Page 29 of The Sixth Fraction

We stand there for a moment, listening—to the breeze, to the buzz of insects, to each other’s breathing.

Then she asks me, “So what did you get in your aptitude test, then? Candor?”

I surprise myself by laughing, a real laugh this time. “Candor? Are you kidding?”

“Yes.” She grins. “Dauntless, then.”

I nod. I’m not going to tell her my results were inconclusive, but this is close enough to the truth.

She asks, “Why did you choose Abnegation?”

“Family seemed more important,” I say. “It still does.”

She nods a few times, looking thoughtful.

“Robert wouldn’t have stopped being my family if he chose Amity,” she says. “I don’t think your family will, either. When you go.”

“When I go?” I say, wondering what I said, what I did, to make her see what I was planning.

“Come on, Beatrice. No one can pretend forever.”

She reaches out and takes my hand.

It’s this kindness, maybe, that makes my decision clear. The earnestness shining out of her like starlight. Because this life is just right for Susan Black, who wants everything it has to offer: quiet days of quiet purpose, simple routines and warm gatherings, marriage and children and looking out for your neighbors. And knowing that although your life is just a single row of stitches, it’s lined up next to so many others that it’s making something whole and beautiful. It’s the very best picture of what an Abnegation life can be, and now that she’s lost her brother, it’s what she deserves.

But I was wrong, before. Factionlessness isn’t the worst thing I can imagine, not anymore. It’s living a life that isn’t mine.

“Thanks, Susan,” I say, and I mean it. “Let’s go to sleep.”

The next day, I carry a stack of clothes over to my mother in the donation center. Tucked under the lapel of a jacket is a slip of paper that reads: “I need answers.”

My last day in Abnegation feels like water spilling through my hands. I can’t catch enough of it to really taste it. The tedium of sorting and packing up bundles of necessities to be dropped throughout the city is both soothing and chafing.

I realize, far later than I should, that I’m now packing them for myself. Will I be the one wandering the streets in search of food and standing in line for clean water?

No, I tell myself. My mother will ensure that I have the things I need. I’ll still have her. She promised.

I lie in bed after curfew and wait for her, my fingers twitching at my sides. It doesn’t take her long. I see a shadow pass over the window next to the dormitory door, and I sit up in bed. I know my mother by her silhouette.

I’m still dressed—I changed back into my clothes under the blanket after the others fell asleep—but I put on my shoes and take one last look at the dormitory. Susan, her head buried under a pillow. Constance, twitching in her sleep. Mary, with her embroidery still on her lap. They’re good people, and I wish I could say goodbye to them. But maybe it’s easier this way.

I slip out of the dormitory and close the door quietly behind me. My mother waits for me in the hallway with a bag in each hand. She passes one of them to me and nods. We walk out of Abnegation headquarters together.

Once we’re outside, she picks up the pace, so I almost have to jog to keep up with her.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“We’re going to catch a train,” she answers. “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how.”

“Catch a train” is such a strange phrase coming from her. Like she wants me to clap my hands around one, the way I do in summer when the lightning bugs come out.

My legs are burning by the time the rest of its meaning catches up with me: She knows how to do it. How to board a moving train.

How does she know how to do it?

“We’re going to jump on? Like . . . Dauntless?”

She glances at me, and there’s something wild in her expression. “Exactly. Come on, this way—”