The Truth About Tris

Authors Note: Hi guys! This is only my second submission, so I hope you enjoy it:) This prompt intruiged me, and, though it's not my best work, I like the result. Please comment below anything I should change, I would love to have your feedback, I really need it 😁

THE TRUTH ABOUT TRIS

"Trista? Trista! Are you even paying attention?"

Trista William glanced up from her sketch paper, and truthfully answered, "No."

Her teacher, Mrs. Burns, groaned. "Trista, you have to listen if your going to get good grades."

Trista didn't say anything. Nothing else needed to be said. After all, if she even tried to open her mouth, every thought she'd been thinking that moment would've spilled out of her mouth, and her classmates would be able to read her like a book. Not that they couldn't currently-Trista wasn't very good at hiding her thoughts.

Instead, she turned off her camera, and went back to sketching.

She could hear her teacher's frustrated groans, and started to draw Mrs. Burns getting really angry, and she drew everything about her teacher oversized...her belly, her nose, everything. It turned out to be quite a funny picture.

Until a student asked what she was doing. She obediently turned on her camera, and showed 32 students and one furious teacher her drawing. Because there are no exceptions in telling people everything, that's why.

Detention #1 was scheduled for the next afternoon.

*THE NEXT DAY*

Another day, another Zoom meeting for school. As usual. Trista logged on, and then clicked on the tab next to her meet, a chatting website, where her and her friends "talked". It was a fun pastime for them, chatting about guys and new students at their school, ...and rude pictures of teachers drawn by Trista. No matter the subject, they chatted.

Mostly. Trista tried to stay silent: opening her mouth was like turning on a faucet...things would just pour out.

Her friends were well aware of this, and therefore anytime Trista came online to chat, they would bombard her with questions about crushes and thoughts, drawings and secrets. A "typing" signal popped up on Trista's screen, and then a message:

SILENTCRITTER SAYS:

Hey Tris:) Do u have a crush on Mark? No lying 😂

As if. Trista could never lie. She also couldn't keep her fat mouth shut by herself, so she bit down on it with her teeth. She wouldn't answer.

Unfortunately, her mouth wasn't the problem this time. Already, her hands were typing, and nothing could be kept secret.

TRIS TA SAYS:

Yeah

*TWO DAYS LATER*

Trista was a problem child from the beginning. Any secret thing her family said at the dinner table and any whisper from her siblings had to be told. No detail was to small. The doctor said that she had a "Serious Conciense" and that she felt bad if she didn't tell someone everything she had done or heard. He said that maybe if she learned how to behave better, than she wouldn't have to tell things like that. He suggested disciplines if she stepped out of line, and talks with her parents if she continued when she got older. "It should cycle out," He'd explained to her worried parents. "It's probably just temporary."

That wasn't true, though. It was permanent, unless Trista herself could break her own cycle. Telling people things was something she couldn't stop, no matter what. So-and-so likes who now? Spilled to the nearest person around. That friend vandalized where? Told to the nearest police officer.

Eventually people just stopped telling her things.

And Trista stopped asking people for information. After all, anything she knew would go into her brain and out of her mouth.

Cue the new girl moving down the street into that abandoned house. Of course. A person who was just brimming with important facts that no one else could know.

*THE NEXT MONTH*

If it could be stopped, it would be. But Trista's words kept running. They couldn't, wouldn't be stopped.

And so, clearly, the new girl had to have told her things. Things about her family, how they were illegal immigrants, and about how they had gotten all the way to Trista's neighborhood, and no one could know. Tris symapthized with this. She didn't want the new girl to go to jail, to have to suffer and experience any more pain than she already had! Trista swore an oath, on everything she owned, on anything she could even THINK of, that she wouldn't tell a soul.

The new girl chose the wrong person to confess to.

Not long later, Trista found herself at a keyboard. The keyboard of a computer. She opened it, and slowly started to type...to type things that she wasn't sure about, things that maybe she didn't want to say. Things that would break promises, that would break friendships, all in response to a short question on a chatting website.

SILENTCRITTER SAYS:

Anyone got any juicy secrets? I’m boooorrrreeeddd🥺

*MERE SECONDS LATER*

There are no exceptions in the world of truth-telling. You tell someone everything you know. And you can't break the cycle, no matter how much you want too.

Trista wasn't a gossip. She hated telling the truth, always. And she had to tell the whole story, every detail included. There was no one on earth who wanted to break the cycle more than her.

But what's a cycle if it's broken?

Can a cycle be broken like that, without consquence? Probably not. And so a response was sent. Every little detail...

The thing about oath's...them and cycles, they're kind of alike. Neither one can be broken without consequence. They just have to weigh each other out, in a way. Which is more important, an oath on friendship, or a cycle? Which deserves to end?

No matter how much cycles can keep us alive, humans are...only human. No more. We do not care for many cycles, be it life, or truth-telling.

But we do care for friends. Friends and oaths.

TRIS TA SAYS:

No.