The
following journal entries were discovered in the Prior house after the Erudite
attack on Abnegation. Most are from Natalie Prior’s early life, but the last
one, mysteriously addressed to “David,” is dated just a day before the attack
occurred.
WEEK 49 • • THURSDAY NIGHT
I’m pretty sure David won’t be
interested in hearing about this, so I’m going to put it in my private journal
instead of the official record.
Today I stayed after school to tutor
Andrew, like I have for the past few weeks as we get ready for our psychology
exam. We were going over the evidence for and against biological explanations
for personality traits as opposed to experimental explanations such as
parenting, history, and stuff. I remember that because I was arguing for the
latter and he was arguing for the former—it’s just like an Erudite to get all
caught up in biology, really—and I was really close to spilling the secret, the secret.
I asked him if he thought the
faction system could just be a way to condition people to have certain
personality traits—like behavioral modification. He said the factions were more
likely to be a way of grouping people with similar genetic material—that our
personalities are determined more by our genes than by what we’re taught. He’s
such an Erudite. He kept using words like “thus” and “therefore,” and every
time he did I made a face at him. It took a few times for him to know that he
should laugh. Anyway, then I trapped him, and I asked him why, if personalities
are genetically determined, children of the same parents have different
personalities. He stared at me, and he started to get that creeping red blotch
on his cheeks that he always gets when he’s sort of embarrassed. I watched him
scramble for an answer, and his hair fell out of its slick style and over his
forehead, and strangely, I felt like I had to stop myself from pushing it back,
like I almost had to grab my own hand to keep myself from doing it.
He came up with an answer—something
about how if children can inherit different eye colors from their parents, they
can also inherit different personality traits. But I wasn’t really listening. I
was just staring at his hair and wondering when it happened, when I started to
want to touch him.
WEEK 49 • • FRIDAY NIGHT
We stayed after school for tutoring
again today, even though the exam was this morning. We brought our books even
though there wasn’t anything to do. I think we still felt like we needed an
excuse. People don’t just mingle outside their factions for no good reason.
I felt this itch in my fingers to do
something, and the sun was reflecting off his glasses so I couldn’t see his
eyes. On an impulse I reached forward and took them off his face. I guess I’d never
noticed before how blue his eyes were, bright like the shirt he was wearing. He
just stared at me, but not like he thought I was crazy, more like he was just
curious.
He asked me why I had spoken so
passionately the day before about parents and how personalities are determined.
I hadn’t realized that I had been “passionate,” but it felt strange, realizing
that he had noticed something about me. That maybe he had been watching me as
carefully as I watched him.
I told him that my parents had been
violent people, but I didn’t turn out that way. He seemed confused—I’m
Dauntless, after all, and we tend to be a violent bunch. But we aren’t all the
same, and I told him that, too. I remember what he said in response:
“Still, if you didn’t turn out that
way, you neither learned from their behavior nor inherited their genetic
predisposition toward violence, which means you’ve confounded both theories.”
I smiled a little, but I didn’t feel
much like smiling. I felt like every muscle in my body was coiled up tight.
Then he said—how could I forget?—“I’m
not surprised. You confound me all the time.”
He touched my face, running his
index finger over the piercings in my ear, and he pushed his hand into my hair.
Then he leaned in close and kissed me.
The Dauntless are all about taking
action, but I swear, in that moment, I couldn’t move a muscle. All I could do
was run through the sensations in my mind to seal them in my memory. How gentle
and curious his fingers were as they danced over my ear. How his hands smelled
like apple-scented soap and ink. How orange-red-yellow the light in the room
was because the sun was setting.
When I finally opened my eyes, I
felt like I had made the moment permanent in my mind.
He started to get blotchy again, so
I told him not to overthink it. He just laughed.
WEEK 50 • • MONDAY NIGHT
Today, when Andrew and I were on our
way out of the school, he looked around to make sure no one was watching, then
hooked his index finger around mine as we walked to the train tracks. Then,
when the train horn sounded in the distance, he kissed me again, and stood back
as I jumped on.
He’s not the first boy I’ve kissed.
But it’s like everything is new, like I’m a new person here.
It’s just a few weeks until the
Choosing, and I’m supposed to pick Erudite anyway, according to David’s
instructions. Maybe it’ll be all right, if Andrew is there. Maybe I can make it
through initiation if I have his help.
I feel stupid even saying this, but
that’s why I’m going to say it here, in this private spot where no one else can
hear it.
I feel like I’m in love.
WEEK 52 • • TUESDAY NIGHT
I don’t know what to do.
Andrew came to me yesterday in a
panic, wild-eyed like I’d never seen him before. He wasn’t even wearing his
glasses. He told me that he had seen something terrible—one of his peers was
doing some kind of cruel experiment under the supervision of an Erudite leader,
her mentor. His mentor.
“I can’t choose Erudite,” is what he
kept saying, and he kept shaking his head, too, like it was on a swivel.
“I know,” is all I could think to
say. “But where can you go?”
There were only three options, as
far as he was concerned: Amity, Abnegation, or Candor.
“You can’t be Candor, you’re too
private,” I told him. “And you can’t be Amity, either, because you care too
much about taking action.”
He looked startled. I guess I would
have been startled too if some girl I’d only known for a few months, only
kissed a few times, assessed me like that. Like it’s easy to label a person.
Smart, private, handsome.
That left Abnegation. Narrowing it
down to that faction seemed to steady him a little.
I got so sad, looking at him, like
the little balloon that had begun to inflate inside me since he had kissed me
was deflating. Or like I was a flower, wilting. I am supposed to join Erudite.
To sidle up to whoever is killing the Divergent. To stop them.
That means that if I follow my
mission, Andrew and I will be separated by the walls that divide the factions.
He must have seen the sadness in my
face, because his wild look went away and he took my hands in his. He told me
he shouldn’t even say it, but that I could join Abnegation with him, that we
would be safe there. Happy. A second later he took it back, reminded me that I
had to make my own choice, that I shouldn’t think of him.
But I can’t help it.
WEEK 52 • • LATER TUESDAY NIGHT
He said we would be safe in
Abnegation. My whole life I’ve wanted to be safe. I did things I shouldn’t have
in an attempt to make myself safe, but safety had eluded me anyway.
I’ve always watched the Abnegation
every morning at school, how they slipped along the sides of the halls and sat
quietly at lunch, how a small group of them sat on the steps every morning to
help one another with homework. The Dauntless around me called them dull, but
to me they always looked like they were floating on clouds. I guess having a
distinct sense of purpose can do that to you, whereas the Dauntless are just
restless, prone to bursts of restless action.
I would choose Abnegation, if I
could, even if Andrew wasn’t choosing it too. But I have a mission. I can’t
lose sight of it.
And now it’s three in the morning
and I can’t sleep. I told myself when I came here that I wouldn’t be taken in
by the faction system. That I ought to maintain my distance from it. But I can
feel the magic of it here, the options laid out in front of me—not so many that
I feel overwhelmed, not so few that I feel stifled. And worse are the people
who believe in those options, believe they are a way not just to live but to
thrive.
I could thrive in Abnegation. And
I’ve never been able to choose safety for myself. Now I’m not allowed to even
when it’s right in front of me. Even though this life is mine and I’m the only
one who has to live it.
It’s a lot to think about.
WEEK 52 • • FRIDAY AFTERNOON
My Dauntless mother sat me down at
the kitchen table today, and she was doing that thing she always does when
she’s nervous, flipping her septum piercing up into her nostrils and then down
again.
She told me she saw my preliminary
simulation results. She said she knew I was Divergent, and that in Dauntless,
the Divergent tended to die without warning. She said that if I wanted to stay
safe, I should choose another faction.
There’s that word again, “safe.” The
truth is, I wouldn’t be any safer in Erudite as a Divergent than I would be in
Dauntless. That leaves me with the same choices Andrew had: Amity, Abnegation,
or Candor.
Is it cowardly to choose safety over
my mission? To choose love over my mission?
Or is it brave, to choose the life I
want instead of the life I feel obligated to live?
WEEK 53 • • SUNDAY MORNING
Yesterday I chose Abnegation. David
isn’t happy; no one over there is. But I am. I’m happy.
We waited for everyone else to walk
out of the Choosing Ceremony and then we cleaned up after them, emptied all the
bowls, careful of the broken glass in the Candor bowl and the hot coals in the
Dauntless one. Then all the initiates had a meal together, each one serving the
person on his or her left. I gave Andrew extra butter on his bread.
Then there was the foot-washing. I
thought it would be awkward and gross, having a stranger touch my feet. But
there were lit candles all around, so the room glowed orange, and everything
was quiet except for the splashing of water and the humming of the woman in
front of me.
And no, it wasn’t the most
comfortable thing I’ve ever done, but I just focused on the ritual of it.
Hundreds of Abnegation had done that exact same thing at that exact same stage
in their lives. Someday, I knew, if I lasted that long, I would do it for some
initiates myself. Maybe even to my children. And it felt weighty, when I
thought about it that way, and important, like something holy.
They told us to expect thirty days
of service. Serving the poor, serving the rich, serving our elders, serving one
another. Then they taught us the Abnegation manifesto, modest and brief as it
is, and I had it memorized by the second run-though. We all chanted it,
quietly, so the room was full of whispers. Then the girls went to a dormitory
in Abnegation headquarters and the boys went to another.
The girls there stared openly at my
tattoos when I changed into my gray Abnegation shirt. Most of them are
Abnegation, and they’ve never seen a Dauntless up close. Some are Amity, too.
But there was one Erudite girl, and she asked me about it as I took out my lip
piercing for good.
“You transferred from Dauntless?
That’s rare,” she said. I had already decided I liked her right away, just
because of the way her limbs seemed to smack into everything when she walked,
and because of her wild hair. Evelyn was her name.
“I know,” I said. “So is
transferring from Erudite.”
She asked me what I thought so far.
I told her everything seemed good, because the other girls were listening and I
didn’t want to say all the things I was thinking—that yes, Abnegation’s way of
life was peaceful and beautiful, but I was nervous about it. Afraid, not of
danger or death, but of boredom.
Maybe she understood what I was
thinking, because she leaned in close so she could keep her voice down and
said, “Not so exciting, is it? But we didn’t choose this for the constant
thrills, right?”
I nodded. She smiled and started to
braid her hair. I lay back in bed. The window next to my bed was open, so I
fell asleep to the feeling of the cool air rushing over my toes.
Evelyn is right. I didn’t choose
Abnegation for the constant thrills. I chose it because it was the only
guarantee of living a good life. And because I missed out on the opportunity to
help other people once—I won’t do it again.
This morning at breakfast Andrew
smiled at me from across the table, and all my fears about Abnegation
dissolved.
I didn’t really expect to love it
here. But I think I might. Now I just have to figure out a way to help the
Divergent from inside the wrong faction.
YEAR 29 • • FRIDAY AFTERNOON
David,
I got your message, and I appreciate
the warning. I will try to protect my family, as you suggested, but you know as
well as I do that I’m not going to leave it at that.
If this is the last message I send
you . . . well, let’s just say I hope you burn for this.
Sincerely,
Natalie
• • •
• • • • •
