Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3)

by Tahereh Mafi

My eyes are filling fast with tears and I blink and blink but the world is a mess and I want to laugh because all I can think is how horrible and beautiful it is, that our eyes blur the truth when we can’t bear to see it.

There’s a strange kind of freedom in the dark; a terrifying vulnerability we allow ourselves at exactly the wrong moment, tricked by the darkness into thinking it will keep our secrets. We forget that the blackness is not a blanket; we forget that the sun will soon rise. But in the moment, at least, we feel brave enough to say things we’d never say in the light.

I am no longer afraid of fear, and I will not let it rule me. Fear will learn to fear me.

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

“Do you never get exhausted being so wholly unbearable? You have as much charisma as the rotting innards of unidentified roadkill.”

“Good for you. I’ll buy you a balloon the minute the world stops shitting on itself.”

And we are quotation marks, inverted and upside down, clinging to one another at the end of this life sentence. Trapped by lives we did not choose. It’s time, I think, to break free.

“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—”

Words are like seeds, I think, planted into our hearts at a tender age.