It's like he knows, he knows I have a thing for her.

I am no longer Tris, the selfless, or Tris, the brave. I suppose that now, I must become more than either.

My body rises with the water. Instead of kicking my feet to stay abreast of it, I push all the air from my lungs and sink to the bottom. The water muffles my ears. I feel its movement over my face. I think about snorting the water into my lungs so it kills me faster, but I can't bring myself to do it. I blow bubbles from my mouth. Relax. I close my eyes. My lungs burn.

Learning how to think in the midst of fear is a lesson that everyone needs to learn.

My problem might be that even if I did go home, I wouldn’t belong there, among people who give without thinking and care without trying.

I tell myself, as sternly as possible, that is how things work here. We do dangerous things and people die. People die, and we move on to the next dangerous thing. The sooner that lesson sinks in, the better chance I have at surviving initiation.

I have never had parents who set good examples, parents whose expectations were worth living up to, but she did. I can see them within her, the courage and the beauty they pressed into her like a handprint.