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Like in the limo ride to drop off mymom.
Once it’s just the two of us, Tris looks at me from the other side of the limo. “You need adrink.”
I turn the award over in my hands. I want to tell him to mind his own damn business. Instead I buzz down the divider and bark out the name of a gritty place Ilike.
We get out at the bar and I follow my brother out of thelimo.
“Oh, we can’t leave this behind,” he says dryly, hoisting myaward.
Once inside, he orders us a booth, but I shake my head. “Let’s sit at thebar.”
I take the crystal statue from him and set it on the sticky bar before unfastening my tie with the otherhand.
I used to love this bar but now, taking in the faded wood and dingy surfaces, I can't fathomhow.
When our drinks are set in front of us, Tris says, “You know, for a moment, you looked like you owned everything in theworld.”
“The award doesn’t mean anything. Xavier all but said I won’t be succeedinghim.”
“That’s not what I meant.” His sharp tone has me looking up. “You looked like that when you danced withher.”
The words land like embers in my already stinginggut.
I kissed her, pretending it was for show, but it was because I couldn’t not kiss her. After, she wove her way through the dance floor, leaving my fucking heart bleeding out without knowing which of us tore itfirst.
“It wasn’t real, Tris. None of it was. We were supposed to be fooling the world. But the whole fucking time, she was foolingme.”
"What are you talkingabout?"
I stare him down over my glass and fill him in—on what happened then andnow.
“She lied.” I take a long drink that does little to soothe myanger.
“So did you. To yourself and toher.”
I glare at him. “That’s why I’ve kept my distance from this bullshit. I can take risks at the office because, at the end of the day, you pick yourself up and do better the next day. But when it’s your heart… you risk everything. Your life, your pride, yoursoul.”
Daisy put a hole in my chest tonight, and her admission is acid, corroding the edges every second I think ofit.
“I know how much it tore you up to watch Mom and Dad,” Tris weighs in. “But what you and Daisy have is different. If you don’t see it, you’re a bigger moron than Ithought.”
His dig glances off me. Nothing he can say could fuck me up more than I’m already fucked uptonight.
What could we havehad?
I play it out in my mind, a hundred snapshots of a thousand days. Waking up with her in my bed. Holding her when she’s upset. Spending weekends together traveling, taking a fucking vacation even. Laughing andjoking.
But it wouldn’t work. We’d eventually have a fight that couldn’t be solved with me insideher.
Something else would happen to bring up those emotions again, to make me feel helpless and angry and lost, and we’d end up the sameway.
Alone.
28
“Another battle down,”Camila says at myshoulder.
I force myself to smile. “This is quite the battlegear.”
