Restore Me (Shatter Me, #4)

by Tahereh Mafi

Everything I was, everything I did, everything I am, was forged from the twins of their action and inaction. Who am I, I wonder, in their absence?

But the fire of true hatred, I realize, cannot exist without the oxygen of affection. I would not hurt so much, or hate so much, if I did not care. And it is this, my unrequited affection for my father, that has always been my greatest weakness. So I lie here, marinating in a sorrow I can never speak of, while regret consumes my heart.

The world I remember was tired and racist and volatile as hell, ripe for a hostile takeover by a shit regime. We were already divided. The conquering was easy.”

“Hey—I’m right here.” He’s crossed the room in just a few strides, by my side in seconds. “You’re coming with me, right?” I whisper, tugging at his sleeve like a child. Kenji laughs. “I’ll be wherever you need me to be, kid.”

My father taught me to shoot a gun when I was nine years old. When I was ten he sliced open the back of my leg and showed me how to suture my own wounds. At eleven he broke my arm and abandoned me in the wild for two weeks. At age twelve I was taught to build and defuse my own bombs. He began teaching me how to fly planes when I was thirteen. He never did teach me how to ride a bike. I figured that out on my own.

I’ve only been struck by a bullet once. The memory still mortifies me, but I don’t regret it. I deserved it. For misunderstanding her, for mistreating her, for being lost and confused. But I’ve been trying so hard to be a different man; to be, if not kinder, then at the very least, better. I don’t want to lose the love I’ve come to cherish.

“If they think you incapable it is because they are idiots. Idiots who’ve already forgotten that you were able to accomplish in a matter of months what they had been trying to do for decades. They are forgetting where you started, what you’ve overcome, how quickly you found the courage to fight when they could hardly stand.”

“The world tried to crush you,” I say, gently now, “and you refused to be shattered.

“Those who do not understand you,” I say softly, “will always doubt you.”

“I love you,” she says. The words do something to me every time I hear them. They change me. Build something new inside of me.

This is the first thing they’ve managed to agree on in over a week: their mutual hatred of my hopes for their friendship.

“Arrogance is false confidence,” he says. “It is born from insecurity.

Our movement long ago expunged all symbols and practices of faith or culture in an effort at resetting identities and allegiances; so much so that places of worship were among the first institutions around the world to be destroyed. Civilians, it was said, were to bow before The Reestablishment and nothing else. Crosses, crescents, Stars of David—turbans and yarmulkes, head scarves and nun’s habits— They’re all illegal.

“Men,” she says, “are always so baffled by women’s clothing. So many opinions about a body that does not belong to them. Cover up, don’t cover up”—she waves a hand—“no one can seem to decide.”

It made me wish I’d had a sister. Or a mother. Someone to learn from and lean on. A woman to teach me how to be brave in this body, among these men. I’ve never had that.

But best of all, it makes it possible for me to know how deeply Juliette loves me. I can always feel the rush of emotion in her words, in her eyes. The certainty that she would fight for me. Protect me. And knowing this makes my heart feel so full that, sometimes, when we’re together, I can hardly breathe. I wonder if she knows that I would do anything for her.

She has to be okay. She has to be okay for her sake and for my sake, because I need her, and because I need her to be safe—

I will lose her. And it will kill me.

Of just how much I love her. God, I love all of her. Her impossibilities, her exasperations. I love how gentle she is with me when we’re alone. How soft and kind she can be in our quiet moments. How she never hesitates to defend me. I love her.

This is what they talk about when they talk about heartbreak. I thought I knew what it was like before. I thought I knew, with perfect clarity, what it felt like to have my heart broken, but now—now I finally understand.

I cannot revert back to another version of myself. I will not shatter, not again, in the wake of an emotional earthquake.

You can’t be with someone and keep that many secrets from them.”

I want to become a tree. A blade of grass. I want to become dirt or air or nothing. Nothing. Yes. I want to become nothing.

And even when you’re ready to let go. When you’re ready to break free. When you’re ready to be brand-new. Loneliness is an old friend standing beside you in the mirror, looking you in the eye, challenging you to live your life without it. You can’t find the words to fight yourself, to fight the words screaming that you’re not enough never enough never ever enough. Loneliness is a bitter, wretched companion. Sometimes it just won’t let go.

the pain of peeling myself away from her not unlike what I imagine it’d be like to peel the skin off my own body.

I only wanted Juliette. I wanted her love, her heart, her arms around me.