I wake up to see everything is still dark. I am about to fall back asleep when I hear a tap on my small window. I look outside to see Tobias Eaton. My best friend for as long as I can remember. I quickly grab the first aid kit I hid under my bed and sneaked downstairs and outside into the cool air. I turn to where I saw Tobias to see he's still standing below my window. I see the strain in his step and how he is trying to not show his pain. I approach him and sling one of his arms over my shoulder. 

We quickly shuffle over to the nearest abandoned building and I quickly sit him down as soon as I could. He slowly grunts, trying to contain his pain, but I know exactly what happened. He passes out from the pain as soon as I start to clean out the first wound. 

This wasn't the first time this situation has happened. Mabey that's why I had slightly more muscle on me than most Abnegation my age. 

I quickly clean out the wounds and start to wrap up his back and chest when he finally wakes up.

"Am?" He manages to groan out as he feels the bandages around his chest. 

"I'm here," I tell him and he tried to move at my voice but soon stops at the pain.

"Am, promise me something," he says trying to look at me.

"Depends on what it is," I reply, moving to place myself in his vision.

"Don't think about your family when you're choosing tomorrow. You deserve to be happy."

"I can't promise that but I will promise you that I'll try to be safe where ever I decide to go."

"If we don't choose the same faction which is more than likely. You're more Amity in personality and I've already set my sights on Dauntless" he tells me, slightly delirious from the pain. 

"Why?"

"I need an escape from Marcus," he states, hastily. "Speaking of Marcus. He's going to be mad if he sees I'm not at home in the morning."

Tobias tries to stand up but I quickly push him back down as I see the struggle he has with standing up.

"How about you just wait until you have a little more strength before going back." I reason with him and he sinks back down, knowing he wasn't going to win this fight. 

"Am?" he asks and I turn to him. "Thanks for sticking with me and not abandoning me after you knew everything"

"I could never abandon you Tobias"

***

The bus we take to the Choosing Ceremony is crowded with Abnegation in grey shirts and grey slacks. A pale circle of sunshine burns into the clouds like the end of a lit cigarette. A crowd of Candor smokes them in front of the building when we get off the bus.

I have to tilt my head back to see the top of the Hub, and even then, part of it disappears into the clouds. It is the tallest building in the city. I can see the lights on the two prongs on its roof from my bedroom window.

I follow my parents off the bus. Everyone seems calm, but so would I, if I knew what I was going to do. Instead, I get the distinct impression that my heart will burst out of my chest any minute now, and I grab his arm to steady myself as I walk up the front steps. My chest tightens and I try to breathe through it as I continue following my parents. My vision starts to get blurry but I manage to steady it before it got too bad. I feel someone rubbing circles on my hand and look to see my mother smiling at me, knowing the pressure today holds.

The elevator is crowded, so my father volunteers to give a cluster of Amity our place, upholding the image of Abnegation. We climb the stairs instead. Because my father is a council we set an example for our fellow faction members, and soon the three of us are engulfed in the mass of gray fabric ascending cement stairs in the half-light. I settle into their pace. The uniform pounding of feet in my ears and the homogeneity of the people around me makes me believe that I could choose this. I could be subsumed into Abnegation's hive mind, projecting always outward. I shake that idea out of my head. I look around for my one friend but don't see him anywhere.

I am again distracted by myself as I am drawn into my own thoughts and where I truly belong. We have to climb twenty flights of stairs to get to the Choosing Ceremony and by the end, I dislike the reputation Abnegation holds and how every other faction thinks that we are disposable.

My father holds the door open on the twentieth floor and stands like a sentry as every Abnegation walks past him. I would wait for him, but the crowd presses me forward, out of the stairwell and into the room where I will decide the rest of my life.

The room is arranged in concentric circles. On the edges stand the sixteen-year-olds of every faction. We are not called members yet; our decisions today will make us initiates, and we will become members if we complete initiation.

We arrange ourselves in alphabetical order, according to the last names we may leave behind today. I stand between two people I barely recognize because of my nerves all I do see is two Amity outfits next to me.

Rows of chairs for our families make up the next circle. They are arranged in five sections, according to faction. Not everyone in each faction comes to the Choosing Ceremony, but enough of them come that the crowd looks huge.

The responsibility to conduct the ceremony rotates from faction to faction each year, and this year is Dauntless'. A Dauntless leader names Max will give the opening address and read the names in reverse alphabetical order. 

In the last circle are five metal bowls so large they could hold an Abnegation's entire body if they curled up. Each one contains a substance that represents each faction: gray stones for Abnegation, water for Erudite, earth for Amity, lit coals for Dauntless, and glass for Candor.

When Max calls someone's name, they will walk to the center of the three circles. They will not speak. He will offer them a knife. They will then cut into their left hand and sprinkle their blood into the bowl of the faction they choose.

Before my parents sit down, they stand in front of me. My father kisses my forehead grinning.

"See you soon," he says. Without a trace of doubt showing.

My mother hugs me, and what little will I have left almost shatters. I clench my jaw and stare up at the ceiling, where globe lanterns hang and fill the room with blue light. She holds me for what feels like a long time, even after I let my hands fall to swing by my hips. Before she pulls away, she turns her head and whispers in my ear, "I love you. No matter what you choose. Don't forget that."

I frown at her back as she walks away. She knows that I might not choose Abnegation. She must know, or she wouldn't feel the need to say that.

I look further down the line and see Tobias with his father. I clench my hands into fists when I see the fear in Tobias' eyes. I look down to make sure I don't look suspicious and when I look up I see Tobias is looking at me. We lock eyes and I see all the goodbyes we never got to say, all the secrets we've shared over the years, and the determination in his eyes all at once. I know what his decision is and I want to be there for him but I don't know if I can go with him. 

The room slowly comes to order. I should be observing the Dauntless, Erudite, and Amity, I should be taking in as much information as I can, but I can only stare at the lanterns across the room. I try to lose myself in the blue glow.

*****

"Welcome to the Choosing Ceremony," Max says, his deep voice filling the room easily. He doesn't need the microphone; his voice is loud enough and strong enough to penetrate my skull and wrap around my brain. The exact thing a leader of Dauntless would need. "Today you will choose your factions. Until this point, you have followed your parents' paths, your parents' rules. Today you will find your own path, make your own rules."

"A long time ago our ancestors realized that each of us, each individual, was responsible for the evil that exists in the world. But they didn't agree on exactly what that evil was," Max says. "Some said that it was dishonesty ..." 

His eyes shifted over to Candor, the faction of honesty and order.

"Some said that it was ignorance, some aggression ..."

His eyes raked over Erudite then Amity.

"Some said selfishness was the cause."

I think selfishness was the cause but is that me speaking or my upbringing?

"And the last group said that it was cowardice that was to blame."

Hollers rose from the warrior faction with confidence and I finally see that the Dauntless aren't stupid, they're free of the rules and are confident because they know where they stand.

But I am not selfless enough. Sixteen years of trying and I am not enough.

"That is how we came by our factions: Candor, Erudite, Amity, Abnegation, and Dauntless." Max smiles. "In them, we find administrators and teachers and counselors and leaders and protectors. In them, we find our sense of belonging, our sense of community, our very lives." He clears his throat. "Enough of that. Let's get to it. Come forward and get your knife, then make your choice. First up, Zellner, Gregory."

Gregory Zellner holds his bleeding hand over the bowl of dirt, to choose Amity. His blood drips from the side of his hand down to hit the dirt, finalizing the rest of his life. It's times like these when I wish I had a different last name.

The ceremony is moving too fast and before I know it I hear;

 "Rogers, Helena."

 She chooses Candor.

I hear my name and a shudder propels me forward and towards the bowls. Halfway to the bowls, I am sure that I will choose Abnegation. I can see it now. I watch myself grow into a woman in Abnegation robes, staying with my parents and siblings near, volunteering on the weekends, the peace of routine, the quiet nights spent in front of the fireplace, the certainty that I will be safe, and if not good enough, better than I am now.

The ringing, I realize, is in my ears.

I look at Tobias. He stares back at me and nods a little, like he knows what I'm thinking, and agrees. My footsteps falter. I set my jaw. I will be the child that stays; I have to do this for my parents. I have to.

Max offers me my knife. I look into his eyes and take it. He nods, and I turn toward the bowls. Dauntless fire and Abnegation stones are both on my left, Erudite in the center and Amity and Candor on my right. I hold the knife in my right hand and touch the blade to my left palm like those before me. Gritting my teeth, I drag the blade down. It stings, but I barely notice. I hold both hands to my chest, and my next breath shudders on the way out.

I open my eyes and thrust my arm out. My blood drips onto the carpet between the two bowls. Then, with a gasp I can't contain, I shift my hand forward.