Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3)

by Tahereh Mafi

I’d rather be shot dead screaming for justice than die alone in a prison of my own making.”

“JULIETTE—Juliette—” I spin around. Warner is standing there, face flushed, chest rising and falling, staring at me like I might be a ghost. He strides across the room before I have a chance to say a word and cups my face in his hands, his eyes searching me. “Are you okay?” he’s saying. “God—are you okay? What happened? Are you all right?” He’s here.

Warner leans back, just a little. “Tell me what you want,” he says desperately. “Tell me what to do,” he says, “and I’ll do it.” “This is, by far, the craziest shit I have ever seen,” Kenji says. “I really never would’ve believed it. Not in a million years.”

“You don’t?” His voice is so soft and so scared I can scarcely hear it. “No,” I say. “I don’t. And I just thought you should know. I’m not trying to fix you; I don’t think you need to be fixed. I’m not trying to turn you into someone else. I only want you to be who you really are. Because I think I know the real you. I think I’ve seen him.” Warner says nothing, his chest rising and falling. “I don’t care what anyone else says about you,” I tell him. “I think you’re a good person.”

“Do you . . . believe me?” I ask after a moment. “Can you sense that I’m telling the truth? That I really mean it?” Warner’s hands are clenched around the steering wheel. His knuckles are white. He nods. Just once.

crying and throwing up

Shaking violently, shattering in my arms, a million gasping, choking pieces I’m trying so hard to hold together. And I promise myself then, in that moment, that I will hold him forever, just like this, until all the pain and torture and suffering is gone, until he’s given a chance to live the kind of life where no one can wound him this deeply ever again.

This is love