Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1)

by Tahereh Mafi

I know the sky falls down every day. The sun drops into the ocean and splashes browns and reds and yellows and oranges into the world outside my window. A

They say our world used to be green. Our clouds used to be white. Our sun was always the right kind of light.

I press my palm to the small pane of glass and feel the cold clasp my hand in a familiar embrace. We are both alone, both existing as the absence of something else.

Raindrops are my only reminder that clouds have a heartbeat. That I have one, too.

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

The moon is a loyal companion. It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.

Did you know that The Reestablishment said someone had to take control, that someone had to save society, that someone had to restore the peace? Did you know that they said killing all the voices of opposition was the only way to find peace?

“They’re destroying everything,” Adam says, and his voice is suddenly solemn. “All the books, every artifact, every remnant of human history. They’re saying it’s the only way to fix things. They say we need to start fresh.

I am nothing but novocaine. I am numb, a world of nothing, all feeling and emotion gone forever. I am a whisper that never was.

I could stand still in this moment forever.

Very few people are allowed a means of escape.

So many people must’ve died to sustain this luxury. So many people had to lose their homes and their children and their last 5 dollars in the bank for promises promises promises so many promises to save them from themselves.

But they stole everything. They took everything. My life. My future. My sanity. My freedom.

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 through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.

Hate looks just like everybody else until it smiles. Until it spins around and lies with lips and teeth carved into the semblance of something too passive to punch.

“Well you’re the murderer,” I tell him. “So you must be right.” His smile is laced with dynamite. “Go to sleep.” “Go to hell.” He works his jaw. Walks to the door. “I’m working on it.”

Hope is hugging me, holding me in its arms, wiping away my tears and telling me that today and tomorrow and two days from now I will be just fine and I’m so delirious I actually dare to believe it.

Because we’re not the same. I want to be better.

“You’re my bird,” I tell him. “You’re my bird and you’re going to help me fly away.”

The sun rises, rests, shines in his face and he almost smiles,

“Laughter comes from living.” I shrug, try to sound indifferent. “I’ve never really been alive before.”

But I’m an encyclopedia with too many blank pages.

Maybe I’m not a monster. Maybe things can change.

My lungs are sawing my rib cage in half, but I force them to process oxygen anyway. I

Things are changing, but this time I’m not afraid. This time I know who I am.