Shatter Me - Tahereh Mafi Page 0,43

smile. He closes his eyes and exhales.

I’m not sure what to do with the relief tumbling into my hands.

“Come here,” he says, his eyes still shut.

I tiptoe forward and he pulls me into his arms. Breathes in the scent of my hair and kisses the side of my head and I’ve never felt anything so incredible in my life. I’m not even human anymore. I’m so much more. The sun and the moon have merged and the earth is upside down. I feel like I can be exactly who I want to be in his arms.

He makes me forget the terror I’m capable of.

“Juliette,” he whispers in my ear. “We need to get the hell out of here.”

TWENTY-THREE

I’m 14 years old again and I’m staring at the back of his head in a small classroom. I’m 14 years old and I’ve been in love with Adam Kent for years. I made sure to be extra careful, to be extra quiet, to be extra cooperative because I didn’t want to move away again. I didn’t want to leave the school with the one friendly face I’d ever known. I watched him grow up a little more every day, grow a little taller every day, a little stronger, a little tougher, a little more quiet every day. He eventually got too big to get beat up by his dad, but no one really knows what happened to his mother. The students shunned him, harassed him until he started fighting back, until the pressure of the world finally cracked him.

But his eyes always stayed the same.

Always the same when he looked at me. Kind. Compassionate. Desperate to understand. But he never asked questions. He never pushed me to say a word. He just made sure he was close enough to scare away everyone else.

I thought maybe I wasn’t so bad. Maybe.

I thought maybe he saw something in me. I thought maybe I wasn’t as horrible as everyone said I was. I hadn’t touched anyone in years. I didn’t dare get close to people. I couldn’t risk it.

Until one day I did, and I ruined everything.

I killed a little boy in a grocery store simply by helping him to his feet. By grabbing his little hands. I didn’t understand why he was screaming. It was my first experience ever touching someone for such a long period of time and I didn’t understand what was happening to me. The few times I’d ever accidentally put my hands on someone I’d always pulled away. I’d pull away as soon as I remembered I wasn’t supposed to be touching anyone. As soon as I heard the first scream escape their lips.

The little boy was different.

I wanted to help him. I felt such a surge of sudden anger toward his mother for neglecting his cries. Her lack of compassion as a parent devastated me and it reminded me too much of my own mother. I just wanted to help him. I wanted him to know that someone else was listening— that someone else cared. I didn’t understand why it felt so strange and exhilarating to touch him. I didn’t know that I was draining his life and I couldn’t comprehend why he’d grown limp and quiet in my arms. I thought maybe the rush of power and positive feeling meant that I’d been cured of my horrible disease. I thought so many stupid things and I ruined everything.

I thought I was helping.

I spent the next 3 years of my life in hospitals, law offices, juvenile detention centers, and suffered through pills and electroshock therapy. Nothing worked. Nothing helped. Outside of killing me, locking me up in an institution was the only solution. The only way to protect the public from the terror of Juliette.

Until he stepped into my cell, I hadn’t seen Adam Kent in 3 years.

And he does look different. Tougher, taller, harder, sharper, tattooed. He’s muscle, mature, quiet and quick. It’s almost like he can’t afford to be soft or slow or relaxed. He can’t afford to be anything but muscle, anything but strength and efficiency. The lines of his face are smooth, precise, carved into shape by years of hard living and training and trying to survive.

He’s not a little boy anymore. He’s not afraid. He’s in the army.

But he’s not so different, either. He still has the most unusually blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Dark and deep and drenched in passion. I always wondered what it’d be like to see the world through such