Page 9 of The Sixth Fraction

“We should go,” I say. “Before someone catches us.”

That night, my parents make dinner for everyone. They prepare a plate for each of the children—Robert, Susan, Caleb, and me—and put each one on a tray for us to carry back to our rooms.

“The night before your Choosing Ceremony is for private contemplation,” my father says, as he offers me my tray. His smile is crooked, and there are creases at the corners of his eyes.

I take my food, and he bends over me, pressing a kiss to the top of my head, as he has every night since I can remember, and probably before then.

“I love you,” he whispers, into my hair.

My throat is too tight for me to speak. So I just offer him a weak smile and take my tray to my room.

The apartment is split in half, with the kitchen, bathroom, and sitting room in the middle, and a row of bedrooms for the Blacks branching off from it. At the top of the stairs is another row of bedrooms that are ours. Caleb and I climb the steps together, and each of us disappears into our rooms.

I don’t taste my food as I eat it. I’m just finishing with my beans and rice when I hear the little tap on my wall that means Caleb wants to talk.

I go to the window and work it open slowly, so it doesn’t make noise. There are no meetings the night before the Choosing Ceremony, no sewing circles or woodworking classes, so the streets are quiet.

Caleb is already leaning out of his window, his elbows braced on the edge. His fingertips are ink-stained, like he’s been reading a newspaper or an old book. I wedge myself into the windowsill, sitting sideways so I’m almost facing him.

“Can you not do that?” he says. “If you fell, you would break every bone in your body.”

“I’m not going to fall. Wait—oh no—maybe I am!” I let go of the windowsill and make a show of waving my arms around, like I’m losing my balance.

“Beatrice, for heaven’s sake—”

It’s an old argument, one we’ve been having since we were old enough to have separate bedrooms. For once, he relents first, closing his eyes against the wind.

“You left school after the aptitude test,” he says. “Did something happen?”

In that moment, I’m desperate to tell him. Caleb has always been a good listener, levelheaded in a crisis. Maybe he can help me think through what Tori said—about the receivers that are now swimming around in my skull, finding a home in my neurons; about how aware I was during the test when I wasn’t supposed to be; about the three factions she thinks—thinks—I have an aptitude for. Does everyone have aptitude for more than one faction? I have no idea, and I could find out from Caleb, but—

But.

It’s dangerous. For you and for everyone you tell.

I say, “I didn’t feel well, afterward. Queasy. Probably just nervous.”

He raises his eyebrow like he always does when he doesn’t believe me. But this time, he lets me lie to him.

“Are you nervous?” I ask him.

I expect him to say no. Caleb is a model Abnegation citizen. He never complains, and he always sees what people need. He knows who he is and what he’s going to choose. The only reason I can even think about leaving Abnegation is that he’ll be there for my parents if I do.

“Yeah,” he says, with a breathless laugh. “Yeah, I am.”

Some of the tension in my shoulders eases. Maybe I’m more normal than I think. Divergent, Tori’s voice whispers, but I ignore it.

Then he says, “You remember when we were kids and we were fighting over that toy—the one with the string and the cup and the ball?”

I laugh. “And then we both fell down the stairs?”

Caleb nods. “And I was so terrified for you that I got up to check on you, and got blood all over the carpet in the process.”

There’s still a stain at the bottom of the stairs that never quite came out. His nose is a little crooked from that accident.

“Well, when I was at the hospital afterward, Mom said something to me that I keep thinking about. She said, You have to check yourself before you check your sister.” He taps his fingers on the windowsill, and looks at me. “We have to think of our family, Beatrice, but . . . we also have to think of ourselves. We’re the ones who have to live with our choices. No one else. So . . . make a choice you can live with. Okay?”

I usually hate it when Caleb tries to give me advice. He’s only two minutes older than I am, but he acts like my older brother. This time, though, I’m so nervous about what’s coming that I don’t mind it.