“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 her head. “Abnegation is a strange faction, I have to tell you.”
“Let’s go watch Al get tattooed,” I say. Despite the fact that I have left my old faction behind, I don’t want to criticize it yet.
At home, my mother and I picked up nearly identical stacks of clothing every six months or so. It’s easy to allocate resources when everyone gets the same thing, but everything is more varied at the Dauntless compound. Every Dauntless gets a certain amount of points to spend per month, and the dress costs one of them.
Christina and I race down the narrow path to the tattoo place. When we get there, Al is sitting in the chair already, and a small, narrow man with more ink than bare skin is drawing a spider on his arm.
Will and Christina flip through books of pictures, elbowing each other when they find a good one. When they sit next to each other, I notice how opposite they are, Christina dark and lean, Will pale and solid, but alike in their easy smiles.
I wander around the room, looking at the artwork on the walls. These days, the only artists are in Amity. Abnegation sees art as impractical, and its appreciation as time that could be spent serving others, so though I have seen works of art in textbooks, I have never been in a decorated room before. It makes the air feel close and warm, and I could get lost here for hours without noticing. I skim the wall with my fingertips. A picture of a hawk on one wall reminds me of Tori’s tattoo. Beneath it is a sketch of a bird in flight.
“It’s a raven,” a voice behind me says. “Pretty, right?”
I turn to see Tori standing there. I feel like I am back in the aptitude test room, with the mirrors all around me and the wires connected to my forehead. I didn’t expect to see her again.
“Well, hello there.” She smiles. “Never thought I would see you again. Beatrice, is it?”
“Tris, actually,” I say. “Do you work here?”
“I do. I just took a break to administer the tests. Most of the time I’m here.” She taps her chin. “I recognize that name. You were the first jumper, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was.”
“Well done.”
“Thanks.” I touch the sketch of the bird. “Listen—I need to talk to you about…” I glance over at Will and Christina. I can’t corner Tori now; they’ll ask questions. “…something. Sometime.”
“I am not sure that would be wise,” she says quietly. “I helped you as much as I could, and now you will have to go it alone.”
I purse my lips. She has answers; I know she does. If she won’t give them to me now, I will have to find a way to make her tell me some other time.
“Want a tattoo?” she says.
The bird sketch holds my attention. I never intended to get pierced or tattooed when I came here. I know that if I do, it will place another wedge between me and my family that I can never remove. And if my life here continues as it has been, it may soon be the least of the wedges between us.
But I understand now what Tori said about her tattoo representing a fear she overcame—a reminder of where she was, as well as a reminder of where she is now. Maybe there is a way to honor my old life as I embrace my new one.