Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3)

by Tahereh Mafi

true.” And it’s this—his sincerity—that finally snaps me in half. Because the truth is so unbearable I wish he’d spare me a lie.

“Warner—” “I thought I could walk away the last time,” he says. “I thought I could let you go and hate you for it but I can’t. Because you make it so damn difficult,” he says. “Because you don’t play fair. You go and do something like get yourself shot,” he says, “and you ruin me in the process.”

“You deserve so much more than charity,” he says, his chest heaving. “You deserve to live. You deserve to be alive.” He’s staring at me, unblinking. “Come back to life, love. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures. No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence. Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future, all the time digging and failing to rip their skeletons from our flesh. I swallow, hard

“Go,” he says quietly. “I don’t want you to be here right now.” “Then why did you bring me back with you?” I ask, angry. “If you don’t even want to see me—” “Why don’t you understand?” He looks up at me and his eyes are so full of pain and devastation it actually takes my breath away. My hands are shaking. “Understand what—?” “I love you.” He breaks. His voice. His back. His knees. His face. He breaks.

He has to hold on to the side of his desk. He can’t meet my eyes. “I love you,” he says, his words harsh and soft all at once. “I love you and it isn’t enough. I thought it would be enough and I was wrong. I thought I could fight for you and I was wrong. Because I can’t. I can’t even face you anymore—” “Aaron—” “Tell me it isn’t true,” he says. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m blind. Tell me you love me.”

Castle takes a deep breath. “Maybe,” he says. He leans back in his chair, clasps his hands. “Maybe you’ll be able to do right what I did wrong.” He shakes his head. “I am twenty-seven years your senior and I’ve never had your confidence, but I do understand your heart. And I trust that you say what you believe to be true.” A pause. A careful look. “We will support you. But know now that you are taking on a great and terrifying responsibility. One that may backfire in an irreversible way.” “I do understand that,” I say quietly. “Very well then, Ms. Ferrars. Good luck, and godspeed. Our world is in your hands.”

“Because I am not a different person,” he says firmly. “I am the same man I’ve always been and I have never tried to be different. You have misunderstood me, Juliette. You’ve judged me, you’ve perceived me to be something I am not, but that is no fault of mine. I have not changed, and I will not change—”

“Hey—jazz hands!” Kenji barks. “Get your ass back over here.” He makes it a point to look as irritated as possible. “Back to work. And this time, focus. You’re not an ape. Don’t just throw your shit everywhere.”

“I am going to MURDER YOU—” “No,” he says, pointing at me as he shifts backward again. “Bad Juliette. You don’t like to kill people, remember? You’re against that, remember? You like to talk about feelings and rainbows—”

“You really want me to hurt you?” I ask him, eyes narrowing. “I don’t think you can,” he says. “I think you’re pretty cocky about that.” “Prove me wrong, love.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Please.”

“What—” Warner is blinking fast. His voice is fragile, uneven. “What are you saying?” “I love you,” I whisper. “I love you exactly as you are.” Warner is looking at me like he might be going deaf and blind at the same time. “No,” he gasps. One broken, broken word. Barely even a sound. He’s shaking his head and he’s looking away from me and his hand is caught in his hair, his body turned toward the table and he says “No. No, no—” “Aaron—” “No,” he says, backing away. “No, you don’t know what you’re saying—” “I love you,” I tell him again. “I love you and I want you and I wanted you then,” I say to him, “I wanted you so much and I still want you, I want you right now—”

Stop everything for the moment he crosses the room and pulls me into his arms and pins me against the wall and I’m spinning and standing and not even breathing but I’m alive so alive so very very alive and he’s kissing me.

It’s the kind of kiss that inspires stars to climb into the sky and light up the world. The kind that takes forever and no time at all. His hands are holding my cheeks, and he pulls back just to look me in the eye and his chest is heaving and he says, “I think,” he says, “my heart is going to explode,” and I wish, more than ever, that I knew how to capture moments like these and revisit them forever. Because this. This is everything.

“You are perfect,” he says. “Every inch of you. Perfect,” he says again. “Don’t hide from me.”

He leans into my ear. Lowers his voice. “Ignite, my love. Ignite.”