All for You.

Chapter 21 - Falling

Chapter 21 - Falling

— Tris

Do I feel trapped?

Yes.

I don't reply.

"I'm not sitting here attacking you. I studied psychology so much when I was younger, honestly it's why I was so inhumane when you had first met me, what, nine or so years ago."

I still don't reply.

Am I trapped?

"Tris, I think you're in denial."

What is that suppose to mean?

"And I get why you are. I mean, you don't remember a lot of what had happened before Caleb and I showed up in those cells in that hell. I understand, it's easier to shut it out and pretend it didn't happen. Hell, it's easy to shut out that stuff you remember even happened."

She stops and waits for me to answer.

Denial?

"You don't look at your leg. When you take your cast off to change, you do it blindly without looking at the injury below. Getting in the shower tonight, you didn't look to your left leg once. Tris, PT is never going to help if you don't accept that there is a weakness below that cast."

I feel a stab in my chest.

"Please, Tris, say something."

"I'm trapped in this cast. I'm trapped in this body. I'm in denial that I'm even alive," I cannot stop the tears as my eyes meet hers. "How am I even alive?"

"Because someone knew you could handle it."

"I can't."

"There's your denial, Tris. No, I don't expect you to be positive, hell, even asking me to be positive about anything is bullshit. Denial and negativity are two different things."

"What do I do?" I barely whisper.

"Look at your leg, Tris. Take off your cast."

"I— I just,"

"I will help you if you'd like—"

"Don't touch it!" I snap in a whisper tone.

"Then I'm here for moral support. Tris, the thing with denial is you have to face it head on."

"I don't have denial. There is an injury under there, and I know that it's there. I feel it every time I move, each time I breathe, each pulse, I know it's there."

"Then look at it."

I don't reply.

I don't want to.

"Molly is going to have to feel the muscles in your leg to strengthen them, Tris. You can't deny that, unless you deny that you're going to ever walk again."

"How can you sit here and say you don't mean to attack me when that's all that you're doing. Sitting here and attacking me about how I should view everything and that I'm a caged animal who is caged in her life with her crutches and cast? How can you say you don't mean to attack me?!"

"Because I love you. I never had a sister, and hell I love you more than one, and I'm not a dumbass. Look at your damn leg, Tris. Look at it before you have no choice but to give up. Don't put yourself though this. You're stronger than what lies under that fabric, and you can face it. Caleb knows it, Bea knows it, Tobias knows it, your parents do, and I know it too. Beatrice Prior, you're better than this."