Shatter Me - Tahereh Mafi Page 0,60

and contemplate telling Adam what happened. No. No. No. No. I squeeze my eyes shut and consider I may have misjudged the situation. It was chaotic. My brain was distracted. Maybe I imagined it. Yes.

Maybe I imagined it.

It’s strange enough that Adam can touch me. The likelihood of there being 2 people in this world who are immune to my touch doesn’t seem possible. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I’m determined I must have made a mistake. It could’ve been anything brushing my leg. Maybe a piece of the sheet Adam abandoned after using it to punch through the window. Maybe a pillow that’d fallen from the bed. Maybe Warner’s gloves lying, discarded, on the floor. Yes.

There’s no way he could’ve touched me, because if he had, he would’ve cried out in agony.

Just like everyone else.

Adam’s hand slips silently into mine and I grip his fingers in both my hands, suddenly desperate to reassure myself that he has immunity from me. I’m suddenly desperate to drink in every drop of his being, desperate to savor every moment I’ve never known before. I suddenly worry that there’s an expiration date on this phenomenon. A clock striking midnight. A pumpkin carriage.

The possibility of losing him

The possibility of losing him

The possibility of losing him is 100 years of solitude I don’t want to imagine. I don’t want my arms to be devoid of his warmth. His touch. His lips, God his lips, his mouth on my neck, his body wrapped around mine, holding me together as if to affirm that my existence on this earth is not for nothing.

Realization is a pendulum the size of the moon. It won’t stop slamming into me.

“Juliette?”

I swallow back the bullet in my throat. “Yes?”

“Why are you crying . . . ?” His voice is almost as gentle as his hand as it breaks free from my grip. He touches the tears rolling down my face and I’m so humiliated I almost don’t know what to say.

“You can touch me,” I say for the first time, recognize out loud for the first time. My words fade to a whisper. “You can touch me. You care and I don’t know why. You’re kind to me and you don’t have to be. My own mother didn’t care enough to—t-to—” My voice catches and I press my lips together. Glue them shut. Force myself to be still.

I am a rock. A statue. A movement frozen in time. Ice feels nothing at all.

Adam doesn’t answer, doesn’t say a single word until he pulls off the road and into an old underground parking garage. I realize we’ve reached some semblance of civilization, but it’s pitch-black belowground. I can see next to nothing and once again wonder at how Adam is managing. My eyes fall on the screen illuminated on his dashboard only to realize the tank has night vision. Of course.

Adam shuts off the engine. I hear him sigh. I can hardly distinguish his silhouette before I feel his hand on my thigh, his other hand tripping its way up my body to find my face. Warmth spreads through my limbs like molten lava. The tips of my fingers and toes are tingling to life and I have to bite back the shiver aching to rock my frame.

“Juliette,” he whispers, and I realize just how close he is. I’m not sure why I haven’t evaporated into nothingness. “It’s been me and you against the world forever,” he says. “It’s always been that way. It’s my fault I took so long to do something about it.”

“No.” I’m shaking my head. “It’s not your fault—”

“It is. I fell in love with you a long time ago. I just never had the guts to act on it.”

“Because I could’ve killed you.”

He laughs a quiet laugh. “Because I didn’t think I deserved you.”

I’m one piece of astonishment forged into being. “What?”

He touches his nose to mine. Leans into my neck. Wraps a piece of my hair around his fingers and I can’t I can’t I can’t breathe. “You’re so . . . good,” he whispers.

“But my hands—”

“Have never done anything to hurt anyone.”

I’m about to protest when he corrects himself. “Not on purpose.” He leans back. I can just barely see him rubbing the side of his neck. “You never fought back,” he says after a moment. “I always wondered why. You never yelled or got angry or tried to say anything to anyone,” he says, and I know we’re both