Chapter Text
My mother slowly cuts strands of deep brown from my head.I shiver a bit from the cold; it has snowed. I would have been playing in it, if I was from a different faction. But here in abnegation, I am only selfless, and try not to be selfish, give our coat to cold strangers, I recall my mother saying when I was little. I gave my coat to a little factionless boy, he was so happy, and I was so cold. I think that if I was alone, I would have kept my coat. But I am not sure. I am never sure. I doubt that it would do me good to stay here, but would it? I am not as selfless as my mother. I could never be.
As she finishes, she pats my back and lifts my chin towards the mirror. I wince at my reflection. I see my messy hair, it is as curly as ever. I frown, I hate my hair color, if only it could be blonde… My father knocks at the door and calls over my mother. She sets the brush down, and closes the case over the mirror. She takes out a small key and locks the door. She kisses my head, “Please get dressed, Charlotte.” She whispers in my ear. Then stands up to leave. I look over at my outfit, a dull grey shirt, with dull grey pants and black flats. I frown. I hate how strict our clothes are. I only get to wear black flats when I am going to a formal place. “Charlotte! Breakfast! Please hurry!” My father yelled. I rolled my eyes. I hated that I did not have very much me-time, but my father says me-time is selfish, and he tells us not to be selfish. Nickolas is most likely downstairs waiting for me. I throw on my clothes and put on my dull grey sweater. I hate my snow boots, they are not warm enough, but I throw them on anyway.
As I get to the kitchen table, everyone is dressed, and looking at me. I blush. “Sorry, for wasting your time.” I mumble. My father looks at me, with his deep green eyes, he looks a bit annoyed. My mother's are sky blue; mine are too. Nickolas has turquoise eyes. He looks at me when I sit down. We are all quiet as we all ate our breakfast. My mother cleared her throat and smiled, “Well, I am sure that you both are excited for the choosing. Yes?” Nicholas smiled and nodded his head, as he chewed on his omelet. My mother pauses, and looks at me, “What about you Charlotte?” I almost choke on my omelet. I swallowed harshly and grabbed my water, to start gulping it down. “Charlotte? Are you going to answer me?” My mother's voice was kind, and calm, but in an eerie way.I look into her sky blue eyes, and admire their beauty. “Yes.” I lie, “I am very excited.”
My mind flashes to yesterday. The horrid tests, and the man who did it. He looked at me with hard grey eyes. And he told me one word. Divergent . The word haunted me. “What is that?” I asked him, “which faction?”
He shrugged and said, “Abnegation, or erudite, or even Amity. You are open to any of them. But really, you just got abnegation. Do not EVER tell anyone about this test, no one, I don’t care who they are, just please don’t.”
I promised him.
He smiled at me, and whispered, “I promise not to tell anyone ethire. I’ll just say that you got abnegation.” He put his hands on his hips, “Now please go, I have to go to the next person.” He winked as he opened the door.
My mind flashes back to the present. My mother smiled at me. “I am glad that you are not scared.”
No. Not scared, Im not even terrified or horrified. I was frozen. I manage to smile back at her. I felt terrible, for lying to her. But the man told me that I could not tell anyone. I shook away the feeling. I smiled at my mother. I wanted to tell them so badly, but I kept quiet. I would not tell them, because who knows how they would react.
We finished up breakfast and walked out the door. Divergent. Divergent you're a Divergent was hissed over and over in my mind. I tried to shake off the feeling, but I was not able to. My heart started to go faster and faster. We reached the Hub-a large glass building, that euriodite runs- and Michael opened the door for us. Michael is one of my father’s friends. We each said thank you, but me. He looked in my eyes, and he frowned at me and glanced at my father. “Thank you.” I ended up muttering, and hoping that he does not tell my mother of my bad behavior.
We were going to take the elevator, but the Candor beat us to it. So we took all fifty flights of stairs. I was panting after just ten. Forty five more to go . I thought. It is a good thing that we were an hour earlier than anyone else. I looked out the windows to see dauntless. They were running on a small wire line.
I gasped, a girl with black hair slipped, but a boy with pale skin and red hair grabbed her hand, along with a boy with dark red hair, who had at least twenty piercings. Her face instantly turned red, As she blushed. I smiled. I had just figured out which faction that I wanted to be in, Dauntless.
We had finally got to the top, along with all of the other factions. We had to stand in alphabetical order.
I was behind Nickolas, because in families, the oldest had to go first. I waited impatiently as the first person, an Amity girl chose amity, the tenth person a erudite girl, chose amity. Amity clapped for her. She looked so happy. But Erudite, said nothing, and had looks of disgust on their faces.
Twenty more till us. Ten more till us. Seven more till us. Four more till us. Two more till me . Nickolas was next.
He smiled proudly, and whispered in my ear, “Pick the right one for our family… please.” Then he walked up, and cut his hand, and let his blood fall on the clear glass. ERUDITE?!?!?!?
I gasped, and so did all of the abnegation members. I could not believe he betrayed us, then I looked at his bag, there were books peaking out of it, as he greeted his new faction.
This has never EVER happened in the history of the factions.
Everyone is silent as they watch my brother, Nickolas, walk to his seat, and sit down.
Then I heard it, “Charlotte Lawrence” I could not breath, I was frozen, and I could hardly breath. But somehow, I was able to walk over there, and grab the dagger. My heart pounded as I cut my hand, I held it over abnegation, but then thought of Dauntless, how they are brave, and selfless, I would rather be selfless about saving others than helping others, but in a way you are doing the same as abnegation, but you also… before I made my decision, my blood hit the Dauntless bowl.
Great. Now I made a choice that no one else, in the history of factions has ever done, either.
The crowd was silent for a moment.
A deafening cheer erupted from dauntless. Maybe they were proud of my bravery.
As I walked over there, shocked that I had been stupid enough to not pay attention to my blood, they hooted and hollered. The came and greeted me with pats on the back and hand shakes. I smiled back at them.
But as I turn around, I see my father's sad face, and my mother met my eyes for a second, only to look away.