We take the bus to get to the Choosing Ceremony and when we stood in the bus for about twenty-minutes-because we gave our seats to the Candor-Caleb points to the building where the ceremony will be held.

My heart starts to race when I see the building-The Hub-the tallest building of the city, a part of which is always hidden in the clouds. 

Everyone around me seems calm, and I try to act calm but I fail miserably. Maybe I would be calm if I knew what I am going to do, which faction I am going to choose.

My hands are shaking and I lose my balance while getting off the bus but I hold Caleb's arm to steady myself.

We take the stairs instead of the elevator. We set an example for our faction members and soon, My father, mother, Caleb and I are crowded around a mob of grey. I take this time to think that I can be in Abnegation, pretend to be like them.

But then, my legs become sore and my breathe quickens. Only Abnegation will decide to climb twenty flight of stairs to the Choosing Ceremony, no other faction. I don't think I can pretend.

I will not fit into Amity either, it was never an option. Erudite-I learn too easily for Erudite but I cannot be like them, even though my test result didn't rule that out. 

I will not join Erudite. I am my father's daughter and my father despises Erudite. 

I am definitely not Candor, not by the test, even not by will.

Only two choices-Abnegation and Dauntless.

I admire Dauntless for their freedom, but am I ready to leave my family?

My father hold the door for everyone when we reach the desired floor. I would have waited for him but I am pushed forward by the crowd of my faction.

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 Caleb and Danielle Pohler, an Amity girl with rosy cheeks and a yellow dress.

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 Abnegation's. Marcus will give the opening address and read the names in reverse alphabetical order. Caleb will choose before me.

In the last circle are five metal bowls so large they could hold my entire body, if I 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 my name will be called, I will walk to the centre of the stage. I will not speak, but a knife would be given to me. I will cut into my hand and sprinkle my blood in the bowl of the faction I choose.

My blood on the stones. My blood on the sizzling coal.

My parents stand in front of Caleb and me before they sit down. My father kisses my forehead and claps Caleb on the shoulder, grinning.

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

My mother hugs me, and what little resolve I have left almost breaks. 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. Before she pulls away, she turns her head and whispers in my ear, "I love you. No matter what." 

These were the words she said to me when I went to see her at her office. She knows that I might leave, leave my family behind because I don't belong here.

She pulls back and nods at me, smiling and then they are gone.

Caleb grabs my hand, squeezing my palm so tightly it hurts, but I don't let go. The last time we held hands was at my uncle's funeral, as my father cried. We need each other's strength now, just as we did then.

Marcus stands at the podium between the Erudite and the Dauntless and clears his throat into the microphone. "Welcome," he says. "Welcome to the Choosing. Welcome to the day we honor the democratic philosophy of our ancestors, which tells us that every man has the right to choose his own way in this world."

Or, it occurs to me, one of five predetermined ways. I squeeze Caleb's fingers as hard as he is squeezing mine.

I tune out his speech. I do not want to listen to it.

But, I still don't know what I will do.

"Beatrice," Caleb whispers to me and I look at him.

"I should have said this earlier, but I didn't have the strength to say it." He says, "But it is important for us." 

"When we choose, you have to think of the family," he says and pauses.

I nod and look down.

"But," he speaks up, "You also have to think of yourself."

My head snaps up at him.

I have never seen Caleb think about himself. Before I could have said anything, Marcus' voice starts calling out the names.

The room is constantly moving, a new name and a new person choosing, a new knife and a new choice. I recognize most of them, but I doubt they know me.

"James Tucker," Marcus says.

James Tucker of the Dauntless is the first person to stumble on his way to the bowls. He throws his arms out and regains his balance before hitting the floor. His face turns red and he walks fast to the middle of the room. When he stands in the center, he looks from the Dauntless bowl to the Candor bowl—the orange flames that rise higher each moment, and the glass reflecting blue light.

Marcus offers him the knife. He breathes deeply—I watch his chest rise—and, as he exhales, accepts the knife. Then he drags it across his palm with a jerk and holds his arm out to the side. His blood falls onto glass, and he is the first of us to switch factions. The first faction transfer. A mutter rises from the Dauntless section, and I stare at the floor.

They will see him as a traitor from now on. His Dauntless family will have the optionof visiting him in his new faction, a week and a half from now on Visiting Day, but they won't, because he left them. His absence will haunt their hallways, and he will be a space they can't fill. And then time will pass, and the hole will be gone, like when an organ is removed and the body's fluids flow into the space it leaves. Humans can't tolerate emptiness for long.

"Caleb Prior," says Marcus.

Caleb squeezes my hand one last time, and as he walks away, casts a long look at me over his shoulder. I watch his feet move to the center of the room, and his hands, steady as they accept the knife from Marcus, are deft as one presses the knife into the other. Then he stands with blood pooling in his palm, and his lip snags on his teeth.

He breathes out. And then in. And then he holds his hand over the Erudite bowl, and his blood drips into the water, turning it a deeper shade of red.

I hear mutters that lift into outraged cries. I can barely think straight. My brother, my selfless brother, a faction transfer? My brother, born for Abnegation, Erudite?

I close my eyes and I see the hunger I saw in his eyes when I found him in the library, how shocked he was to see me there like he got caught doing a sin. How he remembered every route to every book in the library.

I scan the crowd of the Erudite—they wear smug smiles and nudge each other. The Abnegation, normally so placid, speak to one another in tense whispers and glare across the room at the faction that has become our enemy.

"Excuse me," says Marcus, but the crowd doesn't hear him. He shouts, "Quiet, please!"

The room goes silent. Except for a ringing sound.

I hear my name and a shudder propels me forward. 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, 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 Caleb, who now stands behind the Erudite. He stares back at me and nods a little, like he knows what I'm thinking, and agrees. My footsteps falter. If Caleb wasn't fit for Abnegation, how can I be? But what choice do I have, now that he left us and I'm the only one who remains? He left me no other option.

I set my jaw. I will be the child that stays; I have to do this for my parents. I have to.

Marcus offers me my knife. I look into his eyes—they are dark blue, a strange color —and take it. He nods, and I turn toward the bowls. 

Dauntless fire and Abnegation stones are both on my left, one in front of my shoulder and one behind. I hold the knife in my right hand and touch the blade to my palm. 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, and my blood sizzles on the coals.

I am selfish. I am brave.

********************