Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2)

by Tahereh Mafi

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.

He’s a vision of emerald and onyx, silhouetted in the sunlight in the most deceiving way.

A flawless, flawless exterior for a boy with a black, black heart.

I feel my bones ignite. Warner is here.

“Shoot her,” Warner says, “and I will put a bullet through your skull.”

“Dear, sweet, beautiful girl,”

I feel the clicks and the turns and the creaking of a million keys unlocking a million doors in my mind. It’s like I’m finally allowing myself to see what I really think, how I really feel, like I’m discovering my own secrets for the first time. And then I search his eyes, search his features for something I can’t even name. And I realize I don’t want to be his enemy anymore.

hell is empty and all the devils are here

“Books,” he’s saying, pulling his boxer-briefs up and rezipping his pants, “are easily destroyed. But words will live as long as people can remember them. Tattoos, for example, are very hard to forget.”

“I love it when you say my name,” he says. “I don’t even know why.”

“God, I love that.” “Your name?” “Only when you say it.”

Everything I did, I did because I wanted to help you to be stronger. I wanted you to use your anger as a tool, as a weapon to help harness the strength inside of you; I wanted you to be able to fight the world.

“You’re going to go on to do incredible things,” he says. “I’ve always known that. I think I just wanted to be a part of it.”

Because it’s so hard to be kind to the world when all you’ve ever felt is hate.

“I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend,” he says. “The one who will memorize the things you say as well as the shape of your lips when you say them. I want to know every curve, every freckle, every shiver of your body, Juliette—”

I want to know how to convince you to design a smile just for me.”

Gone is the boy with the guns and the skeletons in his closet. These hands holding me have never held a weapon. These hands have never touched death. These hands are perfect and kind and tender.

The desperation in his expression, the anguish carved into his features, the way he looks at me, like he might die if I do.