren began to say and Tris nodded but didn't turn around. She was truly captivated by the Peter in front of her eyes. "It's his routine for when he's hurting." Tris nodded again. She had cause him pain, heartbreak but he didn't come for her. "He wasn't always like this, you know. He had been compassionate, loving, caring, nice, brave and wild. He met a girl, she was perfect to him. He loved her with all his heart, some would say he just cared too much. He let her in, told her everything wrong with him. He told her he was abused by his mother when he was younger, his dad was never in his life. He thought she cared about him, so he told her he loved her and she just screamed and ran away. Saying one thing over and over again, I'm sorry. She had cheated on him with his best friend. He was never the same again, he became a sadistic bastard that never cares about anything." Lauren sighed.

"But you, you changed him. He started to care again, he went out after only staying inside for a year. He might not admit it but I'm his only friend. And trust me he still has pieces of the man he used to be." Tris turns to look at her. The girl who was wasting her life to ensure, this man who she had once called a monster, found someone he loved. Till this man was happy again. Tris hated herself, she had judged this man based on what she had experienced with him, not how he really was. He was just as damaged as she was. She mentally hit herself, it was one of the traits her parents had told her was much needed in life. How could she have forgotten that?

"I'll be right back." She told Lauren. She dashed inside, Tris couldn't do this, and she couldn't make the best thing that had happened to this man, just disintegrate. She couldn't stand there and tell him what she wished to say, she couldn't watch as she ripped the only thing sustaining him, away from him.

Tris managed to find herself in the master of the room where she now slept. She remembered the good days. The happy smiles, the obnoxious laughs. Tris smiled, herself, those were the best days of her life but the good memories started to fade. They way her parents had held her at her grade school graduation. The way they cared for her and her brother. The way they were so selfless. The way they took advantage of the smallest moments, living them to the fullest. They began to fade, disintegrating at the edges. Tris clutched and grabbed for anything but her hands came back empty. She lost the color of her mother's hair, the shine in her father's eye, the way her brother laughed at some stupid joke and her happy smile. Her memories filled by the bad days. She wanted her family back, more than anything she could ever wish for. She would wish on every star in the night sky, if that would have helped her.

When her parents had first died she had expected her mother to be at home cooking and humming a tune. Her father to have come home, just in time for diner, and ask her about the wonderful day she would've had. Just like any other family but the house was empty, like the growing hole in her shattered heart. She had dreamt of what her life would have been like. Had she not dragged them into the jewelry store, had she not have been stubborn and refused to go anywhere in till they had at least looked at the store. She had dreamt of a life she would never have.

Instead she sat at on the floor of the master bedroom of a mansion she had been kidnaped and placed in. She was an alcoholic with no job, no education, no friends, no life. She was shattered, her pieces fell against the cold hardwood floor, heavy from the burdens she carried. Would anyone ever want to pick up all the pieces for they would cut their skin, pierce the smooth surface? She was vagabond, she pretended to not feel alone in a world surrounded by strangers. She didn't cry, not because she didn't want to, she didn't cry because she couldn't. She was numb, all over. Feeling-less and empty.

She was on auto-pilot, like someone had switched the ON button, in her head down, to OFF. She had no control over her movements, her thoughts, her words, all of them were no longer hers. They came from the part of her that just wanted to survive. Her once bright and full of life eyes, now looked dull and lifeless. She pushed people away, instead of pulling them in and getting to know them. Tris operated from a place of fear. The fear of losing someone close to her; Thanatophobia or Thantophobia.

A feeling arose in her chest, she wanted the fear to go away. She wanted the numbness to go away. She wanted the darkness to leave her, forever, blankend soul. She wanted to be the girl she had once been, the one who got to know everyone and only saw the good in everyone but then again. If she became that girl, she would be naïve, and fall the same way she already had. She was an outlaw, a cast away, someone no one wanted, no one needed. She wasn't needed, she was more worthless than a leaf, and she was a rose, beautifully dangerous. She had been up and down, she had been on the lowest of lows. Her feet were stuck in place, not moving. Her story was sadder than the saddest movie, her life more vicious than any war.

If she had been able to live the life she wanted. Tris would have been moving, thriving, running. Her problems would have been so small. She wouldn't need to pretend to not feel alone. She would have been surrounded by friends, living crazy stupid lives, like any other twenty-year old young adults. She would go to parties, not purely to get drunk for free. She would have been a fire so bright that at some point it would need to seize. She would have died at a young age because everything living, thriving has to fade at some point right?

Hey guys,

so just to clear so things up, Jordan is related to Tris but we'll learn more about that later.

my name is Jordan McKay, hehe

encase you don't know what vagabond is look it up 'cause I cant remember.

vagabond is also a song and im obsessed with it, don't judge me

~J