Free Divergent by Veronica Roth

scares the hell out of me. It’s that quiet voice he uses.”
    “Yeah. He’s…” I look over my shoulder at him. He is quiet, and remarkably self-possessed. But I wasn’t afraid that he would hurt me. “…definitely intimidating,” I finally say.
    Al, who was in front of us, turns around once we reach the Pit and announces, “I want to get a tattoo.”
    From behind us, Will asks, “A tattoo of what?”
    “I don’t know.” Al laughs. “I just want to feel like I’ve actually left the old faction. Stop crying about it.” When we don’t respond, he adds, “I know you’ve heard me.”
    “Yeah, learn to quiet down, will you?” Christina pokes Al’s thick arm. “I think you’re right. We’re half in, half out right now. If we want all the way in, we should look the part.”
    She gives me a look.
    “No. I will not cut my hair,” I say, “or dye it a strange color. Or pierce my face.”
    “How about your bellybutton?” she says.
    “Or your nipple?” Will says with a snort.
    I groan.
    Now that training is done for the day, we can do whatever we want until it’s time to sleep. The idea makes me feel almost giddy, although that might be from fatigue.
    The Pit is swarming with people. Christina announces that she and I will meet Al and Will at the tattoo parlor and drags me toward the clothing place. We stumble up the path, climbing higher above the Pit floor, scattering stones with our shoes.
    “What is wrong with my clothes?” I say. “I’m not wearing gray anymore.”
    “They’re ugly and gigantic.” She sighs. “Will you just let me help you? If you don’t like what I put you in, you never have to wear it again, I promise.”
    Ten minutes later I stand in front of a mirror in the clothing place wearing a knee-length black dress. The skirt isn’t full, but it isn’t stuck to my thighs, either—unlike the first one she picked out, which I refused. Goose bumps appear on my bare arms. She slips the tie from my hair and I shake it out of its braid so it hangs wavy over my shoulders.
    Then she holds up a black pencil.
    “Eyeliner,” she says.
    “You aren’t going to be able to make me pretty, you know.” I close my eyes and hold still. She runs the tip of the pencil along the line of my eyelashes. I imagine standing before my family in these clothes, and my stomach twists like I might be sick.
    “Who cares about pretty? I’m going for noticeable.”
    I open my eyes and for the first time stare openly at my own reflection. My heart rate picks up as I do, like I am breaking the rules and will be scolded for it. It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else.
    My eyes were blue before, but a dull, grayish blue—the eyeliner makes them piercing. With my hair framing my face, my features look softer and fuller. I am not pretty—my eyes are too big and my nose is too long—but I can see that Christina is right. My face is noticeable.
    Looking at myself now isn’t like seeing myself for the first time; it’s like seeing someone else for the first time. Beatrice was a girl I saw in stolen moments at the mirror, who kept quiet at the dinner table. This is someone whose eyes claim mine and don’t release me; this is Tris.
    “See?” she says. “You’re…striking.”
    Under the circumstances, it’s the best compliment she could have given me. I smile at her in the mirror.
    “You like it?” she says.
    “Yeah.” I nod. “I look like…a different person.”
    She laughs. “That a good thing or a bad thing?”
    I look at myself head-on again. For the first time, the idea of leaving my Abnegation identity behind doesn’t make me nervous; it gives me hope.
    “A good thing.” I shake my head. “Sorry, I’ve just never been allowed to stare at my reflection for this long.”
    “Really?” Christina shakes