Destroy Me (Shatter Me, #1.5)

by Tahereh Mafi

Sometimes I wish I could step outside of myself for a while. I want to leave this worn body behind, but my chains are too many, my weights too heavy. This life is all that’s left of me. And I know I won’t be able to meet myself in the mirror for the rest of the day.

“My opinions,” I say to him, quietly this time, “should not so easily break your own. Stand by your convictions. Form clear and logical arguments. Even if I disagree.”

Friendship is not a thing I have ever experienced. Not as a child, and not as I am now.

She is a soft, deadly creature. Kind and timid and terrifying. She’s completely out of control and has no idea what she’s capable of. And even though she hates me, I can’t help but be fascinated by her. I’m enchanted by her pretend-innocence; jealous, even, of the power she wields so unwittingly. I want so much to be a part of her world. I want to know what it’s like to be in her mind, to feel what she feels. It seems a tremendous weight to carry.

My head is pounding. Pain is searing through my bones and up my neck; reds and yellows and blues blur together behind my eyelids.

I have only a moment to reflect on the pain before it engulfs me.

Torture is not torture when there’s any hope of relief.

But these truths and my real motivations will be buried with me.

This notebook might be all I have left of her.

This journal is a documentation of her days spent in the asylum.

And those four words hit me harder than the worst kind of physical pain.

It’s a strange thing, to never know peace. To know that no matter where you go, there is no sanctuary. That the threat of pain is always a whisper away.

And I begin to realize that some small part of me doesn’t want to wish away the thoughts of her.

This girl is destroying me.

these containers have become their prisons.

I’m five feet, nine inches and 170 pounds of muscle.

I don’t consider myself a moral man.

I’ve come to believe that the most dangerous man in the world is the one who feels no remorse. The one who never apologizes and therefore seeks no forgiveness. Because in the end it is our emotions that make us weak, not our actions.

People seldom realize that they tell lies with their lips and truths with their eyes all the time.

“She is not normal,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “And she is not the only one of her kind.”

And whenever I’m experiencing any extreme level of emotion, the only thing that settles my nerves is a long bath.

I could live here, I think. Live where gravity does not know my name. Here I am unbound, untethered by the chains of this life. I am a different body, a different shell, and my weight is carried by the hands of friends. So many nights I’ve wished I could fall asleep under this sheet.

can’t stop imagining what she must’ve experienced.

“She is more to you than just an experiment, isn’t she?”

Swallow the tears back often enough and they’ll start feeling like acid dripping down your throat.

Please tell me you can feel this fire.

I’ve also noticed that the last page is missing. Ripped out.

the missing page is the note that Adam wrote to Juliette!!

It’s strange being in her head without being able to see her. I feel like she’s here, right in front of me. I feel like I now know her so intimately, so privately. I’m safe in the company of her thoughts; I feel welcome, somehow. Understood.

Love is a heartless bastard. I’m driving myself insane.

I fall backward onto my bed, fully dressed. Coat, boots, gloves. I’m too tired to take them off. These late-night shifts have left me very little time to sleep. I feel as though I’ve been existing in a constant state of exhaustion.

Because I want her.

Because these words I write down are the only proof I have that I’m still alive.

And I can’t help but be amazed at the power such small, unassuming animals wield over us; they so easily break down our defenses.

What is happening to me.