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One of my hands is clutching a small knife, the other has a cut across the palm. Blood is starting to leak from the wound. I’m holding my arm out above a bowl. The bowl has soil in it. It’s amity’s bowl. I’m at the choosing ceremony.

My hand twitches. I want to move it over the hot coals. I want to move it over to dauntless. My blood is starting to pool in my palm, the time I have to make my choice is running out.

I draw a shaky breath and close my eyes. What should I do?

Without giving myself time to think about it I quickly move my hand so that it is now hovering above the dauntless bowl.

I can feel the stares on my back. I know that THEY are looking at me. I can only imagine the looks on their faces right now. Anger, confusion, disappointment and embarrassment, to name just a few. I can’t stop a small smile from spreading on my face when I think about how shocked they must be. I’ve always done everything that they’ve told me to do but here I am with my hand hovering over the dauntless bowl. I feel a rush of independence and self respect.

I don’t turn around to face them. I can’t look at them right now, if I do I know I’ll lose my confidence and change my mind. If I just let my blood drop in this bowl I won’t ever have to worry about being a disappointment to them again. I won’t have to worry about anything they may think of me ever again.

Guilt starts to build in my stomach. How can I be leaving my parents? How can I be doing this to them? How could I be smiling and happy at the thought of abandoning them? What kind of a daughter would do this to her mother and father? I owe them for everything they’ve done for me. I move my hand back over the amity bowl slowly, resigning myself to this life.

I owe them this.

But do I owe them my happiness? Do I owe them my life?

Before I get a chance to think about it anymore a drop of blood falls from my hand landing on the soft soil.

Clapping and cheering can be heard from behind me, but I just stare at the bowl in front of me. This was a mistake

I wake up panting. I get this dream most nights. I can never change it, no matter how much I want to. I can never go back and make a different decision. I can’t change what happens in the dream because it’s not just a dream, it’s a memory.

This was what happened during my choosing ceremony.

I still remember the first thing my parents said to me after I made my decision. “What the hell was that?”

They had seen my hand hover over the dauntless bowl, everyone had. The others were just nice enough to not comment on it. My hand couldn’t have been there for more than five seconds, but it felt like it had been there for five years. I had been so close.

If only I had had the courage ...

Stop thinking about it! You shouldn’t be thinking about it anymore. It was two years ago, get over it!

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down.

I am Sophie Willis and I am amity.

When I reopen my eyes I get up and get dressed. I can’t just sit in bed and mope about a decision from two years ago, I have to go to work.

Most of amity works on the farms, growing the food for the city, but that wasn’t the job that I chose, much to my parents distaste. No, I chose to work in the city hospital. I’m not a doctor and not trained as a nurse, but some day I will be. They don’t let you train as a nurse until you’re at least 20. They think that you have to mature first. So for the last few years my job has been on the administration side of things, but I still feel as though I’m helping people.

My parents wanted me to go into the crop production section of our faction but I refused. If I didn’t get to choose the faction that I wanted I would at least choose this part of my life. I think I did it to prove to myself that I could stand up to my parents. It was a pathetic attempt to convince myself that I belonged in dauntless. But I have long since gotten over that delusion.

I am amity. The test was wrong.

I walk down stairs to the kitchen to get some breakfast. I find both my parents already sitting at the table. There is an awkward and frosty silence between us as I join them at the table. The argument from last night is still fresh in all of our memories but none of us will mention it or bring it up ever again. That would unnecessarily disturb the peace. We just ignore the awkwardness and continue as though it never happened.

My parents believe that last night was sufficient in punishing and correcting me of my mistake. After my father had shouted at me, I reheated their food and was sent to bed without eating dinner. But just because the punishment is over doesn’t mean that there isn’t some tension between us still.

It’s impossible not to compare the way that my parents behave to the way that others in my faction do. It’s so wildly different that I can’t help thinking that they don’t belong in this faction either. Perhaps even more than I don’t.

Amity is a nice place and the people are always so kind that I can’t help but love this faction, even if I don’t belong here. The other people in this faction have been what has made my decision tolerable. I can live with my decision, even if I don’t like it, because the people in my community all care about each other. They may not be able to see what happens in my house, but they care about me. They don’t really know me, not the real me anyway, I hide and bury that deep down, but they care about the part of me that they see.

My parents don’t see the beauty in the gentle and calm nature that the members of our faction possess. They don’t appreciate the generosity and compassion of their people in the way that I do. They see it as weakness.

It’s not long after I sit down that my parents get up and leave for their work in the fields. They both work in the crop production section of our faction. They see that as the most productive and useful part. Although they recognise the importance of the hospital they feel that the work I do there is less of a priority than creating food.

We never sit together at breakfast for long. I think that my parents purposefully leave shortly after I arrive so that they don’t have to be around me. It stings to think that they feel that way about me, even after I chose this life based on their wishes. Although I’m used to it, every time they walk out the door for work without even glancing back at me I feel as though someone has punched me in the stomach. I feel winded, hollow and small.

I don’t spend long on breakfast, after my parents leave I usually lose my appetite, but I finish my toast anyway. I usually feel better about my situation with my parents after I’ve eaten breakfast. I think having a full stomach does a lot to lift someone’s mood.

I leave shortly after my parents do, but I make sure that they are far enough ahead of me that I won’t catch up with them, even with my quicker paced strides. I know that they wouldn’t like it if I did.

I get a lift into the city each morning on the back of the trucks with the others who work in the hospital. There are fewer of us than work in the fields and orchards but there are still a fair few of us.

I quickly find a truck with a few spaces left and clamber in. I end up sitting next to Rosie Phillips, she is my age and a fairly close friend. She would probably describe us as very close friends but I wouldn’t go that far, not when I think about all the secrets I keep from her. I wouldn’t really classify anyone as a very close friend. But Rosie is one of the closest that I have. She is nice and chatty and kind. Just like an amity girl should be. Just like I’m not.

I often find myself trying to mimic Rosie. I copy the way she talks, walks, sits and eats. I do it in the hopes that if I’m more like her, more like a real amity girl, then my parents will like me.

“Hello Sophie!” Rosie chirps brightly, whilst pulling me into a hug that I’m not quite prepared for but go along with anyway. She has always been a morning person ever since we were young. But back when we were little I used to be one too, now that I’ve grown older, I’ve grown more attached to my bed and find it harder to leave it in the mornings than I used to.

“Hi Rosie, how was your evening?” I ask politely, smiling the caring smile that I’ve learnt over the years but which still doesn’t feel quite natural. It’s not that I don’t want to smile or that I can’t smile it’s just that when amity greet each other their smiles are meant to be thoughtful and kind. It’s as though they inject extra emotion into these greeting smiles. I can see the difference between them and their other smiles and I try to do the same but I always feel as though they fall flat and never carry the extra caring tone that the rest of my faction seem to be able to do with no problem. No one has ever commented on it or mentioned it at all, but this is amity so they wouldn’t even if they did notice it.

“It was great, thank you. My parents and I had a lovely dinner and then after we’d eaten we all sang our favourite songs. How was your evening?” Rosie asked beaming. When Rosie asks these questions, she’s not just asking to be polite, like I am, she’s asking because she’s genuinely interested and cares about my answer. This is another reason why I’d only call us fairly close friends. She deserves better than me as a friend. She is far too good to be my friend and I don’t deserve to have her care about me the way that she does.

I’ve found that in amity, everyone will care for you more than you deserve to be cared about, and it is the most frustrating thing because you can’t be annoyed at them for it, no matter how much you want to. You can’t stay angry at someone who’s prying into your life, if they’re doing it out of genuine care and affection for you. I get annoyed at them for digging into my privacy and I have to tell myself that they don’t see it that way, they aren’t trying to be nosey. They just care about me. And then I get angry at myself for ever thinking badly about them for it. It’s a frustrating cycle.

“It was good thank you. It was pretty similar to yours actually. Dinner with the family. But you know that I can’t sing so we avoided that part of the evening.” I lie with a fake smile plastered on my face. Rosie doesn’t notice because I’ve been doing them all my life. She giggles at my reply.

It’s then that another person joins us in the truck bed. It’s Benjamin. He’s also my age and another fairly close friend who would classify me as a very close friend. Ben, Rosie and I have stuck together since we were little, we were all born in amity and got thrown together by our parents at a young age. I don’t think I could even walk the first time I met Ben.

Ben crushes both me and Rosie into a tight bear hug, causing Rosie to giggle again. She laughs a lot, but I don’t mind it. I like that she’s always so happy.

“Can’t. Breathe.” I struggle to say in the bone-crushing embrace. Ben lets out a loud care-free laugh that I wish I could emulate and puts us both down.

“Sorry Sophie.” Ben says with a sheepish smile on his face. “I just missed my girls. I didn’t see either of you yesterday.” He pouts. Ben had been ill yesterday so his parents had made him stay home. They didn’t want him to make the car journey if he was feeling sick and I was quite grateful of this, I didn’t want to be in the back of the same truck as Ben if he was going to throw up. 

“Don’t worry about.” I smile and wave it off. I’ve gotten used to his hugs over the years, and I actually really love them, even if he does squeeze all the air out of my lungs. “How are you? Are you feeling better?”

“Yes, I’m fine now, thanks.” He grins.

Although the conversations that amity have with one another are always heartfelt and sincere, they can often be quite boring. You always have to ask how the other person is and how their day has been, even if you don’t really care. Sometimes the niceties and politeness can be too much for me.

Thankfully I’m saved from having to ask anything more as the truck roars to life and lurches forward. The engines are too loud to have a proper conversation over, so we never try. Ben picks up the banjo lying in the back of the truck and starts to strum. The tune is a familiar one and I hum along.

It took me a while to train myself to do this. My natural reaction would be to sit quietly and appreciate the music, but that isn’t the amity way. Amity join in with the music. They make it a shared event. So over the years I’ve forced myself to join in whenever someone picks up an instrument. It’s still hard for me, which is why I never sing when the others do. I’ve told everyone it’s because I can’t sing but the truth is that I just don’t want to sing in front of other people. The most that I can push myself to do is hum. So that’s what I do.

Rosie’s tuneful voice soon adds lyrics to the melody that Ben and I are creating.

Music always makes the trip go by quicker and before I’m really expecting it we pull up at the hospital.

Rosie and Ben work together on the fifth floor, which deals with diseases, whilst I work on the first floor, in the emergency department. We didn’t choose the places that we work, they got assigned to us, but we are all happy with the ones we were given. Emergencies was the department I would have chosen if I had been given the choice. It is the most eventful and full on.

Both Rosie and Ben are happy with working with diseases, they often ask me how I can handle all the blood and stress that I see on my floor. I just shrug and say that it isn’t that bad. I don’t tell them that I love where I work. I don’t tell them that it can get my adrenaline pumping. I don’t tell them that it makes me feel alive to be put under that kind of pressure and stress. They wouldn’t understand, they would think that I was being insensitive to the patients’ suffering.

We split up shortly after entering the building. They take the elevator up to the fifth floor whilst I walk behind the desk in the lobby, sitting down next to a middle aged, slightly plump woman.

“Morning, Tricia.” I say whilst giving her a quick hug.

“Good morning, Sophie.” Tricia says with that smile that I just can’t do. Tricia is a qualified nurse but she tends to stay behind the desk unless we get over run with people. “How are you?” She asks. Her smile is the same as any other amity faction member, but her eyes ... her eyes are the thing that leads me to think that she is the only person who even suspects what happens inside my house. Her eyes pierce me, they show her worry for me. She’s never said anything to me to make me think that she knows, but her eyes speak louder than her words.

“I’m good thanks. You?” I return the question. I always feel more relaxed around Tricia, I don’t feel the need to be formal and polite. She’s the person who see’s the closest thing to the real me. She’s the one who will see me flush-faced and grinning after helping the doctors and nurses deal with a particularly difficult patient. She’s the one who sees what the adrenaline does to me and she never mentions it. It makes me feel as though I can trust her with this part of me. I can let her see the danger loving Sophie, and not have to worry about her judging me for it or telling my parents about it.

Despite our age difference, Tricia is probably the only person I would call a close friend.