Free Rein

|Chapter Twenty-Three|

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Tobias:
-London, England-

Tris:
-Holyhead, England-
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Tris was on her way to Holyhead.

It was a three hour train ride, and the only word that spun through her head was Lies.

One lie is enough to question all truths.

Tris had no room to talk though. She lied all the time. But it was only to herself. She told herself she wouldn't get into KCL because she wasn't smart enough. She told herself she wasn't ever pretty enough. She told herself she could trust Tobias.

But out of all the lies... "I love him" was her favorite. She thought that maybe—just maybe—that she could love him. She thought they could have something. Something worth fighting for.

Maybe she wasn't worth fighting for. Maybe she was just... Tris. The girl who escaped her chains and took a risk for once in her life. The girl who had her first kiss at eighteen because her boyfriends were too scared to kiss her because of her mother.

No, she thought. I'm the girl that jumped off of a bridge. I'm the girl that everyone adores. I'm the girl that got accepted into one of the best colleges in the world.

Because I am worth fighting for.

For her, being a coward was simply not an option. Being called a coward was like being stabbed in the heart. She was not a coward, and she knew it. She was brave because she faced her fears, and she knew just how to do it. She was brave, and it didn't matter what Tobias thought. It didn't matter what anybody thought of her. She was who she was, and no one could change that. No one could that fact that she was brave and that she was the girl she wished she was when she was little.

When she was a little girl—five, maybe six—her mother asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up. Mrs. Prior expected an answer like, "Be a unicorn" or "Be a cowgirl" or the ultra-cliché "Be a princess." Instead of any of those, Tris said she wanted to be brave. Not a doctor, or an astronaut. Not even a rockstar.

She simply wanted to be brave. And Tris still lived by that dream. Even though she was terrified she wouldn't get accepted into KCL, she sent her application anyway. And look how rewarding it was.

She smiled to herself about her acceptance into her dream college. It seemed like all of her dreams were coming true.

Except her prince charming turned out to be the bad guy. The bad guy that had to pretend to be nice to get close to her, watch over her. Then, along the way, he'd fall in love with her. Accidentally of course. Then the bad guy would change his ways to be with the girl, and she'd be hesitant at first, but then she'd become more open to the idea. They'd run away together, live in a place where no one could find them. Maybe a small, British village where everyone knew everyone. Where everyone was nice to each other.

Oh how Tris yearned for that. She wanted to have a normal life, not a high-class one. She wanted to live in London and she wanted to get married and she wanted to have kids and she wanted to just be normal. That was all she asked for. Was to be normal. She didn't want to be normal like a normal girl. She knew her personality was weird, and she loved it. She meant normal as in a normal house. Definitely not a white one. Normal people living in it. Definitely not any politicians. Normal family. Definitely not any bodyguards.

And what she wouldn't give to live in a normal home.

With her mother as governor of Illinois for eight years and her mother in office for seven years (so far), all she ever knew was attention because of her mother. She was just three when her mother was elected governor, and only eleven when her mom was elected president. Tris was used to people knowing her face.

She saw in the fake magazines and newspapers that Tris was supposedly getting married to her boyfriend from Sidwell, her school. He had been walking Tris to her special car to be taken home, and that day she'd accidentally worn one of her rings on her left ring finger.

Later that week, her mother asked her if it was true. Tris was shocked she'd even ask, but of course she said no.

Another example would be the magazines saying Tris had the lowest IQ of every student at Sidwell Academy. That, of which, was actually pretty incredulous of them to say considering Tris was really quite brilliant. She had her acceptance letter to KCL to prove it, too.

One thing the magazines had actually gotten spot on was photography. They'd said that she was studying to be a photographer. Technically that wasn't true because she wasn't studying to be one, buy they were correct to assume she liked photography. When her mother and father asked if it was true, she's automatically declined. Tris knew they had this crazy dream that Tris and Caleb would grow up to be a legacy in politics and their family name would last in history.

Tris always thought that idea was ridiculous. I mean, what were the odds they'd actually please their parents? That rarely happened.

She was becoming so numb with all of their phrases like, "One day when you're in here you'll understand" and "You'll know all I know when you're elected." They said these things to both Tris and Caleb, and Caleb hated it as much as Tris did. Tris felt like she would disappoint them when she went to college.

But she was tired of being what they wanted her to be. She was so lost without photography, and if her parents held her back, she'd be stranded. They didn't understand what it was like to have so much pressure on them to follow in their parents' shoes, so they could never relate even if Tris or Caleb did talk to them. She felt like every step she'd take at KCL would be another mistake to them. They couldn't see that they were absolutely smothering her with all of these innuendos about her and Caleb being in office. Tris could tell, too, that they were so afraid of losing control over them once they'd go on to college; they were holding too tightly because everything that they thought they would be was falling apart right in front of them.

Tris wondered if they even paid close enough attention to notice her love for photography. She wondered if they paid close enough attention to notice Caleb's love for writing. She wondered if they even cared about what they wanted in life. She wondered if they noticed them at all.

Tris wondered... She wondered, and wondered, and wondered, but she couldn't come up with an answer that didn't have the letters "N" and "O."

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