Chapter 28 - Letting Go

— Tris

I groan as I sit up in bed, sharp pains shooting down my leg. Looking over at my phone, I see that it is three in the morning.

I won't let the pain win.

I lie back down, flexing my foot a little to try and relieve some of the built up pain: it's a ritual of movement that usually never works, but at least I feel like I've tried something in my frustration.

"Hey," Tobias rolls over from his stomach to face me, his voice heavy with sleep. "You alright?"

I take a deep breath, letting out a sigh.

"I don't know how you do it, Tris." He says, knowing from my face that I'm in pain.

"I don't. That's the problem, I can't do anything about it."

"Come here," He says rolling onto his back, his voice groggy.

I try to edge my way over to him, but the pain in my leg causes me to suck a breath in and I grip the sheets in pain.

I don't even notice him move to my shoulder until his strong arms wrap around me, pulling my head to his chest.

His one hand holds me close while the other continues to stroke down my hair.

I try to focus on him: his breaths, his touch, his heartbeat, his scent. I focus on anything except the pain taking over my body from my leg.

"I love you." He barely whispers.

I nod off before ever getting to respond.

+ + +

"Alright, what else..." Ian says sitting in his desk chair outside of his office door.

This is how ambassador meetings are run. We all pull our chairs outside of our offices and sit in the doorway. We informally fill the hallway and barely anything gets done because of how dysfunctional the group is.

Today is our last big meeting as a group before this year's visiting week. This past week I have been working alongside Ian organizing the event, making times and dates for events and meetings, and making a list of what needs to get done this final week.

"Oh, yeah! The story time sign up is posted by Tris's office. Please fill up the slots and make sure there's at least one person each day before doubling up dates. Tell a story about your times here in Dauntless and/or Chicago or just talk about something related to not idiocy. The more gruesome, the better. You all know the drill."

"You mean I can go up and tell a story about my love for cake?!" Uriah pipes.

"Dumbass," Marlene replies. "He said not idiocy."

"Someone please sign up when Uriah goes who has a decent story. Something that will make them forget he ever got up on the wall in the pit to talk in the first place." Ian rolls his eyes.

Everyone laughs while Uriah pouts at the reply he got to his question.

"Tris," Ian looks to me. "What am I missing?"

I hate that he does this.
I'm not in charge, yet he looks to me when running this damn event.
It's his job, not mine.
Just because I am basically his secretary for the organizing of it doesn't mean I need to speak for him.

"Ambassador meeting is Thursday at three in the afternoon. Be there so we don't have to hunt you down."

"Oh, yeah. Take note of that." He replies.

"If you're interested in doing a presentation to possible transfers to the faction or one of the usual presentations on the employment of our faction or history or purpose as a group stop by my office sometime today or tomorrow so I can get your name down and all of that. He have time slots but only a few annual people running them and it would be good to have some new faces taking charge of them."

Ian looks at me and nods.

"That's all I got." I say.

"Hey Rick," Ian turns to the man who's office is across from mine. "Have we talked to the control room about mics and radios for next week."

"I can later tomorrow."

"Great. Get back to me on what we need."

Ian turns back to the group. "Any other comments or questions?"

About five hands shoot up at the idea to ask a question.

"Relating to the topic of visiting week." Ian says in a pissed off tone, knowing how his peers manipulate his statements.

All of the hands slowly go down and Ian shakes his head, rolling his eyes.

"Alright then. You know where to find me. We're done here."

As quickly as the walkway commenced it turns to disorder.

My fellow Ambassadors all run around in circles like the dumbasses they are, throwing random things and play fighting like usual.

Of course, somehow Indy finds his way into the hallway once it clears. He runs up to me when he finds me first, as if to check on me. He has his fading green ball in his mouth and is looking for a bored Ambassador to throw it for him.

I must say, he know where to go to get what he wants. He's a smart dog.

As the crowd of twelve ambassadors and a few dogs disperses, Amar finds his way to my office for the story time sign up.

"I've got you down Monday for the intro session starting at eight and Tuesday at eleven am for the employment jobs presentation." I lean on my crutches as I stand by my door.

I haven't been bringing even one crutch to work with me for a while, but my pain has been so bad lately that I feel I need both for support.

"Perfect." He flashes me a smile while writing his name on the sign up.

"How'd your scan go? Everything alright? I see you have the crutches out again."

"Everything's healing fine. My PT doctor would actually be mad at me if she knew I had both my crutches today. The pain just isn't letting up and they said it could take time."

"That sucks."

"It does."

"So, how did you end up being a shoe-in for this whole event?" He chuckles.

He knows me.
He knows I don't line the authority or power, along with having to tell people what to do and what to sign up for.
Amar is a person I trust.

"If I knew how I did, I would go back in time and slap myself."

He laughs, leaning against the wall opposite of the one I'm close to.

"You're good at it. Lord have mercy, Ian was bad at keeping things in order until he did ask you to help. You weren't around to see the first few visiting weeks he ran."

"I can only imagine." I smile lightly, this conversation exhausting me.

"Don't overwork yourself with this, Tris. You aren't in charge, and you look like you haven't slept. Is he depending on you for too much? I can tell him to get his shit together and do it himself if you need—"

Sometimes it's great having a support group of friends like Amar; friends who literally would die for me.
Sometimes it's frustrating.

"You get it. You're living here and genetically pure too. Amar, my pain is so bad that the only pain killers they can give me are serums, and because of the level of my pain my brain just tosses the medicine aside unless I'm completely unconscious. I'm not not sleeping because of this, this just gives me something to do when I'm up at night because I can't sleep because of this," I motion to my leg still in it's cast.

He gives me a sympathy smile, the exact reaction I didn't want.

"Just," I forget what I was going to say. "I don't know. It keeps my mind off things, and that's the only good thing about helping Ian out."

"It helps you out."

"Exactly."

We both are quiet for a minute, neither knowing exactly what to say.

"I see you're in your usual Friday spot," he motions to the sign up sheet.

"Same as always."

"What's the story this year?"

I laugh. "Every year you ask and every year I give you the same response."

"I don't know yet Amar," he says mocking me. "I'll figure it out before Thursday."

I laugh in response.

"What's your story this year."

"How I faked my death, or more or less, how Erudite faked my death and how I escaped to the Bureau."

"That's a good one."

"You should do yours, you know, the whole death thing. People seem to love it."

"Mine wasn't really taken place in Dauntless, yet alone Chicago..."

"I recall Ian saying anything is acceptable as long as it's not idiocy."

I'm quiet again, suddenly growing sour.

Amar knows I have memory loss.

"Yeah, once I remember how I died, maybe it'll be a great story."

He and I are quiet for a second and I feel guilty for getting irritated at him.

He's done so much for me over the years.

"Don't take this the wrong way. You've been acting so normal lately Tris, it's just, I'm sorry. It's easy to forget because I just can't imagine what it would be like to not remember something so huge."

"I'll tell you, it sucks to not know a core moment, yet alone multiple core moments in your life. Amar, I don't know who I am sometimes."

"Hey, Amar!" Someone calls from down the hall.

"I'm sorry. I'm just sleep deprived and pissy and—"

"Tris. You're fine. Just, do me a favor and don't stop fighting, okay?"

I nod. He turns and follows the sound of someone calling his name in the other section of the room.

"Oh, and Tris." He comes back just as I turn around.

"Yeah, Chicago's pain meds suck ass. Sorry, forgot to add that earlier."

I laugh at his sudden remembering, along with his terminology.

I hobble in my crutches back to my seat behind my desk.

Wincing, I lower myself into my seat, gripping my desk for support.

The pain in my leg is just borderline unbearable. I sit back in the chair and breathe heavily.

Why is this happening?

Why won't the pain just stop?

Have I not been punished enough?

I really don't know how much longer I can hang on.
I also know I have no other choice than to hang on.
Letting go is not an option.