"Honestly, Mia!" My mother sighed as she threw my report card back onto the kitchen counter. "You spend hours in your room studying every night! Why on Earth are you coming home with so many low grades? You are Erudite. Math and Science should be your best classes, but your grades show that they are the worst!" She yelled the last part in my face, her spit hitting my forehead.

"Mother, I am just not good," she cut me off.

"Exactly." She said. You could cut the tension with a knife. Or a fist. Her hand cut the air between us and landed on my cheek. I winced at the blow, but otherwise made no movement. Even at the age of eleven I was as stubborn as a mule. Back then I was actually better at math and science, now I am even worse. It has been exactly five years since this first incident. History is repeating itself. I am jolted from my thoughts as I feel a stinging on my face.

"How do you expect to get through your initiation? You need these skills to survive in Erudite Mia!" She yells in my face. Her brown eyes filled with anger and disappointment. I take a deep breath to try to stop myself from replying, but she then moves from the slap to a punch. I hold my now throbbing arm.

"Why do you think that I am going to be a member of Erudite, mother? I do not belong here! You can see that, it is so obvious! Why do you not accept it?" I asked her, my voice monotonous. She paces in front of me. A hand running through her hair. She is pissed. I swallow hard and put on my normal facade. My mother is seething and I am just staring blankly at her. She and I are the exact opposite. She has blonde hair, I have brown. She has brown eyes, I have blue. She is confident. I am not. She is highly intelligent in math and science. I am not. She is abusive. I am not.

"No daughter of mine will be a defect, do you understand me, Mia Grace Johnson?" She says, still seething. Her face scrunched up, she looks like a dog I saw in a book once.

"I do not see how I can be a defect if I was never an Erudite." I reply looking her in the eyes. She snaps and I feel the blow to my stomach. She then walks around me, standing behind me she sighs. "Go to your room, Mia. No dinner for you." I almost let my sarcastic snort out but I hold it in. Last thing I need is a broken nose.

"Yes, mother." I reply I begin to walk out of the room when she calls my name again.

"Mia." I turn around halfway, she is staring out the window but she then turns around to look at me.

"Yes, mother?" I ask with a raised brow.

"I suggest you choose Erudite as your future faction." I nod. "Or else you will be an orphan. I will not call you my daughter if you join another faction. God forbid you join Abnegation." She told me, looking straight in my eyes. I nod again. and begin to walk out. I did not make it out the door until I heard a whisper.

"If you become a stiff, I will have to kill myself." I shook my head and ran up the steps to my room. I quickly shut off the light in my room and hide under my covers. While my mother might think I'm sleeping if she comes in to check on me, I am actually reading my father's old journal.

He was Dauntless born, but he fell for my mother in school, and she was far too stubborn to switch factions, so my father followed her to Erudite. They got married a couple of years after their initiation, everything seemed fine, that was, until my mother was pregnant. My father was there the entire pregnancy, and for the first few years of my life. I remember small snippets of him, but not all that I wish to know. It was when I was four that he suddenly passed away. My parents had been fighting a lot; one of the few snippets I remember of my father is when he held me after they had a fight, telling me to be brave. After that fight both of my parents delved into their work. They were both scientists, working on medicine for people of all factions. They needed someone to test a drug that could cure a disease that was threatening to have a major break out, so they used my father as the test subject. He was the only one brave enough to risk it. It killed him. He had two weeks to live, and I remember how strong he was, even up to his last breath. He told me to be brave. I hope I have been. It feels like I have not, but hopefully I will. Hopefully my test will say Dauntless, or Abnegation. I could never see myself in Candor, Amity, or Erudite. I lie too much, I have too much of a temper, and I do not have a high IQ score. However, I am selfless, and I am brave. But I am also selfish and I am also a coward.

Can one really fit perfectly into a faction? That is a question not even the smartest Erudite can answer. I hope I can fit in somewhere. I hope I can be a bit of every faction too. But most of all, I hope that I can have a life. I do not want to spend my life looking for some type of happiness. I do not want to waste time trying to make everyone else happy. I do not want to spend my life arguing. I just want to be me. That is all I want in life. I want it to be a journey, not a never ending dull plot. I hope the test works. I hope I can eventually be free.