Chapter 14

Tris' POV

Do you know that feeling you get in the beginning of a crush. First you notice someone. You notice their features and how "hot" or "cute" they look. The feelings start to grow when you realize; "hey, I think I might like this guy" or "fuck my life, this can't be happening again!" The feelings keep growing and you fall. Most of the time you fall for their looks, but in reality, you really don't know their true personality. And sometimes...it's too late.

I'm stuck in stage one: the beginning of the crush.

I remember the way Christina and Will got together. He was a new kid and he seemed all sarcastic and had all the qualities of a fuckboy when we first met him. Chris, on the other hand saw him differently. Their relationship started off with me awkwardly sitting in the middle of them two while they threw snarky comments at one another. Christina found him on Instagram and DMed him. They swapped numbers on the DM because they thought it was easier to talk to each other that way. I remember skyping her one night and she told me how they stopped fighting and would always talk about the most random things. They would even FaceTime with each other until two am. This all happened within a week. Less than a week they were practically smitten for each other. I'm glad, because I was the one who introduced them together hoping that maybe they would end up with one another, and they did.

I never understood crushes. Some of them developed over a long period of time and other are super quick, instant even. Mine is confusing. Tobias did some shit things to me and on some days I hold a grudge against him for that, and others I forget that we ever fought, that we were still best friends for the beginning of our lives.

My heart aches for him right now. I stare as I see his posture from the distance. One arm is slug over his head and his leg is crossed over another while he is leaning against his locker. He talking to a girl- girls that is and they're all dressed in black and blue cheerleading uniforms. I always hated those, it made me feel self conscious and overly exposed wearing them back in freshman.

Zeke stands next to him with his arms slung over his girlfriend, Shauna. They stare into each other's eyes as they talk lovingly to each other. My heart flutters for them.

My books are hug tightly against my chest and I feel like a creepy stalker staring at Tobias. It doesn't help that he's been looking my way the entire time while he talks to the girls. I close my eyes.

His lips curl upwards and I bite mine. I won't- can't take my eyes off him.

"Tris!" Judging my her tone, Mar must have been calling my name for a while. "What are you looking at-oh." She sighs, "if you keep that up, I'd have to pry your eyes away from him, now look at me... Tris! Oh my gosh, you can be so difficult sometimes."

I'm forced back to reality when I am turned ninety degrees to look at Mar's face.

"Huh? Sorry." I mutter.

"Unbelievable. If you excuse me, I'm going to go bang my head on the locker several times."

'What?' He mouths to me.

'Why do you keep looking at me?' I mouth back.

'Look whose talking.'

I never thought that I'd ever be doing this again. I take my phone out of my pocket, and pull up his number. After we fought, I tried millions of times but never manage the courage to delete his number. It's the tenth one down on my contacts due to his last name being towards the beginning of the alphabet.

Nice of you, ignoring the two girls that are trying to to to you right now.

Tris Prior, are you texting me?

Don't get your hopes up, I'm only doing this because you're cute.

Cute?

Yes, you're adorable.

Do you want to go to the park later?

What are you insinuating?

I am saying that I want to spend time with my best friend.

I am not you best anything, Tobias.

Well, obviously you're going to say yes.

Sorry, can't. Figure skating.

Then I'll just come with.

No, please don't.

How about at eight? I should be done with homework by then.

Okay, I'll be there at seven thirty.

I put my phone back in my pocket and walk away without looking at him. Maybe this is good. It's good that we're building our friendship back.

"Great, now pour the chemical mixture into the green liquid." My teacher instructs the class. "Slowly add the mixture, very slowly." I tip the vial over the glass measuring cup where the thee liquid is. My safety glasses start to slip off my eye and I adjust it before pouring the liquid.

"Boo!" My liquid spills onto the table.

"Eaton! Let Tris concentrate." I put a hand over my heart. I get scared easily.

"Yeah Eaton, let me concentrate. I'm trying to focus here."

"Oh my bad." He says sarcastically. "I'll just be over my the lake watching the ducks while you take your sweet time."

"Yeah, you go do that." I push him away, but he just comes back.

"I'm your new lab partner." He says with a sly grin.

"What happened to Rayan?" I ask. He's super funny and intimate everyone and everything in the class, and they're always on point.

"He's with Riley." He say motioning to The boy sitting next to Rayan. "I liked Rayan better."

He smiles. "Too bad."

"Why exactly did you struck partners anyways?"

"Because." He says taking the vile from my hand. "I wanted to spend more time with my best friend."

"We have to talk about it eventually, you know." As much as I don't want, he can't just waltz back into my life like nothing bad ever happened between us. He have to fix our relationship first.

"During lunch." I tell him.

I hate how not even three months ago I refused to even look or talk to him. And now? What has gotten in to me? It's as if we were still friends back then.

"Fine. I'll be in the courtyard." The mixture combines creating a light brown color.

I get my lunch from my locker- a salad, a bag pretzels and strawberry-kiwi Snapple. I stuff my backpack into my locker, and make my way to the courtyard as promised.

I find him sitting there while talking to two other football jocks. Our eyes meet for a brief second and he excused himself from the two boys.

"Hey." He holds a bag of food in one hand.

"Hi." I notice the two boys looking in our direction. I shift uncomfortably.

"You wanted to talk?"

I clear my throat. "Yeah."

"Look I was stupid, okay? I'm sorry I said all those nasty things to you. I never wanted to hurt you-"

"Really? Because you sure did a lot of hurting."

"I know. I wish I never went out with her. You're the one I love."

"But you did love her."

"I thought I did."

"But you did love her." I say again.

"Yes. Maybe, I don't know! She's a lot nicer than you think."

"Really?" I say laughing. "Nicer as in telling me to kill myself every time I passed by her in the hall. Nicer as in tripping me in the cafeteria? Nicer as in carving the word slut in my locker, when obviously I'm the slut, and not her? Do you know how many times she cheated on you, Tobias? And you know what bothered me even more was that you just stood there, and let me take it. You didn't do anything, Tobias!" I wanted to talk to him about this, talk it out. But after holding in all these feelings for such a long time, I was bound to burst. I bursted into a million pieces and it was because of him.

I broke, and now I'm let by myself to pick up all the pieces.

"It wasn't that bad-"

"Are you fucking serious? Do you even hear yourself now?" I didn't realize I was crying until I felt the water pouring from my eyes.

I hate how he made me feel like I was never enough. I helped him through his parent's divorce. I helped him through his first break up. I helped him when his mother came crawling back for forgivenesses. I helped him through everything. And what? He sometimes treats me like shit.

"I'm sorry. I-"

"I'm going. This was a terrible idea."

"Tris-" he grabs my wrist.

"Let go of me!" I cry. I dismiss the strange stares coming from probably half the school population.

"I've never stopped loving you. I have since eighth grade. And I can't handle you always walking out on me like this. So if you walk away, then I'll know we're done. For good."

I close my eyes and sigh. "Then I guess we're done."

I hate vulnerability. I run through the halls while wiping my eyes a couple of times also while dodging people on the way. I need to get out of here.

"Oof! Tris! Are you okay?!" I am asked when I crash into somebody.

"Yeah. Sorry, I didn't- I didn't mean to crash into you." I tell Ty. I wipe my eyes.

It's like our first encounter almost a year and a half ago.

He stares at me for a while. "Let me help, you're obviously not okay."

"It's fine. I'm fine. Don't worry."

"No, you're obviously not okay. I'm going to take you home." I feel his familiar arms wrapping around my body bringing me closer.

"Okay." I say after having an internal debate in my mind.

He walks me to the passenger seat. When he places himself into the driver's seat, he shifts his positions towards me, staring.

He always had a way to make my heart rate go faster just by looking at me.

I turn my body to give him a questioning look.

"Oh. Right." He starts the engine and heads towards the direction of his and my house.

The ride is silent and semi-awkward.

"It's been a week. Almost a week, well four days. I see you and Tobias, I'm not blind Tris."

Is it that obvious? Well it doesn't matter anymore because Tobias is a huge dick. "Well whatever we had, what ever that was, it's done. Tobias is a dick."

"Oh." I can tell my his stiff posture, clenched fist, and blushed cheeks is that he's jealous.

"I'm serious. You don't have to worry about anything." It's true, because I even said to Tobias that we're done.

"I still love you and I can't stand seeing you with any other guy than me." He says softly.

"You can't keep doing this, Ty. I loved you, maybe I still do, just a little bit. What we had was real, but-" I don't know what to say. That I moved on? Because some part of me deep down still has feelings for this sweet, lovable boy. "You have to move on, promise me. Promise me that you'll try, for me."

"I can't."

"Tyler."

"Tris."

"Please?" I try again.

"I can't."

"You are so stubborn sometimes." I tell him.

"Oh I'm the stubborn one?" He says smiling.

"I'm not stubborn!" I exclaim while getting out of the car. He follows suit.

"Yes you are."

I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. The cold wind blows against my face causing my hair to fly everywhere. "No I'm not."

"You're so adorable." He says while stepping close. I step back.

"Tyler." I warn. I put my arms in his chest to prevent him from coming any closer, which doesn't help the situation because he puts them around his waist to pull me closer. He always had a habit of doing that.

I close my eyes as his lips meet him, slowly and steady. We kiss under the tree in front of my house.

No. No!

I immediately pull back when reality hits me in the face. "No, no, no. This-" I say gesturing to the space between us, "nope, nope, nope. This was a mistake."

"Tris, you obviously still have feelings for me just like I do with you."

"No, we're done."

"If we're done then you wouldn't have kissed me."

"Tobias, this isn't going to work." My hand immediately slaps over my mouth. I did not just do that.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I just called Ty, Tobias.

He stares at me. "Okay. It's because you have feelings for Tobias? Was I never enough for you?"

"You were everything to me. I'm sorry. I still like you, Ty, but-"

"Look Tris, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I totally understand. But it's so hard you know? I can't just forget you. I still love you."

"That's the problem."

"I still want you in my life." He says taking my hands.

"We can still be friends."

"Be serious."

"I am. How about we hang out? I have figure skating but if you want, we can hang out after my lesson." I tell him because I know Tobias isn't going to come over anymore.

"Tomorrow. I'll take you out and we can have ice cream. Who the hell cares that it's going to be freezing cold. I just want to spend time with you." I proposes.

"As friends."

"I'll try my hardest." He says.

"Tyler."

"Fine, fine. As friends." This is sort of a terrible idea. He can't get over me if we're going to hang out all the time. I can't fully get over him if we do this as well.

"You have to promise me you won't try anything stupid."

"Okay." He whispers. "I promise."

A/N: Don't worry, Fourtris will come later on. Well, I hate to say it but it's going to have to develop by regaining trust and friendship. But, other than that, I'm sorry but you will have to wait even longer. I plan on getting them together in a really cute way.

Have a wonderful day! Leave a comment/review, vote. I love when you guys comment, it always brings smiles to my face:)