Somewhere inside me is a merciful, forgiving person. Somewhere there is a girl who tries to understand what people are going through, who accepts that people do evil things and that desperation leads them to darker places than they ever imagined, I swear she exists, and she hurts for the repentant boy I see in front of me. But if I saw her, I wouldn't recognize her.

I feel like someone breathed new air into my lungs. I am not Abnegation. I am not Dauntless. I am Divergent.

You're the one who has to live with your choice, everyone else will get over it, move on, no matter what you decide. But you never will

I love you," I say. I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don't know why I didn't say it when he could hear it. Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me.

That's the first time I've ever said those words out loud, and now I hear how strange they are. How many young men fear that there is a monster instead them? People are supposed to fear others, not themselves.

Scrubbing the floor when no one else wanted to was something that my mother would have done. If I can't be with her, the least I can do is act like her sometimes.

I've done without doing things, like sleeping and eating, but I need to write.