I'll be your family now," he says. "I love you," I say. (....)He stares at me. I wait with my hands clutching his arms for stability as he considers his response. He frowns at me. "Say it again.""Tobias," I say, "I love you.

Scrubbing the floor when no one else wanted to was something that my mother would have done. If I can't be with her, the least I can do is act like her sometimes.

I confessed to Tobias, soon after that, that I had lost my entire family.And he assured me that he was my family now. -Tris Prior

Hearing him talk about his mother, about his intact family, makes my chest hurt for a second, like someone pierced it with a needle.

Yes, I say. Three of these flying birds. I touch my collarbone, marking the path of their flight-toward my heart. One for each member of the family I left behind.