INSURGENT: Tobias

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

I wake up from a dreamless sleep, but I don’t open my eyes. Not yet, anyway. My face is pressed into Tris’s hair and my arms are folded around her body. In this moment, I don’t want to move. I want to stay frozen here… where it seems like nothing bad could ever touch us. It would be just her and me. Nothing else. I sigh contently as the idea floats around in my mind.

But like all good things in my life, it must come to an end. I open my eyes slowly, allowing them to adjust to the light around me. The first thing I see is Tris, her face peaceful. I stare at her for a while, rememorizing how she looks when she isn’t angry or depressed. A sad smile finds its way onto my face. Tris deserves more. She deserves to be happy and peaceful all the time. I press my lips to her forehead and get out of bed carefully, so I don’t wake her.

I walk to the bathroom, strip my clothes and hop into the shower. I let cold water fall over my skin, instead of the usual hot water. The cold water wakes me up, makes me alert. And I need to be alert. Being with Tris makes it so easy to forget everything else. And as much as I want to forget, I can’t. As much as I don’t want to be involved in the mess around me, I am.

I turn the water off and wrap myself in a towel. As I step out of the shower, I’m pleased to find that Tris is still in her peaceful state of sleep. I walk quietly across the room to grab a t-shirt and pants. On my way, I take a glance in the mirror above the dresser. I sigh as my eyes notice the stubble growing on my face.

After pulling on a shirt and pants, I walk back to the bathroom to grab a razor. Absentmindedly, I start shaving. Slowly, my face starts to return to its usual smooth appearance, but before I completely finish I notice Tris in my peripheral.

“Good morning,” I say. “How’d you sleep?”

“Okay,” She says as she gets up from of the bed. Just as I move my head to get the stubble from under my chin, I feel Tris’s small arms wrap around my waist and her forehead press against my back. Setting the razor down, my hands fall over hers and my eyes close on their own.

I stroke the smooth skin on her hands slowly as I listen to the sound of us breathing, the only sound in the room. For the second time today, I am pulled into the now. For the second time today there is no future or past threatening to ruin my life. There is only Tris and me and now. But of course, now doesn’t last forever.

“I should go get ready,” Tris says, but it doesn’t sound like that’s what she really wants to do. I smile to myself at her stubbornness for a second.

“I’ll get you something to wear,” I tell her after I realize she’s still wearing the long, but not long enough T-shirt from last night. I sift through the dresser drawer until I find a pair of shorts suitable for Tris. She pulls them on, gives me a quick smile and walks out the door and into the hallway.

I shake my head slowly, a smile still plastered on my face as I continue to shave the rest of my chin. As I finish, I splash my face with water and then dry it with a towel. I walk around the room a couple of times as I try to think of a game plan. We have to leave the compound soon... but where will we go? Not the Dauntless compound, that’s for sure… and definitely not the Abnegation compound. The Erudite? Or maybe even… no, why would we go there? And with Marcus, of all people!

I shake my head and mentally slap myself at how stupid I’m being. Maybe it’s the child in me that wants a family again. But I don’t want that family. That broken part of my past. No. I need to focus. Emotion can’t get in the way. It only screws everything up.

A scream echoes throughout the compound. Peter’s scream, to be exact. I sigh as I follow the sound, hoping that this does not involve Tris, but who else would cause that scream. I jog past the Amity and Abnegation who all heard the sound and have collected in the hallway. Just as I reach the scene I hear Tris scream, sounding frustrated and annoyed and angry.