Destroy Me (Shatter Me, #1.5)

by Tahereh Mafi

“I am perfectly capable of keeping my eyes open. Only an idiot would rely on the energy of a bean or a leaf to stay awake throughout 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.”

What a beautiful disaster.

I watched her count. To 4,572. It took five hours.

But watching her talk to someone else made me crazy. I was jealous. Ridiculous. I wanted her to know me; I wanted her to talk to me. And I felt it then: this strange, inexplicable sense that she might be the only person in the world I could really care about.

And suddenly this small, battered notebook means more to me than anything I’ve ever owned.

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.

This girl is destroying me. A girl who has spent the last year in an insane asylum. A girl who would try to shoot me dead for kissing her. A girl who ran off with another man just to get away from me. Of course this is the girl I would fall for.

I’ve always been taught to focus on power and pain, gaining and inflicting.

I grieve nothing. I take everything.

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.

Put a man in a room with something he’s hidden and then ask him where he’s hidden it; he’ll tell you he doesn’t know; he’ll tell you you’ve got the wrong man; but he’ll almost always glance at its exact location.

I take frequent showers. I brush and floss three times a day. I trim my own hair every week. I scrub my hands and nails before I go to bed and just after I wake up.

“And your girl,” he says, cocking his head at me. “Your Juliette?”

I fall back against the wall. And crumble to the floor.

I almost forget that she still hates me, despite how hard I’ve fallen for her. And I’ve fallen. So hard.

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

But somehow, right now, she’s mine. She’s mine and she’s perfect and she wants me, and I’m not going to fight it. I don’t want to.

I need nothing but letters to live. Without them I would not exist.