AN: Well, my readers... it's been an interesting year. I've deleted more stories than posted, and for that I make no apologies. 'The First' was removed because I finally pierced the Gordian Knot: it can't be written in the scope that I picture in my head, not yet at least. It is still percolating in the back of my mind. Perhaps, it will be written one day, or maybe not.
I've been working on my original story, and in that, I've had more success. It's plodding along, bit by bit. My hope is to publish it before the end of next year. I will be updating this in the mean while, as I plot out my ideas.
With that, I give you this: 'Brave and Honest'. This is not a fix with yet another Divergent deflecting from their faction. Instead, read my summary, and follow me on this journey.
It was a typical day for the Abnegation dependent. She had walked with her younger brother to attend school. During her lessons, she paid attention carefully and took notes to show respect to her instructors, while in her heart, she could care less about Faction History or Mathematics. During the lunch hour, she did as was expected, and silently ate around her fellow Abnegation dependents. When school was completed and after she had seen her brother home safely, she walked among the factionless with bread and water from her bag, offering them what she could. When she was finished, she had prepared dinner for the family before her father arrived home from the Council, expecting food on the table. When her father spoke during the dimly lit meal, she listened in silence while making sure that her brother ate well, before cleaning up for the night and ensuring that her brother completed his homework alongside her. When the clock gently chimed after sunset, it was time for bed. Tomorrow was another day: the same as always.
Sarah Eaton, on this day after her sixteenth birthday, lamented that she had found the method of losing herself in her tasks long ago: it was to make herself so small, a seed within her mind and heart. When she made herself into that blank canvas, she could move forward in her ascribed tasks. Most days, she was no one as she worked alongside the full members of her family's faction.
It was better to be no one, to feel nothing, to be nothing, than to be herself. When she was no one, she no longer mattered. She did not have to feel the bruises on her back and legs, or the scars on her arms. She was away from this place, from these people, at least in the smallest corner of her mind. The rest of her automatically took up the tasks around her without asking... how selfless she portrayed herself to be towards others. If she were to behave like her true self, she would have been exiled from the faction long ago, leaving her brother defenceless. She could not protect him if she were factionless.
She turned in bed and stared up at the ceiling. She found herself unable to sleep, her mind refusing to shut down. Her most recent set of bruises were painting her back with broad strokes of agony, detailing her legs with thin stripes of bloodied heat. Her father was angry once more, trying to improve her behaviour into that of the perfect Abnegation member. The ugly truth of the matter was that he was succeeding... Bit by bit, what made her Sarah was eroding away from the lashes, the careless severity of his diatribes, and his cold black eyes. As he continued doing this, she could guarantee that Sarah would be no more by the beginning of winter. He would not get that chance, though.
Quietly, she slipped out of bed and pulled a bundle out from under her bed before climbing out her window. It was chilly in the night air, so she donned her jacket. It was a short distance to the roof, and she no longer needed the rope that she had used as a child to make the ascent. Instead, she simply pulled herself up using her arms.
Tucking her formless grey gown under her legs as she sat on the roof, Sarah looked up to the far off pinpricks of starlight as she reached for the bundle. Her sketchbook fell out of the rumpled fabric as she shook it loose and wrapped the blanket around her covered shoulders. Flipping open to a fresh page, she began to slowly sketch the stars above.
This was her safe place, her haven. Here, she could reclaim what bits of herself had not been stripped away with the belt and the back of Marcus' hand. Her father had not discovered it yet, and she had not told young Tobias: her twelve-year old brother was incapable of keeping a secret, and she would never ask that of him. The night was safe: cold, unyielding, dark. She was not afraid of the dark, not when her father used to lock her in her closet when 'she was misbehaving'. It could have been as small an infraction as being late at curfew, or missing a vegetable on her plate. After her mother died, she received beatings for every infraction that she and Tobias accrued in his eyes.
She had to endure her beatings as Tobias was locked away in the closet, trying her best not to scream or cry. She prayed to her father's nameless god as she lost herself beneath the lash of his belt. It was not always for her infractions that she was punished. She would place herself between her father and Tobias every time. She was completely selfless in that regard: her 'blessed' father, in the eyes of the Abnegation, would never lay a finger on Tobias if she stood between them and took the beatings.
How many times had her father commanded her to read aloud the manifesto of his faction? Thinking that if she spoke it enough, then the words would sink into her bones and change her stature to head bowed, quiet eyes, vulnerable girl. She was not. She could not be Abnegation, despite her rigorous training and conditioning.
Sarah thought back to her mother, Evelyn. She mourned that she could not remember what her mother looked like, past the serene face and gentle eyes that Sarah painted on her face through the naive eyes of a child. Marcus had forbidden Tobias and her to mention her name anymore under the roof, for it would have been selfish to hold on to her memory instead of letting her go. It had been six years since she had died, since they had attended her funeral. It had been raining that day. She had bowed her head during the burial, to hide the bruises that her father had bestowed on her when he discovered her crying in her room.
No one knew, of course, that Marcus abused her so. Not even Andrew Prior, the second-in-command on the Council, had an inkling. Marcus had perfected the ability of two-facedness: the selfless leader of the Abnegation, and the blank-faced man that belted his daughter and locked away his son. If they did, they never spoke up: it would be selfish to think that they could raise children better. No… better to submit to others, to bear their burdens along with your own. As a person, you don't matter, for you don't exist.
Her aptitude test was tomorrow. Mere days after her birthday, she was expected to make one of the biggest choices of her life. She would be expected to choose the faction that she would remain in for the rest of her life, to remain or to defect. Sarah knew this for certain: she was not Abnegation, no matter how hard her father beat her.
A tear crawled down her face, and Sarah hurriedly wiped it away. Her father was a heavy sleeper, but the fear that she could wake him with her quiet tears nonetheless drove her into the expected submission.
But… soon she would not be in Abnegation. Soon, she would be free from him. Her only regret would be that she would have to leave Tobias behind, to bear their father's wrath. Tobias knew what Marcus was, even if the rest of their faction refused to believe it. They alone knew the truth.
Sarah raised her eyes to the sky, closing her notebook and tucking it away. The cold air struck at her skin as she stood and whispered to the unblinking stars. "I make my own choices. I serve those around me, because I choose to. I will never forget them, but I will never forget myself. I rely on myself, until I can trust my brothers and sisters. I will not disappear."
As she climbed off the roof and back into her room, for the first time in a long time, Sarah smiled. In her selfishness, she would find freedom, and the regrets that came with it. She could only hope that Tobias would forgive her for deflecting, regardless of what her test results were.