Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3)

by Tahereh Mafi

“There are three things you should know about me, love.” He steps forward. “The first,” he says, “is that I hate my father more than you might ever be capable of understanding.” He clears his throat. “Second, is that I am an unapologetically selfish person, who, in almost every situation, makes decisions based entirely on self-interest. And third.” A pause as he looks down. Laughs a little. “I never had any intention of using you as a weapon.”

He’s unraveling before me, becoming something entirely different; terrifying me in a way I never could’ve expected.

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.

“He cares about me—and I care about him!” Warner nods, unimpressed. “You should get a dog, love. I hear they share much the same qualities.”

“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.

My heart stops. Starts. Stops again. Warner is here.

But Warner’s face changes seasons as I enter the room: the cold line of his mouth blossoms into a bright smile. His eyes shine as he grins at me, not seeming to mind or even notice the many lethal weapons aimed in his direction.

“I can’t stomach your pain,” he says. “I can feel it so strongly and it’s making me crazy—please,” he says to me. “Don’t be sad. Or hurt. Or guilty. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“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.”

“You once accused me of not knowing the meaning of love,” he says. “But you were wrong. You fault me, perhaps, for loving you too much.” His eyes are so intense. So green. So cold. “But at least I do not deny my own heart.”

“Because I am afraid,” he finally says, voice shaking, “that your friendship would be the end of me.”

“Water that never moves,” I say to him. “It’s fine for a little while. You can drink from it and it’ll sustain you. But if it sits too long it goes bad. It grows stale. It becomes toxic.” I shake my head. “I need waves. I need waterfalls. I want rushing currents.”

“I love you,” I whisper. “I love you exactly as you are.”

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.

“You can have anything of mine you want. You can have all of it.”

“I will be here every night,” he whispers, his words so soft, so tortured, “to keep you warm. I will kiss you until I can’t keep my eyes open.”

“Aaron,” I whisper. “I love you,” he says. My heart no longer fits in my chest.

You brought me back to life.” He’s quiet a moment. “I have never known this kind of peace. Never known this kind of comfort. And sometimes I am afraid,” he says, dropping his eyes, “that my love will terrify you.”

“It’s the only way I know how to exist,” he says. “In a world where there is so much to grieve and so little good to take? I grieve nothing. I take everything.”

“Ignite, my love. Ignite.”

But he’s still looking at me, searching my eyes like he’s found something he can’t bear to walk away from.