Tobias - after Allegiant ✔

1

Three years. Today, it's been three years since she died. Three years since I left her in the atrium of the Bureau with the words: "I love you. I'll see you soon." That I didn't warn her for the little Abnegation girl in her head is my deepest regret. I should've known that she would go into the Weaponslab instead of Caleb. I should've told her: "Play the selfish Erudite and don't let the little Abnegation girl take over control," but I didn't.
   
I'm at Zeke's place, together with my friends and Caleb. I can't call him a friend, but he isn't an enemy either. We're just acquaintances as boyfriend and brother of Tris. It's only for her that I am here, not because I wanted to. We have some kind of party for her – the others, anyway. I stand on the balcony, staring at nothing. I hate the winter, I hate 22 December, I hate everything that has to do with her death. And I hate it that everybody moves on with their lives, like nothing happened.
   
But it isn't 'nothing' that happened. My life is destroyed.
   
"Tobias, you have to go inside, you'll get cold." I turn around and see Christina in the door opening.
   
"Four," I growl. "You know you can't call me Tobias today." And that is true. I told her three years ago she could call me Tobias, except for days like this.
   
"I'm sorry," she says. "But please come inside."
   
"I'm fine."
   
I hear her sigh and walk away. Not much later she comes back. She walks toward me.
    
"Here, your coat," she says. I don't take it from her, so she lays it on my shoulders. "Why are you standing outside?"
   
"What do you think?"
   
"I didn't ask because I know the answer," says Christina. "Just answer me."
   
I sigh. "Alcohol. Memories with alcohol. And Zeke who is drunk and doesn't understand the intention of this whole party."
   
"Memories with alcohol? I thought you stopped drinking when you met Tris."
   
Boom, there it was. The bomb that explodes in my head every time I hear her name. And on days like this that bomb is always bigger. Or regular size and the rest of the year just smaller. It doesn't really matter.
   
"There is a memory," I say. My voice trembles, and my vision is clouded with tears. "I... I don't want to talk about it."
   
We stand next to each other in silence for a while, until Christina breaks the silence.
   
"You know," she says, "when my grandfather died I was eight. I was really sad because he would never see what I would be able to do, achieve, dare. My mother showed me the stars after I confessed my thoughts to her. She said the stars were deceased people and they were watching us from heaven. And that's how it felt, like he was helping me with decisions I made, like the day of the Choosing Ceremony."
   
I look at her. Where is this going? What is she trying to say?
   
"Will also helped me that way. He was the one who told me to get Tris in that night Marlene walked of the building. He was the one who told me to forgive her, because he had forgiven her, too." Christina looks at me. "But now there should be three stars watching me, right? There are still two."
   
"How is that possible? Does that mean that she's not in heaven, but in hell? Because she killed too many people or something?" I look at her.
   
"Oh, no," says Christina. "If she isn't in heaven, I don't even have a chance of getting there. Who knows how many people I killed under that simulation..."
   
I don't know how to answer that, so I look back at the stars.
   
"But how does your mother explain the shooting stars then?" I ask after a while.
   
A heavy sigh escapes her. "That's a long story. I know it's stupid, but when I was younger – I think I was seven – I saw one and made a wish. I probably wished for a pink dress or something. Nothing happened. I got angry and my mother laughed at me and that made me even angrier. She told me they are meteors, not stars and the whole story fake is."
   
"Your mother..."
   
"Was an Erudite defector, yes."
   
We stare at the sky again. Suddenly I see a shooting star – which is actually not a star. Christina sees it, too. She takes my hand and looks at me. Then she closes her eyes, and so do I. I wish, and I know Christina wishes the same: Tris. It is the first time since long that I think her name. She was always 'she' or 'her' because I couldn't think her name without crying.
   
I open my eyes and start laughing. Christina gives me a look.
   
"What?"
   
"You're laughing," she says.
   
"I'm laughing at myself," I say. "I'm so desperate that I believe in the power of stars."
   
"I have the theory that stars can only grant one wish. You're lucky when it's your wish that becomes reality. And when two people wish the same the chance is bigger that it'll be fulfilled."
   
"Yeah, sure," I scoff and I look back to the stars.
   
"You know," I say after a while, "sometimes I wonder how many fears I have left now that my worst became reality." My eyes seem to explode with tears. The whole day, I've been able to push them back, but now it's like they all come out at once. They roll down my cheeks. They feel cold against my skin in the cold night air.
   
"I just miss her so much," I whisper. "Sometimes it would be great to throw myself in the chasm like all the other cowards."
   
"Don't," says Christina. "If you do that half of the people in this city will die, just when the empty places start filling up."
   
"I think that's a bit extreme. No one cares about me, not even I do."
   
"I do, and all the people inside, too," she says, pointing backward to indicate the people inside the apartment. "Listen, in the insurgence I lost all my friends. If you die, I would be able to keep going. Zeke loses his friend; Shauna and his mother lose him; Caleb loses the last piece of Tris he had left..."
   
"I'm nothing like her," I interrupt.
   
She smiles a bit. "Four, you are so much like her. Her strength, her bravery, her ability to keep going – you have that, too."
   
I look in front of me, but I can't see anything through the haze of tears. I'm really crying right now.
   
"You know, I really wouldn't mind giving you a hug right now, but I don't know how you would feel about it," Christina says. I smile sadly and embrace her, but not in the way I used to with Tris, when I held my hand in the small of her back. No, I hold Christina like I'm a child, looking for comfort by his mother.
   
"Ah, you two look so cut," a voice sounds from behind me. "Oh, I meant cute, you look cute." An incredibly drunk Zeke. "You look like a couple. Are you a couple?"
   
"Zeke," Christina starts, but it's no use.
   
I run inside to go immediately outside via the front door. I go home; there is no one to remind me of her.

+ + +

I stand in front of a window with a cup of coffee in one hand and a photo of her in the other. The photo is made in the orchard of what used to be Amity. She had had a peace serum cocktail and smiles widely. I laugh too, but I have an irritated look in my eyes, so I don't look really happy. It is because she didn't want to walk and when I lifted her, she started kicking her legs in the air, making it difficult to carry her.
   
The photo is always on my bedside table. It makes it look like she is sleeping next to me, and that relaxes me. And sometimes, sometimes, her happy face makes me a little happier, too.
   
I think about what Christina said about her grandfather, Will and her. I don't know what it means that Christina is not supported by her. Maybe they weren't as good of friends as Christina thought, but that is unlikely.
   
I drink my coffee and lay down in bed. But first I kiss two of my fingers and touch her face with them.
   
"I love you, Tris," I whisper. "I miss you. Come back."

A/N - enjoy!

Be brave & stay alive