Page 29 of Our Forever Starts Tonight

Taylor shook his head. “You always have a choice, Tris. It’s just a matter of what’s important to you. Obviously Aria isn’t.”

“Aria means a lot to me,” I said. “But my friends do too.”

Taylor and I went around and around in circles for longer than I was happy with. For every argument I posed, he posed an opposite one, and it felt like neither of us was going to give ground. Eventually, we ended up just sitting in silence again, and I could tell I’d lost Taylor’s respect even further for trying to argue that I had done the right thing in the moment. I probably should have just admitted defeat.

Or maybe I should have just stayed quiet.

Eventually, we got to the place I most dreaded to visit, our city’s penitentiary. Taylor turned in and I felt my stomach give out. If I never had to visit the place again, I wouldn’t, but I understood the importance of it and went along with Taylor once a month. This month, however, I agreed to go twice, once for our regular visit and once for my birthday.

It was the only way I ever remember seeing my mom.

By this point, Taylor and I had the routine memorized. We left all of our important items apart from my keys in the car, and both of us had been intentional about wearing articles of clothes with little or no metal. We walked inside, collected our visitor’s passes, and went to stand by the metal detector where a guard eventually came to get us and usher us through.

After the amount of time my mom had served, she’d been moved down to a minimum security prison that allowed for visits most days of the week, and at a table where we could actually sit with her and even touch her if we wanted, though it was generally forbidden. We were allowed a couple of hugs without the guards getting too angry, which was a far cry from when she was in maximum security. There we could only talk to her via a phone and we could barely see her on the other side of multi-inch thick, foggy plexiglass.

“My boys!” We heard my mom’s voice before we saw her. We looked over and a guard had opened the door to the visitor’s room. My mom came walking through. She waved with a wide, bright smile. “Or should I say my adult men!”

Taylor and I stood up as my mom walked over, both of us tucking away our earlier argument for her benefit. We’d both gotten our dad’s dark hair and eyes, but my mom had long, frizzy blond hair that had grown even longer in the years she’d been locked up. Her eyes were a golden color, and sparkled more and more with each visit. When we first started to visit her around ten years ago, she was emaciated, but getting clean and healthy behind bars had helped her pack on a little bit of weight. It looked good on her. She looked happy.

Hopefully another ten years would only continue to help her.

“Hey mom,” Taylor said, holding out his arms. My mom walked into them.

She gave a quick hug at first, but then one of the guards called over, “Go ahead, Diane. It’s your boy’s birthday, right?”

My mom smiled. “Yes, it is. Not this one though.” She gave Taylor a firmer hug still, since she had permission, then she turned to me. She set her hands on my face and gave me a bright, warm smile. “Tristan is eighteen now. A young man. Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

“Thanks mom,” I said, relenting when she pulled me in for a big bear hug.

“Oh, I wish that things were different so I could celebrate with you in a better way. It’s your birthday and you’re spending part of it in a prison. Some mother I am,” she said.

I shook my head as I pulled back. “It’s okay. I’m just glad I got to see you.”

It was only partially a lie. I never liked visiting the prison, but it did make me happy to see my mom and to witness for myself that she was doing better. We sat and Taylor engaged her in conversation as he normally did. They were much closer than I was. I was still fairly young when she got arrested for bingeing on drugs and attempting to kidnap us. I most remembered the woman I’d seen behind bars.

I never would have made it through all of that if it weren’t for Aria. When all those kids were making fun of me, Aria stood up for me. When one of them pulled out a sharp stick and scratched me, simply because he knew I couldn’t defend myself, Aria went toe to toe with him, tussling until they were both covered in dirt and Aria’s dad had to come drag her off. All the bullying pretty much came to a stop after that, because a lot of the kids feared Aria’s strength and headstrong attitude.

She was truly my hero.

Taylor tapped into his almost supernatural ability to read my mind when we got back into the car. He didn’t start it up, but just looked at me with that sad, disappointed expression. “You were thinking about her?”

I nodded. “She saved me back when all this shit went down. I probably wouldn’t have made it honestly.”

“It would have been so much easier for her to leave you to the wolves, but she risked herself to stand up for you. When you had the chance to do the same, you didn’t.” A lump of emotions rose to my throat as I looked at Taylor. “You need to think long and hard about the kind of person that makes you, and if you don’t want to be that person, then something has got to give.”

11

Aria

After an incredibly restless night, my alarm went off, coaxing me out of sleep just a little before noon. My stomach growled almost as soon as I opened my eyes, but I ignored it because lunch wasn’t too far off. I peeled my eyes open and just sat staring at the ceiling. Hazelnut was laying in my bed as she always was, though curled much closer to my face than normal. She’d unexpectedly spent the night consoling me. In a strange way, I felt like she knew how I was feeling. They say that dogs can sense strong emotions, and the way Hazelnut stuck extra close to me, showering me in kisses and distracting me by turning up her belly and begging me to play with her, I was willing to believe it.

I petted her head to let her know I was about to move, then I dragged myself out of bed. Part of me just wanted to stay in bed and lock myself away. But following the plans that Arden and I had loosely made before I left the party, I made a formal plan between her, myself, and Lucky. She was clearly going to be my closest friend at my new school, so I figured I should introduce her to my best friend from my old one.

The idea of spending time with my closest friends was enough of a promise to improve my mood that I was able to shower and get dressed without issue, then I went downstairs so that my mom could start her motherly duty of checking on me to the point that it made me sad all over again.

“Good morning, sweetheart. Or afternoon I suppose,” my mom said with a smile. She was working on her laptop at the kitchen nook. “Do you want me to fix you something to eat?”

“No. I’m meeting up with Arden and Lucky for lunch today,” I said. “Thanks though.”

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