Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1)

by Tahereh Mafi

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

I have no idea where I am.

Stop touching me with your eyes and keep your hands to your sides and please and please and please—

My throat is tight with something familiar to me, something I’ve learned to swallow.

Sometimes I think the loneliness inside of me is going to explode through my skin

sometimes I’m not sure if crying or screaming or laughing through the hysteria will solve anything at all.

Sometimes I’m so desperate to touch to be touched to feel that I’m almost certain I’m going to fall off a cliff in an alternate universe whe...

I’ve been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me.

I want to smash this concrete world into oblivion. I want to be bigger, better, stronger.

I want to be angry angry angry.

“You can’t touch me,” I whisper. I’m lying, is what I don’t tell him. He can touch me, is what I’ll never tell him. Please touch me, is what I want to tell him.

Sometimes I wish I never had to sleep. Sometimes I think that if I stay very, very still, if I never move at all, things will change.

If time stands still nothing can go wrong.

it’s nearly impossible to beat gravity when no one is willing to give you a hand. When no one wants to risk touching you.

I hate the heat and the sticky, sweaty mess left behind.

I want to put this fist attached to my wrist right through the window. Just to feel something.

My life is 4 walls of missed opportunities poured into concrete molds.

My eyes close in an effort to block out the bad memories,

Look at me, is what I wanted to say to you. Talk to me every once in a while. Find me a cure for these tears, I’d really like to exhale for the first time in my life.

Death would be a welcome release from these earthly joys I’ve known.

I won’t think about the horror that awaits me.

The landscape has been ravaged by war and neglect and it’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in so long.

I can’t ever breathe.

The beauty is so tainted I can’t stand the sight of it.

want to hate him and judge him and scream forever but I’m failing because all I see is an 8-year-old boy who doesn’t remember that he used to be the kindest person I ever knew.

I’m tempted to beg, to ask for mercy, to steal his gun and shoot myself first.

I spent my life folded between the pages of books.

In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters.

I lived love and loss thro...

I experienced adolescence by ...

I’ve been tempted with friendship only to be left betrayed and trapped into this nightmare I’m expected to be grateful for.

I flush, hoping he’s not disgusted by what he might see. I don’t know why I care.

At least I have nothing to lose but my life.

A shame, really, that such striking looks should be wasted on such a miserable human being.

There is a distinct flavor of panic lodged somewhere underneath my tongue and I’m fighting to remember where it came from.

I collapse from sheer exhaustion.

I think it was the kind of question intended to be cruel, but it was the first time I’d ever contemplated the possibility.

I’d always hoped that if I were a good enough girl, if I did everything right, if I said the right things or said nothing at all—I thought my parents would change their minds.

I thought they would finally listen when I tried to talk. I thought they would give me a chance. I thoug...

It takes me a moment to realize I’m tangled in the same sheets Warner himself has slept in.

His eyes are such a strange shade of green: bright, crystal clear, piercing in the most alarming way. His hair is thick, the richest slice of gold; his frame is lean and unassuming, but his grip is effortlessly strong. I notice for the first time that he wears a jade ring on his left pinkie finger.

“Everything I do is done on purpose.”

“You don’t understand that power and control can slip from your grasp at any moment and even when you think you’re most prepared. These two things are not easy to earn. They are even harder to retain.”

I feel as though every fist in the world has decided to punch me in the stomach.

I wonder if he’s taken any other risks with me. I wonder why he would.

Adam saved the only thing I own.

Hope is a pocket of possibility. I’m holding it in my hand.

I wonder what he’s not telling me.