With a frustrated sigh I put down the gun. I had failed to hit the target AGAIN. I was probably the only member in the entire Dauntless compound unable to aim properly and it drove me crazy. Three months after I'd passed initiation and I still couldn't do it? It was so unfair. I practiced every single day until my arm muscles ached – which was saying a lot, because I had grown quite strong since I first came here – and still no result. I had even gone so far as to visit Caleb in the Erudite building to read all their books about shooting, but that too was to no avail. As I put the gun back in its proper place I could feel tears prickling behind my eyes. No. I was not going to cry over this again. I already felt weaker than the other Dauntless because I couldn't do this, I would not strengthen that feeling by crying like a disappointed child. Actually, that was all I was, but I refused to accept my defeat. I made my way to lunch without making eye contact with anyone and slumped down in my chair at our group's usual table. "Hey Jessur!" came Uriah's always cheery voice as he slid something to me over the table. Usually I loved Uriah and his happy attitude but today it was just too much. "Hey," I muttered and stared at the muffin he'd placed in front of me. As if I could eat right now. "What's with you today Jess?" Ah Tris, still that tiny bit of Abnegation showing in her. She was Dauntless through and through, don't get me wrong, but somehow she always cared just a little bit more. "Nothing," I grumbled, and put my head in my hands. "Just that stupid gun still refuses to do what I want." They all knew I had had trouble with this from the start, after all, we'd been in the same initiation group, but none of them had been able to help me. Just at that moment Tris' ex Four joined our table. They'd broken up about a month after initiation, and while they refused to speak to each other at first, they were quite good friends now. "Hey look it's Fouuur!" Tris and Uriah sang in unison. He greeted them back and then looked at me inquisitively. "What, no three musketeers today?" he asked, eyebrows raised. We kind of made a point to always sing him hello because we knew it annoyed him, and to this day we'd almost never failed. I shot a quick glance at him, then looked away again. Four was our friend, but I still felt a bit intimidated by him. He was a Dauntless prodigy after all, and somehow that made me feel even weaker on days like this. "It's the guns again," Uriah said, earning him an elbow in the side from Tris. She knew I didn't like to talk about my 'great failure' around Four, something Uriah completely ignored, insensitive as he was. Meanwhile, Four was still looking at me. "No improvement then?" he asked in what was actually quite a sweet way for him. "No," I mumbled while staring at the table. "Nothing helps." He sat there thinking for a minute, and then, as if he was commenting on the food, he said: "Maybe I can help you out." My heart dropped, and I was suddenly glad he wasn't very sensitive or he might have noticed how this offer affected me. "Yeah.. whatever," I managed to say after a while. "Not like it's gonna do any good anyway." He smiled, a rare thing for him to do, and said "We'll just see about that."
That afternoon I hit the target for the first time, and three weeks later I hit my first bull's eye. Coincidentally, that was also the first time I kissed Four. Now, even though I still can't hit anyone during paintball, I feel truly Dauntless. It doesn't even have that much to do with guns.