Grace

“I am a whisper that never was.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“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.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“I stand perfectly still.
Every inch of my skin is taut with tension, fraught with feeling and the pressure is building in my chest, pounding louder and faster and harder, overcompensating for my stillness. I do not tremble when I’m frozen in time. I train my breaths to come slower, I count things that do not exist, I make up numbers I do not have, I pretend time is a broken hourglass bleeding seconds through sand. I dare to believe.
I dare to hope....”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“Warner has collapsed in the corner.
He's curled into himself, kness pulled up to his chest. arms wrapped around his legs, his head buried in this arms. And he's shaking.
Tremors are rocking his entire body.
I've never, ever seen him look like a child before. Never, not once, not in all the time I've known him. But right now, he looks just like a little boy. Scared, Vulnerable. All alone.
...
I touch his arms, so gently. I run my hand down his back, his shoulders. And then I dare to wrap myself around him until he slowly breaks apart, unfolding in front of me.
He lifts his head.
His eyes are red-rimmed and a startling, striking shade of green, shining with barely restrained emotion. His face is the picture of so much pain.
I almost can't breathe.
An earthquake hits my heart then, cracks it right down the middle. And It hink here, in him, there is more feeling then any one person should ever have to contain.
I try to hold him closer but he wraps his arms around my hips instead, his head falling into my lap. I bend over him instinctively, shielding his body with my own.
I press my cheek to his forehead. Press a kiss to his temple.
And then he breaks.
Shaking violently, shattering in my arms, a million gasping, choking pieces I'm trying so hard to hold together. And I promise myself then, in that moment that I will hold him forever, just like this, until all the pain and torture and suffering is gone, until he's given a chance to live the kind of life where no one can wound him this deeply ever again.”
― Tahereh Mafi