#been having the same goddamn problems nonstop for my whole life and its just that i cant fucking do anything

[fae-fucker]

Review: Shatter Me

by Tahereh Mafi

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war– and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: BE A WEAPON. OR BE A WARRIOR.

*This review contains vague spoilers.*

I uh … I’m having a hard time figuring out where to even begin with this one, lads. I guess I’ll start with the absolute basics:

This book is not a dystopia. This is a superhero (supervillain?) origin story. I didn’t know this going in and it didn’t feel like it until the very end. With heavy-handed romance, heavy-handed writing, heavy-handed messages, and a plodding plot that I’m pretty sure sucked about 25 years out of my goddamn life.

*rubs hands together*

Well, with that in mind, let’s do this!

The “Writing”

Tahereh Mafi isn’t some backwater Harlequin mommy porn writer, nu-uh! She’s an Artiste, and as such, her art isn’t merely art, it’s Arté.

When a sentence could be five words, Mafi makes it a paragraph. When a metaphor could make sense, Mafi confuses your PLEBEIAN MIND with her MYSTIC WRITING POWERS, to the point where nothing fucking makes sense anymore and you’re just scratching your head, wondering how the fuck supposedly near-catatonic Juliette is able to come up with such convoluted comparisons. When other writers use pages to put words on them for people to read, Mafi puts maybe one word at the very top for four or five pages for the DRAMA of it all, except unlike when we all freaked out about Stephenie Meyer doing that, here it’s Artistic.

Jokes aside, this book is the epitome of everything I hate about purple prose. As someone who violently dislikes purple prose (because usually it’s done horribly by people who want to show off how many big words they know rather than evoke any sort of emotion), I knew going in that this book wouldn’t be for me, but I wasn’t expecting this.

Metaphors are long ang confusing, the prose and the rhythm are all off, the dialogue is atrocious and cartoonish, and Juliette’s thoughts are painfully obtuse despite her supposed “deep” personality. Except sometimes her thoughts are so convoluted and specific that it clashes with how dumb she is. Sometimes she thinks of the lackadaisical ennui of the uncaring sun, sometimes she compares her boyfriend’s eyes to buckets of water. It’s a huge, disjointed mess of word vomit.

People have defended Juliette’s narration as being a result of her solitary confinement, but those people’s opinions are bad and wrong and you shouldn’t listen to them, and I will explain to you why when I discuss Juliette’s “personality” in the character section of this review.

This book’s main “thing” is Juliette crossing out words and sentences, but it’s not consistent enough to actually mean anything or tell us anything about Juliette. It also happens in dialogue, which is fucking baffling. How do characters speak the words that are crossed out? Presumably they don’t, and I’m guessing that it’s supposed to represent what Juliette thinks people want to say but don’t, but then why the fuck would you put the crossed-out shit inside the quotes with the actual dialogue? Don’t!!!! Do that!!!! You’re clearly not equipped to ignore the rules of grammar yet, Mrs Mafi! You need to level up!!!

Sometimes, things that are implied to be true are crossed out. Sometimes, it’s the propaganda that Juliette knows is untrue that’s crossed out. With both the truth and the lies, Juliette’s thoughts vs her feelings, being crossed out without any rhyme or reason, we can never be entirely certain what the fuck the strikethroughs are supposed to represent.

If, for example, only the lies were crossed out, it would imply Juliette was aware that they’re lies and isn’t afraid to confront the truth. If only the truth was crossed out, then it would mean Juliette is in denial, knowing something is wrong but believing it anyway.

Instead, the strikethrough bullshit is just … there. What it means changes from instance to instance, and because of that, it loses all the impact and significance it could’ve had and ends up meaning nothing.

In short: the writing in this book is a whole-ass mess and nothing you say will convince me otherwise.

The Characters

Juliette’s mind is perfectly fine at all times, characters even praise her for being able to withstand literal psychological torture unlike all the other female WEAKLINGS in the facility. Her obnoxious inner monologues are just there for show, because Juliette is Deep and Troubled but in a sexy, dramatic way that doesn’t actually impact her as a person or her life at all. She doesn’t suffer from any mental illness or trauma that would’ve been brought on by 260+ days of nonstop psychological torture and years of emotional abuse and neglect.

How do I know that? Because she doesn’t believe any of the bullshit she spouts. It’s made perfectly clear that Juliette only thinks in metaphors because that’s just her obnoxious “personality”. Sometimes one of the Boys says something and she claims that her knees shatter or something similar. Except she doesn’t react as if they were, as if she felt the pain. She only thinks that because … Idk. It’s deep. Shut the fuck up.

I think her narration is supposed to imply that Juliette is smart, but that’s hilariously contrasted by her constant, and I mean fucking CONSTANT thirst and attraction to both Adam and Warner, the latter being especially jarring considering how she keeps saying she despises him and is disgusted by him.

She ogles and fawns over these men even when she’s in pain or in danger, even when they’re the ones inflicting the pain or threatening her. That’s how fucking horny she is, that’s where Mafi’s priorities lie.

She undermines her own protagonist by having Juliette constantly act like a horny schoolgirl instead of the broken and tortured person she should be after what she’s been through. After years of isolation and discrimination, after 260 days of solitary confinement, this girl still acts just like any other normal horny teenager, and it’s fucking awful to read, because it invalidates everything Juliette has been through and once again puts sex appeal and men higher on the priority list over an honest and realistic portrayal of trauma and isolation.

Speaking of sex appeal …

Warner. Oh Warner. What wonderful potential was lost. I think he’s genuinely interesting, or at least had the potential to be. He’s damaged and he’s troubled and he’s complex, despite how edgy he is. He’s hands-down the most interesting character in the book, and I weep for Mafi’s inability to fucking pace herself because that’s what’s absolutely ruined him for me. Let me explain:

I’m all for redemption arcs, alright? And Warner? He’s … salvageable. With some work and some atonement, I can totally see him becoming a complex anti-hero type. He’s clearly fucked up and the things he does are damaging him.

You know where Mafi fails? You know where she fucking destroys the guy?

She’s constantly describing him as hot. When he’s acting like a terrifying and abusive shithead, Juliette can’t help but think of how the anger makes his green eyes flash. When he takes off his shirt, Juliette claims how disgusted she is by the sight, and then in the same breath describes his perfectly sculpted chest in careful detail.

We’re supposed to find Warner sexy.

We’re supposed to reluctantly be attracted to him, just like Juliette, despite that and sometimes even because he’s a dangerous and abusive jackass.

There’s even a makeout session between Juliette and Warner where she’s complaining about how grossed out she is, but the kissing is described in more sexy and hot detail than any Adam makeout, and Juliette can’t help her attraction to Warner despite her believing he’d just killed the man she loves in cold blood.

Do you undersand my problem? If Warner was just a tragic villain and Juliette pitied him and didn’t feel any, and I mean ANY attraction to the guy, I would 100% accept him later trying to change sides to atone or to make up for the things he did. Aka a proper redemption arc.

But here, he’s already written as attractive to us. He’s already sexy and desireable and alluring. The narrative paints him in a good light by undermining the terrible things he does through constant descriptions of his appearance and Juliette’s obvious lust for him.

And you can say that “Woe, Juliette can’t control her attraction!” and you would still be a dumbass, because guess who can control Juliette’s attraction? Tahereh Mafi. It was Mafi’s conscious decision to make Juliette attracted to Warner, to write him this way as a sexy but dangerous man we’re supposed to root for and want to fix.

And that’s just gross. So whatever excuse or justification or explanation Warner’s actions get in lieu of an actual redemption arc, it won’t matter to me, because it’s already been undermined by how sexy he’s supposed to be despite his damage, and the terrible things he does are only there to make him more “mysterious” and his eventual love interest status more unexpected.

Mafi isn’t interested in writing a redemption arc, she just can’t write a morally ambiguous or mysterious love interest without taking it up to eleven and have him be a fucking unhinged dictator, but it’s ok because he’s still hot enough to bang!

I love redemption arcs. I hate abusers who are painted as attractive.

Adam exists. And what a pointless existence it is! He’s very obviously a decoy love interest, too nice and too basic to be endgame, and just vague and nonthreatening enough to have a sinister plan.

See, girls? Boys who protect you and care about you are actually evil! The boys who abuse you and terrify you are the ones who truly love you!

Kenji is very clearly designed to be quirky and snarky and for the Tumblr fangirls to fawn over to the point where he sticks out like a sore thumb among the rest of the cast. I didn’t like him and found him to be pretty boring without any deviation from the snarky flirty guy archetype.

There are a bunch of other characters that are spoilers and who don’t really matter, but I will say that there is a Black man who’s described as chocolate, so there.

Um. Women? I’m pretty sure the only named women we actually get to see on the page are two identical twins who are basically one entity and they show up in like the last chapter?

Before one of you shouts OMG THERE ARE MORE WOMEN IN THE LATER BOOKS, yeah, probably, I fucking hope so, but I’m not reviewing those books yet, I’m reviewing this one, and it’s one fucking giant sausage fest of hot dudes and faceless mooks.

Dems the fax.

The “Plot”

If you go into this expecting an exploration of the importance of human touch and how the lack of it might impact a person, you’re a dumbass and so am I for making that mistake.

If you’re expecting a gloomy but action-filled dystopia based on some more district/caste/personality oppression, you’re wrong again but at least justified because that’s what this is marketed as.

The stakes and conflict are … are they? Are we sure they even exist? Jury’s still out because I have no idea what Juliette wants aside from sucking Adam’s dick (and Warner’s sometimes). I know what she doesn’t want, I think (?), but I don’t know why she doesn’t want it aside from the “uwu i’m too good and pure and love people too much even tho they’ve shown me nothing but hatred and rejection” crap.

I’m honestly having a hard time figuring out what this book even is about. Supposedly the major plot development is Juliette realizing how powerful she is and how nobody will get to use her anymore, but the first thing happens in the very last chapter out of fucking nowhere, while the last thing doesn’t even matter because up until this point, Juliette has already been spending the entire book refusing to be used in the first place.

Oh, and about the first thing again, where Juliette must realize her power? It’s supposed to be this big epic moment for her at the end of the book, but we see her use her powers to throw around threats to get what she wants several times before that, on people she barely knows. She threatens Kenji just because he makes a few inappropriate comments about her, which is fucking baffling because she refused to even try to hurt Warner even though he’s been nothing but an asshole to her up until that point.

The moment Juliette gets her hands on a gun, she’s suddenly super empowered and has no problem spitting badass one-liners, even though she was a sad woobie pacifist up until that point and who couldn’t even IMAGINE hurting anyone, not even supposed monster Warner. The whole gun thing is weird and vaguely gross tbh, because Juliette genuinely seems to enjoy the power it gives her and I’m not into that.

On a technical level, this book is mostly Juliette being pushed around by men, feeling sorry for herself and clinging to morals that only serve to show how pure and good she is despite making no sense and being odd for someone in her position to have.

There are entire chapters of repeated revelations, where Juliette is sometimes literally dragged around from scene to scene by the hand, and she realizes the same thing over and over, seemingly forgetting it at the start of the chapter just to she can learn it again by the end of it: Warner is a meanie poopy-head who’s willing to hurt, kill, and torture other people for his own gain. Every time he shows this, Juliette acts shocked all over again.

This goes on for about half the book until shit suddenly takes a turn and the book becomes yet another Underground Teenage Rebellion Fighting to Take Down the Man drama, except this time the teenagers are mutants with cool superpowers.

It’s a complete tonal shift and it’s jarring as all heck, but at least there’s no more pretense about this being a dystopia because boy oh boy is it painful to watch Mafi struggle to worldbuild even the slightest concept for this superpowered angstfest.

The Worldbuilding

Important Proper Nouns galore. The book’s website (where I got the blurb) says that this book is “fresh” and “original”.

Yeah let’s uuh … Let’s investigate that statement.

The main evil guys are called the Reestablishment. That’s two letters away from Juliette fighting the establishment.

D-do I need to say more?

I honestly don’t know if I can. It’s like Mafi just sorta took all the other YA dystopian “quirks” and threw them all in without rhyme or reason.

Climate is fucked because of Big Corporate? Yeah. All animals are dead or mutated? Yup. Art and religion is deemed bad and terrible and banned for reasons? Throw that in there too, why not? They’re destroying all languages, English included? O-ok?

We never really … dwell on any of these things or figure out why they happened or how or even where. These things are always brought up together like some sort of checklist of all the bad things that the Reestablishment has done.

And I guess for a superhero story with “pulse-pounding” romance, it doesn’t really have to be that much more complicated, and it serves its function, but on Mafi’s website there’s boasting about how it has the worldbuilding of The Hunger Games and honey, you might become a more successful circus act than a writer because the level of contortion required to shove your head that far up your ass is frankly impressive.

The Wokeness

Warner is constantly described and called “crazy” and “insane” and a “madman”, so that’s FUN. Combined with the fact that this book doesn’t seem to have any idea about what solitary does to you and effectively trivializes literal torture, this isn’t looking good, lads.

There’s also, as I mentioned, no women aside from Juliette, and everything’s always about men and how they affect her and her life and how much they matter to her.

Just. Bad. The most progressive thing about this book is the fact that a WoC wrote it, and that’s about it.

The Quotes

I’m … so sorry for this. But you have to see them.

This Kills the Lady

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

I always wonder about raindrops.

I wonder about how they’re always falling down, tripping over their own feet, breaking their legs and forgetting their parachutes as they tumble right out of the sky toward an uncertain end. It’s like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn’t seem to care where the contents fall, doesn’t seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground, that they shatter when they fall to the floor, that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors.

I am a raindrop.

My parents emptied their pockets of me and left me to evaporate on a concrete slab.

Wot?

I catch the rose petals as they fall from my cheeks, as they float around the frame of my body, as they cover me in something that feels like the absence of courage.

Huh?

He shifts and my eyes shatter into thousands of pieces that ricochet around the room, capturing a million snapshots, a million moments in time. Flickering images faded with age, frozen thoughts hovering precariously in dead space, a whirlwind of memories that slice through my soul.

Come Again?

Summer is like a slow-cooker bringing everything in the world to a boil 1 degree at a time. It promises a million happy adjectives only to pour stench and sewage into your nose for dinner.

The Sun is a Rat Bastard – Poem by Juliette

I hate the lackadaisical ennui of a sun too preoccupied with itself to notice the infinite hours we spend in its presence. The sun is an arrogant thing, always leaving the world behind when it tires of us.

Juliette Contemplates Cannibalism

He whispers, “How are you?” and I want to kiss every beautiful beat of his heart.

He’s Not Wrong, I Guess

It’s the only reason Adam is staying with me – because Warner thinks Adam is a cardboard cutout of vanilla regurgitations.

Get You A Man Who Can Fix Years of Abuse and 260 Days of Solitary!

He’s kissing away the pain, the hurt, the years of self-loathing, the insecurities, the dashed hopes for a future I always pictured as obsolete.

*Sarah J Maas voice*

Realization is a pendulum the size of the moon. It won’t stop slamming into me.

I … What?

He’s a hot bath, a short breath, 5 days of summer pressed into 5 fingers writing stories on my body.

Juliette is a Loony Tunes Character

My eyelashes trip into my eyebrows; my jaw drops into my lap.

Kenji Is the Worst

He grins and hobbles forward. “You know, you’re pretty hot for a psycho chick.”

I … What? part 2

My jaw is dangling from my shoelace.

The Conclusion

Don’t waste your time on this. Trust me. There’s so many things I’ve left out for the sake of brevity, and I still ended up with a mile-long review.

It doesn’t work as a romance, it doesn’t work as a dystopia, and it certainly doesn’t work as a superhero origin story. Mostly because it tries to be all of these things at once and ends up being an overwritten mediocre mess.

For a time I felt vaguely invested and interested in knowing what happened in the next books, but that feeling has passed now and I couldn’t give less of a shit.

I would honestly be very interested in seeing a character like Warner be written properly and watch him try to redeem himself and atone. But that train has already left the station, and Mafi was not on it.

[personalspace-invader420]

MoonBeams In The Jewish Congregation

Part One: Cinnamon Gum and Sydney

“Cinnamon gum. Cinnamon gum. Cinnamon gum. Cinnamon gum. ” I can hear him repeat it under his breath at least a dozen times. I ask him why and he’s using his hands and his whole body to explain. “She chews cinnamon gum, Alex, and she's not supposed to because she has rubber band braces but she does anyway and she chews it all the time and it makes her whole mouth taste like cinnamon.” And the way he says it is not really complete sentences, more like a stream of consciousness. I can tell he's nervous by the way he’s shifting his clothes and running his fingers through his hair. He doesn’t have to explain this is a thought spiral, I already know. Sometimes he’ll see something or experience something and it’s that and only that for weeks. Months, sometimes. He’ll repeat it in his head, replay the situation. He’ll forget to eat or piss or shower. And, of course, this leads to erratic tendencies. Loni has taken up the habit of cinnamon gum himself and he chews so much he has an ulcer in the side of his mouth. Until now, I was afraid to ask why.

“What’s her name,” I ask half-heartedly but it’s all he needs to get him rambling.

“Oh god, it’s Sydney. Sydney. Sydney. Sydney. God is real and her name is Sydney.” I laugh because he has a habit of over exaggerating. Especially when it comes to his love life. He talks the entire ride to the north side of town about Sydney. He says she’s like a summer day and he over explains the analogy but his face is so bright and he seems so happy.

I’ve seen him like this before. When he dated Olive in middle school and Autumn in high school and a thousand other times. He gets like this every time he meets someone new. Every time he sees someone on the subway into the city for school or on campus or at the coffee shop in the evenings. Loni tells me about a new girl almost every month but he hasn’t had a relationship in a while and I think Sydney is a relationship. Loni comes home from work in the afternoons and pulls me onto the couch and talks nonstop for hours about how maybe he’s falling in love and that he hopes he is and he uses flowery explanations of their clothes and smiles and hair and it makes my guts turn at how cute it is.

We don’t have to wait any time at all before Sydney is running out of the house and up to our car and Loni is jumping out and they’re hugging. It’s sickly sweet and I can feel my whole body coil. It’s only been two days since they saw each other last but Loni begged me to drive him forty-five minutes across town to see her because he said he couldn’t stop thinking about her and her lips and the inside of her mouth and cinnamon gum. So I caved. Because Loni is my best friend, even if his cotton candy sweet relationship makes me want to puke my guts up. He insists I go with him and Sydney on every date they go on, he says it’s only a good date when I’m around. He's basically putting me through hell. I have to watch them kiss and hug and I have to hear their declarations of eternal love as if he’s not going to find a million more girls just like her. It would be different if it was anyone else, but it isn't. It's Loni.

 They only see each other for a few months before things go south with Sydney. It never takes long for him to fall out of love. Or in love. What he thinks is love. And Loni is just as heartbroken every single time it ends. Like, he’s never had his heart broken before. Like, this is the first and last time he will ever feel pain like this. He does the same things every time he and some girl breaks up. First, he mourns his loss for a week or two. Next, he does something stupid. Like dye his hair or get a lip ring or a tattoo or switch majors. Then, he talks to me for a long time about how next time is gonna be different and how he’s tired and tired of loving girls that don’t want to love him the same way. He tells me a million times how things are going to be different and he’s going to change and how maybe he’ll take up three or four lovers at a time and move to Spain or at least out of New York. After that, he sees some pretty girl and the cycle repeats itself.

Part 2: Loni’s Gentle Haze

Loni is changing, I can see it in his eyes. Half-lidded, glazed over. Head lolled back in some distinct ecstasy. Loni is changing. I can feel it as his body racks under my fingertips.

“A-alex,” he shuddered, the word sounds like a goddamn miracle shaking from his chapped lips.

We’re in the temple pews, church having let out hours ago, and Loni hums, even closer now. Closing the small space between our chests. His lips are on mine, for the millionth time, yet it still feels like sugar water to me. There is hesitation in his smile and back behind his eyes. But his mouth is ready and his hands are hasty. His fingertips run over my chest. Discovering new territory.

He looks at me in almost amazement. He’s gliding his hands up and over my shoulders, sucking a kiss into my neck. His mouth is a wet paradise. Fertile promise land. And the way it feels must be sin. There is no holy explanation for this feeling.

“Your the closest to heaven that I'll ever be,” he whispers the words Into the grooves of my collar bones.

Loni is illuminated in blue moonlight shown from high windows, creating a soft, gentle haze. Engulfing him. I don’t have time to grasp the situation before its morning and I’m waking up intertwined with him.

I take his hand off of his chest and lay it flat against mine, it’s so much bigger. I’m thinking that maybe I’ve found it, what everyone's looking for. In these hands, those lips. I found heaven last night, in the soft moonlight of the Jewish congregation.

Part 3: An Adoration of Modern Baseball

Months later and Loni is yelling. I'm not saying anything. He doesn’t seem disappointed that I don’t have much to say. It doesn’t even slow him down. I’ve never been good at talking. Writing, maybe. But not talking. With anyone else, this would be far more of an issue. But Loni never once has seemed bothered by it. He talks enough for both of us. With Loni, I never feel pressured to try to impress him. He's already impressed, I don’t even have to try.

Sometimes Loni speaks in quotes. He has a hard time forming original sentiments to express his emotions so he spends a lot of time memorizing quotes from movies and songs and books that he likes and he brings them up in conversation when he doesn’t know what else to say. Mostly, people don’t notice because he makes it really subtle. I already know he does it so it doesn’t bother me anymore. It used to bother me. But now, all I'm worried about when Loni says, “I thought you were my redo.” is what exactly he means by that and not the fact that he ripped the line from a Modern Baseball song.

Loni says it one more time. “I thought you were my redo.” This time he lingers on the last word. Lets it hang in the air between us. Re-do. Re-do. Re-do.

I want to say a million things. There are a million things to say so I'm more than a little disappointed when all I can manage is “I...can be.” My voice cracks at every word. Loni deserves more than an “I can be.” All of a sudden I can’t remember why we were fighting.

Maybe I thought I could be his redo. What Sydney, and all the other girls, couldn’t be. But I’m not a second or third or hundredth chance. I’m not some new sunrise Loni can melt his headaches in. I’m just Alex. Maybe I thought that could be enough.

Then I see him, in the doorway, and he’s been crying too. His eyes are red,  cheeks are stained with tears. For a while, we just stand, seeing at each other. I try to remember if he ever went back after walking out on anyone else. I can’t remember, probably.

I’ve been rehearsing what to say but none of the words reach my lips. Instead, I just say, “hey” and it’s quiet and ashamed. Ashamed that's all I have, ashamed of how eager I am to go back to normal, ashamed that I’m not even mad anymore. Then we hug, and I guess I expected something bigger. Something more romantic for our reunion but it’s just us, Loni and Alex, hugging. For about the millionth time. His skin is warm and soft against. He smells like hand sanitizer. Even if fireworks didn’t erupt, even though there were no symphonies, it’s still magical to me. I mean, we're just hugging and it's enough and it's never been enough with anyone else.

So we hug, then kiss, then make dinner. Nothing is resolved, nothing is fixed. But this is a good start. We have the rest of our lives to figure things out, so for now, this is a good start.

Part 4: The Problem with Philadelphia

The problem with Philly is that we grew up there. The story really starts in Lafayette Hill, a residential suburb in North Philadelphia. The story starts at Hebrew School, when we met.

Loni was a snot nosed 8 year old. Dirty, chubby little face, dirty, chubby little fingers and arms and legs. Dirty shirts and shorts and skinned knees. At that age, we couldn’t be more different. My mom dressed me in tiny button down shirts and khakis and nice dress shoes. She slicked my hair back and mad sure i had no cuts of scraps. At recess, i sat on the far edge of the playground, away from all the other kids. Usually, i set on the grass clearing and read from my books.

The day i met loni, i was reading Charlotte's Web. He walked up behind me, blocking the light from the sun with his head. He read the words out loud, “You have been my friend?” He ended with an upward inflection, as if there was a question to be asked. I finished the line, somewhat annoyed. “‘You have been my friend’, replied charlotte, ‘that in itself is enough’”

“So what are you, some kind of genius?” he asks after hearing me read the words.

“I don’t think so…” i answer, ashamed to be seen as different in any capacity.

“Well, let's test it,” Loni sits down next to me, scrunches up his face in thought.

“Okay!” he says after a minute of silence, “what's a billion plus a billion”

“2 billion” I answer easily. Loni was amazed. Guess it never takes much.

“Whoa! Your a genius! Like, a real genius!” he exclaims, his face all bright and shining. “I’m Loni.” he holds his hand out to shake but it’s filthy and sticky. I hesitate but Loni grabs my hand and shakes it vigorously.

It wasn’t long before I understood the surface of what Loni was, obsessive. Though it took many many more years to understand the depth of what that meant.

So I guess the problem with Philadelphia didn't start until...eighth grade, I’d say. When he discovered girls and I felt malign envy for the very first time. Not towards Loni, not because girls loved him and not me. The opposite actually. I wanted what those girls had and I didn't understand why. I was different. And that made me angry. And because I was angry, I didn't speak to Loni at first. When we did speak, we fought. But at least when we were fighting, he was looking at me and talking to me so...maybe it wasn't that bad.

The problem with Philadelphia is it's where Loni found everything. He discovered an entire world of friends and girls and parties, he didn't need me anymore. So when he was out, learning how to replace me, I was in my bedroom. Crying or jacking off or writing.

The problem with Philadelphia is Loni fit in and I didn’t. I guess the problem with Philadelphia is I couldn't find what Loni found there.  

Part 5: Betelgeuse and all the Stars in Orion

The first time Loni kissed me, it was under Orion. Our constellation. The one Loni showed me, his favorite. It was my favorite too, I loved the way Loni loved it. We were laying next to each other, we were thirteen. I told him I thought I like boys, he smiled. I remember that part very well. He smiled like he had just won the lottery. First, I'm looking at him, smiling up at the stars. Then, I'm looking at the stars, thinking I hope one would fly down and land right on top of me. Thinking I'd do anything to be somewhere else. Wishing myself far, far away. Then, Loni kissed me.

I hadn’t wanted to kiss anyone else before this. Just him. He kissed me, even when he was dating girls. He Kissed me, even when it was wrong. When things didn’t make sense. At bad timing. He kissed me and kissed me and kissed me. And, in the hallways at school, for weeks in between each kiss, he turned away. He would look down, tighten his grip around whichever girlfriend’s hand was in his. Tighten his grip around my throat, around my heart, take bites out of it. Shatter it in that way that only he knows how to do.

I cried, and I read and I wrote. I tried not to feel, and when that didn’t work, I tried to feel everything else imaginable. I wrote a lot. Then, Loni would come over and it was this sick lovely ferris wheel I couldn’t get off. That was the only way I knew how to love for a while, in bits and pieces. 

A Flashback to Stone Bridge High School

Loni’s bloody sneakers are the first thing I see. Then his bloody jeans. Then bloody Loni, laying naked other than boxers on his bathroom floor. The next bit is in slow motion, everything moves like thick, nasty syrup. I shriek and his mom rushes in, I can taste Loni’s pain. It's tangible, it feels up the whole room, the whole house. I can hear my heart beating in my ears, feel it in my palms. I almost fall to the floor, disregard glass and blood, and cup his head while his mom calls an ambulance. My organs tie themselves into a noose. His hair is stuck the foam coming from his mouth and I smear it as I run my hand across his cheek. I beg him to wake up. I sob quietly until the ambulance comes, rocking him in my arms. Wishing both of us healthy and far away from here. It’s not until he’s loaded onto the gurney that I see the word “freedom” rigidly carved backwards into his chest. I think maybe my lungs will collapse. I run my hands over the jagged letters. Then I have Loni’s blood on my fingertips and all of a sudden, I can’t breathe.

Weeks after are a blur of hospital rooms and sleepless nights. I bring Loni hand-picked flowers, I couldn't afford anything else. I remember we had a lot of long talks but I can’t remember what we said. Our words got lost in the ether, the stale vibration of hospital air conditioning. I remember Loni laughed quietly, looked up at me through sad, still eyes, and said, for about the millionth time, “I’m so broken.” I laugh too as if it were actually a joke.

Loni says it all the time now. But the first time he said it, I’ll never forget. We were in the fifth grade. Fifth grade and Loni already knew he was broken. Well, he thought he knew. He isn’t really, none of us really are.

“I’m so broken,” it comes out of nowhere. Whispered into the thin, cold air between our sleeping bags. His voice cracked, vocal cords drowned in woe. Like, the sinking realization snuck up on him.

 I guess the warning signs were always there, I was just too young and too blind to see them.

When he spent too much time staring off bridges, or when he crashed his car and told me, only once and only me, he did it on purpose. I guess the warning signs were always there and if I wanted to see them, I could have fucking paid attention.

I remember, once in middle school, i found his razors. They were hid inside of a book, hollowed out Arabian Knights. I don’t remember why i didn’t flush them, or throw them away. I’m not sure why i chose to forget.  

I remember wrestling an Exacto Blade out of his hand. I remember wrapping his arm in gauzes in the bathroom at school after he burned himself, so deep that he still has the scars.

Loni and i kicked and screamed our way through our teen years. We barely made it. His suicide attempt was a scream for help, a scream not loud enough to shatter the glass but loud enough the shake the window panes.

Part 6: Orchids: The Feeling of Hopelessness

Loni’s first adult relationship after high school was with a girl named Destiny from Queens. A real firecracker. She had stiff, tall hair, and a face full of makeup. Loni liked her tight skirts, her cleavage. He liked that she was a hothead until it wasn’t so convenient for him anymore. Towards the end, he just couldn’t handle her mood swings.

Things were great for the first few months. He was so happy to finally have a “real girlfriend” as he called it. “A real woman, not some dingy highschool chick” he’d say, body dizzy with drug store liquor Destiny had stuck down her pants and walked right past the cameras, still remembering to sway her hips and arch her back as she did.

I liked Destiny too. Even when things got rough with her and Loni, she never tried to hurt him. That's more than I can say for most of them.

On their first date, Loni bought a big bouquet of yellow and purple orchids from the grocery store. I still remember Destiny screaming as she slammed the vase down on the concrete floor of our dorm room.

“They’re just fucking orchids, Loni!” it was a brittle kind of desperate, pleading cry. Loni had become somewhat obsessed with orchids. He saw them as a symbol of their relationship, the same way he saw cinnamon gum as a symbol of Sydney. Every time they went out, he bought her orchids. He bought pictures of orchids, paintings, and pins to stick on his bag. It was all orchds all the time because, for loni, it was all Dystiny and they were one in the same. 

Loni told me he never felt more hopeless than he did when Destiny broke up with him. He said that if he couldn't make it with a girl like her, he didn't even want to try. So I helped him, I took care of him. He’d say, “sing me to sleep.” with his head laid in my lap, and I would, every time he needed it. I even found girls to set him up with. And yeah, it was hell. But I knew I'd never be able to make him happy in the way I wanted to, I knew he'd never want me in the way he wanted Destiny so I...sucked it up. I got the fuck over it and helped my friend. So yes, when Loni told me he felt hopeless, I understood that feeling

Part 7: A Night Under the Sea

I never went to prom. It seemed too dishonest. Loni did, of course he did. I went to kenny’s house. Smoked pot. Hated it. It made my mind all cloudy, more than it was usually. Then, i went to our treehouse. The one Loni’s dad built for us in their backyard. Trashed the entire thing. Cried, sobbed, looked for Orion, never found it, then went home.

Being in that treehouse hurt. It was too visceral, too cathartic. I could see it replayed in front of me. He had told me he didn’t love me anymore. He had said it so clearly. “I’ve fallen out of love with you.” his words punctuated, exact. I burst into flames. Wait for loni to put me out, or soak me in bleach. And he walks away, leaving storms behind in his absence.

Loni told me he loved me often, a sentiment I never returned outloud. He told me he loved me with his body pressed to mine in the lul between two far more maidenly objects of his affection. Loni defied the church for me. And that meant something. For those quick moments of awkward hands and ready mouths, i was more important to him than faith was. For that short eternity, i was his gospel.

So, I wrote until I convinced myself that was enough. I didn’t need him to love me, he already had. I’ll know, maybe no one else will and maybe I’ll have nothing to show for it but I’ll know that, once, I was loved.

I spent most of that night wondering what he was doing with her. Maybe they’d kiss or fuck and Loni would say, “I’ve never felt like this before,” and push the final dager into my still bleeding heart. I can still feel the fire that got caught in my throat. Loni had made me into a vacation home, a ghost town for him to roll through at his leisure.

I wrote until my blood could melt steel. I didn’t sleep that night.

Part 8: Saturday mornings

It's a bright, warm morning. It’s all honey and sweet, soaked in yellow. Loni says there are two great things about this time of the morning; 1. It’s real quiet and mello, there's this sort of subtle, relaxed energy. Our apartment is drenched in yokey haze. 2. The light from the sun rising through the curtains create these giant pools of sun rays and heat up the floor where it shines. So, on saturday morning, when everything is subtle and relaxed in the early hours, loni pulls me off the bed and onto the carpet so we can bask in the sun’s heat like lazy cats.

He grabs my face, sloppily kisses me. Once, once more. Then twice in a row, then three times. 5. 8. Then 13. Loni kisses much the same way he does most things: obsessively. He kisses the fibonacci sequence until 13 every morning. He wants to get it just right. He pushes his nose into the soft skin under my ear and kisses fibonacci there too. Then my collar bones. Then he lies his head on my chest so he can hear my heart beating and i run my fingers through his hair.

After Loni leaves for work, everything in our apartment turns dence and hollow. Grey fog settles over everything. When Loni’s not around, everything is a little less bright. I lay on the carpet for a bit longer, stare across the room at the far wall where our awards hang.

“Award of Excellence in blah blah blah”

He’s got like a dozen of those. Mostly for research papers and medical journals. He’s working towards his PhD in Psychology. I have a few awards too, college stuff, acknowledgments of ‘outstanding work in the community’ and th centerpiece: My Pulitzer Prize, sitting on the bookshelf right next to the book i won it for. Peaches. I wrote it while i was still in highschool. And next to that, Revolver. My other novel. It’s a new york times best seller, not that that title carries much weight.

Peaches is about an autistic girl and when i published it, i was only 18. But Revolver is far better, i wrote it when i was older, mid twenties. Though it doesn’t hardly get the praise it deserves. It’s about two boys planning a school shooting but there's a lot of subtext between the two male leads. I wrote it shortly after Loni was diagnosed with ocd.

He kind of had this huge break down, took time off school to go back to philadelphia for a while. And he called me everyday, told me all the ways philly had changed and all the ways it hadn’t. And i guess that got me thinking about highschool, about just how volatile me and loni were. And how confused i was.

One of the leads has ocd traits, i knew i had to make it that way after i realized revolver was more semi autobiographical than i had originally planned. And it was hard work, i had to research a lot to get the intricacies of ocd just right. when loni read it, he ran into my room, almost in tears, raving about how amazing it was. I burst at the seams with delight. I swear, i'm never more proud of myself than when loni is proud of me.

 I pull myself on top my hands and knees, crawl over to the bookshelf and neal in front of it. I pull revolver from the shelf. Run my fingers over the dust cover before opening it to a book marked page. There's a highlighted phrase: “Would you turn off the sun and blacken the sky if you could?”

Part 10: The Music

Loni whispers to me, still in the hollow dim light beaming from stained glass windows, “can’t you hear that music?” And i can, but not audibly. I’m not sure if he’s talking about the church hymns still ringing in our ears, even hours after the service has finished or the warm, steady sound of our hearts beating rhythmically against each other. But i can hear it. the music. And it’s palpable. It’s electricity. We're actually where we were our first time. All the uncertainty, all the confusion, has floated through the air waves, right out the window. Now, it's just me and him and the rest of our lives. It's been a long, difficult road but I'm so grateful we got here together.

“Can’t you hear that music?” He asks again, hopeful. He wants so bad for me to feel it too.

I can hear the music, and though it is beautiful it is also frightening. Oh, how frightening it is to love someone and be loved back.

I nod, trace the long healed letters in his chest. freedom.