Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2)

by Tahereh Mafi

No one but Adam has ever touched me and enjoyed it. No one except for Warner.

And I like them too much, which will make their inevitable rejection so much harder to endure.

But time is beyond our finite comprehension. It’s endless, it exists outside of us; we cannot run out of it or lose track of it or find a way to hold on to it. Time goes on even when we do not.

Kenji is a walking paradox of Unflinchingly Serious Person and 12-Year-Old Boy Going Through Puberty all rolled into one.

He falls to his knees. “Insane for your sweet, sweet love!”

i love kenji omg

“Because if I lower my voice, I won’t be able to hear myself speak. And that,” he says, “is my favorite part.”

“Adam is jealous of our love.” “Just go get your food!” I push him, hard, fighting back an exasperated laugh.

“You guys are disgusting, you know that, right?”

He gestures with his spoon at our faces. “What the hell is this? You guys playing footsie under the table or someshit?”

“Yeah, bro.” Kenji puts his utensils down. “You are moody. It’s always ‘Shut up, Kenji.’ ‘Go to sleep, Kenji.’ ‘No one wants to see you naked, Kenji.’ When I know for a fact that there are thousands of people who would love to see me naked—”

“No need to wave at the people, princess. It’s not a coronation ceremony.” He pulls me into one of the many long, dimly lit corridors.

Kenji sighs. Waves his hand with a bow and a flourish. “After you, princess.”

And I understand, for the first time, that I have the power to destroy everything.

I feel like now might be a good time to jump off a cliff.

But you keep trying to act like what you’re capable of isn’t a big deal, and it’s not helping anything. You need to stop trying to pretend you’re not dangerous.”

“But that’s not what I want—you’re not asking me what I want—,” he says, following me as I dodge his advances. “I want to be with you and I don’t give a damn if it’s hard. I still want it. I still want you.”

It’s hot rain and humid days and broken thermostats. It’s screaming teakettles and raging steam engines and wanting to take your clothes off just to feel a breeze.

Synonyms know each other like old colleagues, like a set of friends who’ve seen the world together. They swap stories, reminisce about their origins and forget that though they are similar, they are entirely different, and though they share a certain set of attributes, one can never be the other. Because a quiet night is not the same as a silent one, a firm man is not the same as a steady one, and a bright light is not the same as a brilliant one because the way they wedge themselves into a sentence changes everything.

Loneliness is a strange sort of thing. It creeps up on you, quiet and still, sits by your side in the dark, strokes your hair as you sleep. It wraps itself around your bones, squeezing so tight you almost can’t breathe. It leaves lies in your heart, lies next to you at night, leaches the light out from every corner. It’s a constant companion, clasping your hand only to yank you down when you’re struggling to stand up.

Loneliness is an old friend standing beside you in the mirror, looking you in the eye, challenging you to live your life without it. You can’t find the words to fight yourself, to fight the words screaming that you’re not enough never enough never ever enough.

Loneliness is a bitter, wretched companion. Sometimes it just won’t let go.

“Nothing,” he says quickly. “Just, you know.” A haphazard gesture toward my face. “You don’t look so good, princess. You look kind of like you did that first day you showed up with Warner back on base. All scared and dead-looking and, no offense, but you look like you could use a shower.”

He’s easily the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“Why’d you come back for me?” “Because you’re a dumbass,” he says again.

get real shit done in this world, and I like to think people respect me for it. But your boy Adam is a little too blinded by his pants to think straight. Maybe you should do something about that.”

“All you do is sit around and think about your feelings. You’ve got problems. Boo-freaking-hoo,”

“It’s stupid, and it’s ungrateful. You don’t have a clue what everyone else in the world is going through right now. You don’t have a clue, Juliette. And you don’t seem to give a damn, either.”

“Now I am trying,” he says, “to give you a chance to fix things. I keep giving you opportunities to do things differently. To see past the sad little girl you used to be—the sad little girl you keep clinging to—and stand up for yourself. Stop crying. Stop sitting in the dark counting out all your individual feelings about how sad and lonely you are. Wake up,” he says.

“You’re not the only person in this world who doesn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. You’re not the only one with daddy issues and severely screwed-up DNA. You can be whoever the hell you want to be now. You’re not with your shitty parents anymore. You’re not in that shitty asylum, and you’re no longer stuck being Warner’s shitty little experiment. So make a choice,” he says. “Make a choice and stop wasting everyone’s time. Stop wasting your own time. Okay?”

No one ever stops to ask glue how it’s holding up. If it’s tired of sticking things together or worried about falling apart or wondering how it will pay its bills next week. Kenji is kind of like that.

“I mean, I just have to say—that last line? ‘I wish I could love you less’? That was genius. Really, really nice. I think Winston actually shed a tear—” “SHUT UP, KENJI.”

“I don’t have mental blocks—” “Yeah you do.” He snorts. “You definitely do. You have severe mental constipation.” “Mental what—”

I told him I’d always seen myself as some sick version of a Venus flytrap and he said, “OH MY GOD. Yes. YES. You are exactly like that. Holy shit, yes.”

What I really want to say is who the hell are you and who are you to decide who gets to die. Who are you to decide who should be killed. Who are you to tell me which father I should destroy and which child I should orphan and which mother should be left without her son, which brother should be left without a sister, which grandmother should spend the rest of her life crying in the early hours of the morning because the body of her grandchild was buried in the ground before her own.

He levels a look at me. “Yes, but I am a sad, sad man with very low standards.”

Maybe I’m just supposed to die.

It’s like a drop of honey, a field of tulips blooming in the springtime. It’s fresh rain, a whispered promise, a cloudless sky, the perfect punctuation mark at the end of a sentence.

I’m staring at a man who is absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful. And he is a man.

I s h a t t e r what’s left of this earth.

I’m just beginning to realize that he’s one of my favorite people on this planet and I’m so happy he’s okay. I’m so happy he’s my friend.

Murderer on my lap Murderer on my lap Murderer on my lap

“Just because I’m going to hell,” Warner says, “doesn’t mean you’ll ever deserve her.”

His entire back is a map of pain.

“Who hurt you?” I ask, so quietly. I’m beginning to recognize the strange feeling I get just before I do something terrible. Like right now. Right now I feel like I could kill someone for this.

“Do you like Shakespeare?” he asks me. An odd segue. I shake my head. “All I know about him is that he stole my name and spelled it wrong.”

I want to study the secrets tucked between his elbows and the whispers caught behind his knees. I want to follow the lines of his silhouette with my eyes and the tips of my fingers. I want to trace rivers and valleys along the curved muscles of his body.

There’s an ache in my core that I’m unwilling to name. Beautiful.

He’s so beautiful. I must be insane.

hell is empty and all the devils are here

“Who are you?” I don’t know this Warner. I’d never be able to recognize this Warner. He smiles to himself. Sits down again. Says, “No one else will ever need to know.” “What do you mean?” “I know who I am,” he says. “That’s enough for me.”