Shadow Me (Shatter Me, #4.5)

by Tahereh Mafi

“I don’t think you do, actually. In fact, I hope you don’t. I wouldn’t want you to know how I feel right now. I wouldn’t wish that for you.”

Instead, I’m a big, raw, bleeding heart, and I spend my days pretending not to notice that I want more. That I need more.

Maybe it sounds weird to say, but I know I could love the shit out of someone. I feel it, in my heart. This capacity to love. To be romantic and passionate. Like it’s a superpower I have. A gift, even.

“You reek of it.” He nods at me, my body. “You’re practically emanating lovelorn agony.”

They clearly have crazy chemistry. Their relationship never made a lot of sense to me—I couldn’t understand how someone like Warner could be an emotional partner to anyone, much less someone like Juliette: a girl who eats, sleeps, and breathes emotion. I rarely saw him emote anything. I worried that Juliette was giving him too much credit, that she put up with too much of his bullshit in exchange for—I don’t even know what. A sociopath with an extensive coat collection? Mostly, I worried that she wasn’t getting the kind of love she deserved. But now, suddenly— Their relationship makes sense.

A single tear escapes down the side of her face and the sight of it is simultaneously heartbreaking and reassuring. This is the girl I know. The friend I love. She’s all heart.

Because it’s not the pain that’s unendurable. It’s the hopelessness. It’s the hopelessness that makes you reckless.