Choosing Ceremony

My breath was caught in my throat and I stared down at my black jeans like my life depended on it. Next to me, my other dauntless born peers sit, many of them happy and joking around.

I don't know how though.

Maybe it was just in dauntless nature to be loud and carefree, and maybe that's why I could never fit in here. I think back to my test, and the kind look on the amity women's face. I remember how she told me my test scores and how (if I chose to go to the faction) excited my grandmother would be to see me. My test scores rang up Amity. The faction my grandparents stayed with. Though I was permitted to see them on holidays and special occasions, I never knew much about them or their backgrounds. Faction before family was taken very seriously in dauntless.

That wasn't the only thing that made my stomach lurch though. The fact that my test scores weren't just Amity is what scared me.

I remember the panicked look to her though, when she told me. Though the test came up strongest for Amity, I showed heavy traits in dauntless. She told me that it could have been normal do to my upbringing being dauntless, but what was strange is that I also came back as Erudite and Abnegation due to my selfless act of throwing down the knife to not hurt the dog and using my education on animals on how to calm him.

The word she used settled underneath my skin and made my stomach churn, making me want to throw up. I felt like it was written across my forehead and up my arms, making it so the world could see what I was and how disgusting I should feel.

Divergent

I didn't know why or how, but it was considered dangerous. I was to never tell anyone my test results. Though I suspected that it wouldn't be a problem because we weren't supposed to tell anyone our results anyway, I was harshly reminded that I had a dauntless family and that the minute I got home I would be pestered to share my results.

I never had a problem with lying; in fact it came very easy to me, but that night I had never been more anxiety ridden while answering the questions my family threw at me. I tried my best to make it look natural, but after dinner my uncle came up to me.

Flash Back

After dinner I decided to go out onto my balcony and look at the stars. As I stared up at the twinkly lights I felt tears prickle into my eyes.

I jumped a little when I heard tapping of glass behind me. I turn around and see my uncle's face. Though only twenty years of age, his features show years of wisdom and maturity. Something I suppose we have in common.

He makes a gesture tors his pack of cigarettes and looks for an invitation to join me. I let out a reluctant sigh and give him a nod indicating that he can sit with me.

"Thanks." He says as he finds a comfortable sitting position next to me. I don't respond.

"I could tell that you were lying." he said as he lit a cigarette. As he took in a puff I knew exactly what he was going to say. He exhaled.

"You know-"

"Robert don't." I said cutting him off and using his full name. He looks over at me a bit surprised.

"I seriously don't need your wise big brotherly advice. In all honesty it's probably the last thing I could need right now. So just, don't. Okay?!" I snap at him. I didn't want to be a jerk, but I couldn't deal with an emotional talk at the moment. Not when the fate of my entire future would be decided in a matter of hours.

"Alright…" he says softly in response "I won't force you to tell me anything."

I look over at him as he takes another drag from his cigarette. I feel a pang of guilt pinch my stomach as I watch him. I look away.

"I'm sorry." I mumble under my breath.

"Why?" he asks.

I think about it for a little, then shrug my shoulders. Maybe it was because that's what I was expected to do, say sorry to someone you were rude to. Or maybe it was because I valued forgiveness tors others.

"D, I'll try to give you only this small amount of advice." He says after a couple minutes of silence.

"Tomorrow, don't think about us.", he takes another drag and exhales, "Make the best decision for yourself and after that, never regret a single moment of it."

I look at him for what feels like a long time.

"Do you regret your decision?" I ask. He gives me a smirk and chuckles.

"Sometimes, but sometimes not. If I had never switched from Amity, I wouldn't have been able to be with Helena. And then where would I be?"

"In Erudite. With a higher pay and less blood pressure." I answer back to him. He laughs and nods his head. I can't help but to crack a smile. When the laughter ceases and the tone is back to what it was before, I look down at my lap.

"What If I make the wrong choice?" I ask in a voice just above a whisper.

"And what if you don't?"

It's quiet. Not an eerie type of quiet or a comfortable kind. It was a heavy and deep quiet. A type of quiet that you were meant to rethink your decisions in.

The heavy silence is only penetrated when the buzz of my uncle's phone goes off.

"It's your aunt wondering where I am." He says after looking at it. He puts out the butt of the cancer stick and stands up.

"Think about what I said alright?" he asks me, I nod and stand up as well. He gives me a long hug.

"We're your family, any decision you make we'll support." He whispers into my ear before pulling away. I watch him leave, crawling down from the rooftops and to the street below.

And then I am left on my own to think about my future, and my family.

Present

I watched as an Erudite girl from my Faction History class was called up to the stage. She cut her hand with the knife given to her and her blood dripped into the bowl supplied with glass, one of the first people to switch their faction. I watched as she walked over to the faction that she had officially accepted as home.

"Blair, D'anna." The representative called out. He said my name wrong, but cheers and hollers still erupted from my faction bleachers the loudest probably being my family.

Shakily I walked up to the stand. I felt like I kept tripping and stumbling as I walked tors the bowls, but I knew that I was standing upright.

A young Abnegation man handed me a new clean knife that looked more like a huge shard of steel glass then like a knife at all.

My heart pounded in my ears and my vision was hazy. I took deep calm breaths as I let the metal slide across the palm of my hand and the thick red liquid rose to the top of my skin and looked down at the five bowls in front of me.

Grey stones for Abnegation.

Water for Erudite.

Earth for Amity.

Lit coals for Dauntless.

Glass for Candor.

As I look into the bowls I can vision a life for me in each one. But the realization doesn't dawn on me until now, that I didn't want any of these lives. That none of them would mean anything to me if I couldn't share it with the people that I love most.

I placed my hand above the lit coals and let the blood drip into them. Despite everything I had ever been taught, I chose family over faction.