Captive - FourTris

Fifty-One

A/N

So, guys, let's compromise. This isn't the last chapter, this but it's the last chapter of their relationship. The last day of their one year. The last August 30. There will be one more chapter after this, and it will be complying with the reverse chronological order. Try not to get emotional, it was inevitable. :(

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AUGUST 30
1 YEAR

When I awaken, the room is completely dark. The storm has lessened some, enough so that I can almost see the street lamps through the streaming raindrops on the window. I wait for a long moment, but the lightning doesn't come.

I wonder if he will return.

I wonder if the world still exists outside this room. I wonder if everybody else out there still remembers how to laugh. My smile is broken. It shattered a long time ago.

How long ago was it? Was it the first harsh word? The first bitter smirk or the first time he shoved me?
I close my eyes and push it away. It's over now. What's done is done, and why it happened—or when—is inconsequential.

It won't change anything if I figure it out, anyway. Tobias is who he is, and no matter how many ways I look at it, he still hurts me.

This isn't love. It's something broken and ugly. I wanted it so badly I didn't care what it looked like.

He did this to me. He chose to do it. Maybe he's broken and maybe he needed an outlet, but he still had a choice.

He knew when he threw his fist what he was doing.

He knew when he spit those ugly words what they would do to me.

And I hate myself for hoping he's still in the parking lot, for wanting to open the door and let him back in.

I'll never be the person I was before him. But I don't have to be this girl, either.

With my left hand, the only piece of me not pulsing with pain, I reach into my pocket. My cell phone. When I press the home button, it lights up so brightly I have to blink several times before I can see clearly.

I have to do it. I have to call.

With shaky hands, I dial her number. I stop on the last digit, my finger hovering over the five. I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I want to talk to her, to know that she's thinking I told you so and hating him.

She is harder to face than he is, even when his features are contorted into an ugly mask of rage. She is the proof of every wrong choice I made. When I look at her, I want to crawl into a hole and forget all the mistakes.
But I can't stop myself. I push the number anyway. I know she's not going to wrap me up in her arms and tell me everything is going to be okay, but I still want her to.

Somewhere inside me, I am still twelve years old, and I still need her.

I know she's sleeping. I know the phone will ring out with its shrill tone from the place beside her bed.

"Hello?" she answers, in a groggy voice on the second ring.

"Mum?" I don't realize I'm crying until I say that word, and it comes out so weak and wobbly it belongs to a child.

"Tris? Is that you?" She's awake now. Her voice is clear, filled with concern and, maybe, hope.

She wants it to be me on the line. Does she miss me like I miss her? Does she feel that distance between us—not caused by one year of fighting, but several years of silence?

The tears are pouring, sliding down my cheeks and dripping to the floor. I can't stop them.

"Come get me," I say, my lip quivering. I'm shocked at the surge of relief I feel as I say the words; I'm surrendering control.

Save me. Please, just make this all go away.

For a long second she doesn't say anything. The buzz of the phone is deafening. My heart flips around for a moment. Have I made a mistake? Is she too angry about the last twelve months?

"Tris?"

"Yeah?" I can hardly speak with the lump in my throat. It's choking me.

"I love you."

I can't even say it back, because those three words just make me sob even harder.

I am going to be okay.

I don't know what is going to happen next, but somehow, even after the year I've been through, I am going to be okay.