Chapter Text
THERE IS ONE mirror in my house. It is behind a sliding panel in the hallway upstairs. Our faction allows me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month, the day my mom cuts my hair.
I sit on the stool and my mother stands behind me with the scissors, trimming. The strands fall on the floor in dark rings.
When she finishes, she pulls my hair away from my face and ties it into a neat knot. While she is distracted with my hair, I take a glance at the mirror, where I can see how calm she looks and how focused she is. She is well-practiced in the art of losing herself. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for myself.
I trail my eyes down to look at my reflection, not for the sake of vanity but out of curiosity. A lot can happen to a person’s appearance in three months. In my reflection, I see a pale face, wide, round eyes, and a small thin nose–I still look like a little girl with my baby fat, though I did turn sixteen a couple of months ago. The other factions celebrate their birthdays, but we don’t. It would be self-indulgent.
“There,” she says once she pins the knot in place. Her eyes catch mine in the mirror. It is too late to look away, but instead of reprimanding me, she smiles at our reflection. I frown a little. Why isn’t she scolding me for staring at myself?
“So, today is the day.” She says softly.
“Yes,” I reply, fidgeting with my hands.
“Are you nervous?”
I stare into my eyes for a moment. Today is the day of the aptitude test that will tell me which of the five factions I belong in. And tomorrow, at the Choosing Ceremony, I will decide on a faction; I will decide the rest of my life; I will decide to stay with my family or abandon them.
“No,” I finally say. “The tests don’t have to change our choices.”
“Right,” she says as she presses a kiss to my temple. “Now, let’s go get breakfast.”
“Thank you,” I smile at her. “For cutting my hair.”
She kisses my cheek once more and then slides the panel back over the mirror. My mother was originally from Erudite, a place where she didn’t have to hide how beautiful she was. And my mother was a beautiful woman. Her body is thin beneath her gray robes. She has high cheekbones and long eyelashes framing her pretty light colored eyes. And her hair is dark, and at night when she lets her hair down, it falls like waves over her shoulders. But she must hide her beauty in Abnegation.
We walked together to the kitchen. On these mornings, when my mother makes breakfast and my father sets the table, we eat together happily—it is on these days I feel the guiltiest for wanting to leave them.
I meet up with my best friend, Beatrice, and her older brother, Caleb as we normally ride the bus together. The bus stinks of exhaust. Every time it hits a patch of uneven pavement, it jostles Beatrice and I from side to side, even though we’re both gripping our seats to keep us still.
Caleb stands in the aisle, holding a railing above his head to keep himself steady. Neither him or Beatrice look alike. Beatrice had a narrow face, a long, thin nose, and wide eyes. Caleb had dark hair, a hooked nose, green eyes and dimpled cheeks. When we were younger, Caleb had looked strange but now his features suit him. I’m sure if he wasn’t Abnegation, the girls at school would stare at him.
Caleb is also much more selfless than both me and Beatrice. He gave up his seat to a surly looking Candor man on the bus without a second thought.
The Candor man wears a black suit with a white tie—Candor standard uniform. Their faction values honesty and sees the truth as black and white, so that is what they wear.
The gaps between the buildings began to narrow and the roads are smoother as we near the heart of the city. The building that was once called the Sears Towers—we call it the Hub—emerges from the fog, a black pillar in the skyline. The bus passes under the elevated tracks. I have never been on a train, though they never stop running and there are tracks everywhere. Only the Dauntless ride them.
Five years ago, volunteer construction workers from Abnegation repaved some of the roads. They started in the middle of the city and worked their way outwards until they ran out of materials. The roads where I live are still cracked and patchy, and it’s not safe to drive on them. I ride the bus with Beatrice and Caleb anyway.
Caleb’s expression is placid as the bus sways and jolts on the road. The gray robe falls from his arm as he clutches a pole for balance. By the constant shifting in his eyes, I can tell he is watching the people around us—striving to see only them and forget himself. Candor values honesty, but our faction, Abnegation, values selflessness.
The bus stops in front of the school and I get up, scooting past Beatrice and the Candor man. Beatrice grabs my arm when she stumbles over the man’s shoes. Her slacks are a bit too long but Beatrice has also never been that graceful.
The Upper Levels building is the oldest of the three schools in the city: Lower Levels, Mid-Levels, and Upper Levels. Like all the other buildings around it, it is made of glass and steel. In front of it is a large metal sculpture that the Dauntless climb after school, daring each other to go higher and higher. Last year Beatrice and I watched one of them fall and break her leg. I was the one that sent Beatrice to go get a nurse while I sat with the Dauntless girl and waited.
“Aptitude test today.” Beatrice breaks the silence. Caleb is not quite a year older than us, so we are in the same year at school.
I watch as he nods as we pass through the front doors. I feel the nerves in my stomach coil uncomfortably the second we walk in. The atmosphere feels hungry, like every sixteen-year old is trying to devour as much as they can get off this last day. It is extremely likely that we will not walk these halls again after the Choosing Ceremony—once we choose, our new factions will be responsible for finishing our education.
Our classes are cut in half today, so we will attend all of them before the aptitude tests, which take place after lunch. My heart rate is already elevated.
“You aren’t at all worried about what they’ll tell you?” I ask Caleb, tilting my head as I bite my lower lip.
The three of us pause at the split in the hallway where he will go one way, toward Advanced Math, and we will go the other, toward Faction History.
He raised his brow at us. “Are you?”
I bite my lip as I share a look with Beatrice, we’ve both confided in each other our worries about what the tests will tell us—Abnegation, Candor, Erudite, Amity, or Dauntless?
I watch as Beatrice smiles and shakes her head. “Not really.”
He smiles back. “Well…have a good day.”
Beatrice and I walk towards Faction History, I look behind me where I see Caleb disappear behind a corner. He never answered the question.
“Are you nervous?” Beatrice turns to look at me, anxiety brews in her eyes.
The hallways are cramped, though the light coming through the windows creates an illusion of space; they are one of the only places where the factions mix at our age. Today the crowd has a new kind of energy, a last day mania.
“Just a bit,” I answer honestly, Beatrice and I never hide anything from each other so there’s no point denying how I’m truly feeling. “I’m scared of what they’d tell me, what if they tell me I have to leave everything I’ve ever known behind?”
Before Beatrice can answer, a girl with long curly hair shouts “Hey!” next to my ear, waving at a distant friend, her jacket sleeve smacks me on the cheek. A boy from Erudite wearing a blue sweater shoves Beatrice, she stumbles and loses balance, falling hard on the ground.
“Out of my way, Stiff!” He snapped, and continued down the hallway.
I reach down and help Beatrice up, curling my lips into a scowl as everyone watches us but no one helps. “What jerks.” I mutter, looking over Beatrice and making sure she’s all right. “Are you okay?”
Beatrice huffs and smooths out her gray skirt. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you? Your cheek is red.”
My cheek did sting a little, I think that girl had a button or something, it hurt a bit more than a normal sleeve would. “Yeah, it just stings a little. Sometimes, it’s things like this that makes me want to leave a little more.”
“Tell me about it.” Beatrice murmurs, casting her eyes down to avoid the eyes of everyone around her. Not for selflessness but for self-preservation. We can’t see you, you can’t see us.
“Nothing is ever going to change,” I say as we continue our walk. “The Erudite have been releasing reports about us for years.”
The gray clothes, the plain hairstyles, and the unassuming demeanor of our faction are supposed to make it easier for us to forget ourselves, and for others to forget us too. But now they make us a target.
We pause by a window in the E Wing and wait for the Dauntless to arrive. We do this every morning. At exactly 7:25, the Dauntless prove their bravery by jumping from a moving train.
Mr. Prior calls the Dauntless “hellions.” They are pierced, tattooed, and black-clothed. Their primary purpose is to guard the fence that surrounds our city. From what, I don’t know. My father used to be a Dauntless, a real disappointment when he transferred.
My eyes cling to them wherever they go. I wonder what a metal ring through the nostril has to do with courage—which is a virtue they most value.
The train whistle blares, the sound resonating in my chest. The light fixed to the front of the train clicks on and off as the train hurtles past the school, squealing on iron rails. And as the last few cars pass, a mass exodus of young men and women in dark clothing hurl themselves from the moving cars, some dropping and rolling, others stumbling a few steps before regaining their balance. One of the boys wraps his arm around a girl’s shoulders, laughing.
Watching them is a foolish practice. I turn away from the window and towards Beatrice, I grab her arm and I give her a gentle tug. “Come on, Bea. We have to go.” We press through the crowd to the Faction History classroom.