Divergent; The Rarest Flower

Chapter Three... Results

I wake up to sweaty palms and a pang of guilt in my chest. I am lying in the chair in the mirrored room, knowing my body never left, but my minds actions still having consequences against my palms. When I tilt my head back, I see Tori behind me. She pinches her lips together and removes electrodes from our heads. I wait for her to say something about the test—that it's over, or that I did well, although how could I do poorly on a test like this?—but she says nothing, just pulls the wires from my forehead.

I sit forward and wipe my palms off on my dress, they stung slightly. I had to have done something wrong, even if it only happened in my mind. Is that strange look on Tori's face because she doesn't know how to tell me what a terrible person I am? I wish she would just come out with it. I smile weakly, hoping to get a good reaction back.

"That," she says, "was perplexing. Excuse me, I'll be right back."

Perplexing? What does she mean perplexing, don't leave me with that! What did I do wrong?!

I bring my knees to my chest and bury my face in them. I feel tears beginning to well up in my eyes. How can you fail a test you aren't allowed to prepare for? Figures I'd be the first one. I was always messing up somehow.

As the moments pass, I get more nervous. I have to wipe off my hands every few seconds as the sweat collects—or maybe I just do it because it helps me feel calmer. I mustn't let these tears fall. What if they tell me that I'm not cut out for any faction? I would have to live on the streets, with the factionless. I can't do that. To live factionless is not just to live in poverty and discomfort; it is to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life: community.

My mother told me once that we can't survive alone, but even if we could, we wouldn't want to. Without a faction, we have no purpose and no reason to live.

I shake my head. I can't think like this. I have to stay calm. I have to smile... Lift my chin and fix a mask back into place, hide the cracks in it behind my hair. I could do this. Lie, fake, smile. Pretend that you're happy even when you're not. That's the way of Amity after all... Keep the peace.

Finally the door opens, and Tori walks back in. I grip the arms of the chair.

"Sorry to worry you," Tori says. She stands by my feet with her hands in her pockets. She looks tense and pale.

"I-It's okay. Is everything alright?" I asked tilting my head.

"Camellia, your results were inconclusive," she says. "Typically, each stage of the simulation eliminates one or more of the factions, but in your case, only one have been ruled out."

I stare at her. "One?" I ask. My throat is so tight it's hard to talk.

"If you had shown an automatic distaste for the knife and selected the cheese, the simulation would have led you to a different scenario that confirmed your aptitude for Amity. However, you also chose to grab the knife as well which began the simulation for Dauntless. " Tori scratches the back of her neck. "Normally, the simulation progresses in a linear fashion, isolating one faction by ruling out the rest. The choices you made didn't even allow Candor, the next possibility, to be ruled out, so I had to alter the simulation to put you on the bus. And there your insistence upon dishonesty ruled out Candor." She half smiles. "Don't worry about that. Only the Candor tell the truth in that one."

One of the knots in my chest loosens. Maybe I'm not an awful person. Then again... Had that been a real situation I would have let someone die. But... What if me responding honestly had let that other gentleman die? Was there really a winning in that situation?

"I suppose that's not entirely true. People who tell the truth are the Candor...and the Abnegation," she says. "Which gives us a problem."

I grimace. She sounds like my teachers, telling me I did something wrong again. I never was good in school. I got distracted too easily.