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yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere · 3 months ago

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reblogging this because OUR FAVORITE UNIVERSE AND PEOPLE ARE GOING TO COME BACK in 2025 (10 years later older!!)

Watch Me, book 1, in the spinoff series Shatter Me: The New Republic is out April 2025!! and our James(not so little anymore!!) is the main character!!

ALL BEST SHATTER ME SERIES quotes. ( meaning- why I love SMSeries so much- meaning Tahereh’s beautiful, so beautiful writing.)

PRELUDE TO SHATTER ME BOOK 1

“ Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

and that has made all the difference. ”

- Robert Frost, ’ The Road Not Taken’.

“ Find me a cure for these tears, I’d really like to exhale for the first time in my life.”

“ Doubt had married my fear and moved into my mind, where it built castles and ruled kingdoms and reigned over me.”

” The world is a mess and I want to laugh because all I can think is how horrible and beautiful it is, that our eyes blur the truth when we can’t bear to see it.”

“ I am so tired, love. I’m so very, very tired.”

” And if you insist on continuing to make assumptions about my character, I’ll advise you only this: assume you will always be wrong. ”

“ Can you hear my heart? I want to ask him. I want you to make a list of all your favourite things, and I want to be on it.”

“ It’s the only way I know to exist. In a world where there is so much to grieve and so little good to take? I grieve nothing. I take everything. Ignite, my love, ignite.“

“ The reason he had to keep wiping their memories was because it didn’t matter how many times he reset the story or remade the introductions Aaron always fell in love with her. Every time.”

” Come back to life, love. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“ In the pain, I imagine bliss.

My thoughts are like wind, rushing, curling into the depths of myself,

expelling, dispelling darkness

I imagine love, I imagine wind, I imagine gold hair and green eyes and

whispers, laughter

I imagine

extraordinary, unbroken

the girl who shocked herself by surviving, the girl who loved herself

through learning, the girl who respected her skin, understood her worth,

found her strength

s t r o n g

s t r o n g e r

strongest

Imagine me

master of my own universe

I am everything I ever dreamed of”

“I’ve been locked up for 264 days. 1 window. 4 walls. 144 square feet of space. 26 letters in an alphabet I haven’t spoken in 264 days of isolation. 6.336 hours since I’ve touched another human being.”

“My parents stopped touching me when I was old enough to crawl. Teachers made me work alone so I wouldn’t hurt other children. I’ve never had a friend. I’ve never know the comfort of mother’s hug. I’ve never felt the tenderness of father’s kiss.”

“ In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. (..) I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”

“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. “

“I am thief. I stole this notebook and this pen from one of the doctors, from one of his lab coats when he wasn’t looking, and I shoved them both down my pants. This was just before he ordered those men to come and get me.”

“ I feel cold all the time.”

“ But sometimes I get so tired that I forget I’m not allowed to wish for things anymore and I find myself wishing for the one thing I’ve always wanted. The only thing I’ve always dream about. I wish all the time for a friend. I dream about it. I imagine what it would be like. ”

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

“ Am I insane yet? Has it happened yet? How will I ever know? ”

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

“ There was something about my face, she said, that she couldn’t stand. Something about my eyes, the way I looked at her, the fact I even existed. She’d always tell me to stop looking at her. She’d always scream it. Like I might attack her. Stop looking at me, she’d scream You just stop looking at me, she’d scream. She put my hand in the fire once. Just to see if it would burn, she said. Just to check if it was a regular hand, she said. I was 6 years old then. I remember because it was my birthday.”

“ On the darkest days you have to search for a spot of brightness, on the coldest days you have to seek out a spot of warmth; on the bleakest days you have to keep your eyes onward and upward and on the saddest days you have to leave them open to let them cry, To then let them dry. “

“ Because it’s so hard to be kind to the world when all you’ve ever felt is hate. Because it’s so hard to see goodness in the world when all you’ve ever known is terror. ”

“ I just read anything I could find. Fairy tales and mysteries and history and poetry. It didn’t matter what it was. I would read it over and over and over again. The books, they helped keep me from losing my mind all together.”

“ I see him smile. It’s the kind of smile that transforms him into someone else entirely, the kind of smile that puts stars in his eyes and a dazzle on his lips and I realize I’ve never seen him like this before. He looks soft and vulnerable-so human His eyes are squinting from all his grinning and his cheeks are pink form the cold. He has dimples. He’s easily the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And I wish I’d never seen it.”

“ Books are easily destroyed. But words will live as long as people can remember them.”

“ Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures. No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence. Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future.”

“ At age 12 I was taught to build and defuse my own bombs. He began teaching me how to fly planes when I was thirteen. He never did teach me how to ride a bike. I figured that on my own. ”

“ She begged me for mercy and I never gave it to her. ”

” He knew it would break me. And it was all he’d ever wanted. My soul.”

“ Yes to everything with you. Yes to forever with you. Yes. ”

” Here.

This.

My bones against his bones. This is my home.“

” To the world, she is formidable.

To me?

She is the world. “

“ What it was like to be judged by everyone before you’d even spoken two words to them. So much of it was like seeing myself on paper. Like reading all the things I never knew how to say.”

” I want to know how to convince you to design a smile just for me.“

“ If you hide your heart, he will never be able to take it from you ”

” Fear will learn to fear me.”

“ I kiss my way across the words. Kissing away the devils. Kissing away the pain.”

” But if she’s gone, what good is goodness? “

” I will love you for the rest of my life. My heart is yours. Please don’t ever give it back to me. “

“ He’s the only constant. The only steady, reliable heartbeat I’ve ever had.”

“ I will be wherever you need me to be, kid. ”

” I always end up caring to much, to be honest.”

“ Alone again. Here, in the dark, with my memories. Sometimes I feel so alone in this world I can’t even breathe.”

“J made magic out of tragedy.”

“ She saved my life, that’s for sure. Reached out a hand in the darkness. Pulled me out.“

” She lets me talk. She doesn’t rush me. She doesn’t tell me to calm down or feed me bullshit lines or tell me everything will be fine. When I’m trying to get things off my chest she doesn’t make the conversation about her or her own problems. She understands. I can tell She doesn’t have to say a word. I can look into her eyes and know she gets it. She gives a shit about me in a way no one else ever has. “

“ I’ve been letting myself lose perspective lately, and I can’t afford to do that. There’s too much to do. There are too many people depending on me. James needs me to be better than this. Besides, I have so much to be grateful for. I know I do. Sometimes I just need to be reminded. So I take a deep, steadying breath in this dark, quiet room and force myself to focus. To remember.

To say, out loud. I’m grateful.

For the clothes on my back and safety of this room. For my friends, my make shit family, and for what remains of my health and sanity I’m going to find James. I’m going to find him and Adam and everyone else. I’m going to make this right. I have to, even if I have to die trying. “

“ My dad bought a gun, too. He said we needed it, just in case. For our own protection.. And the next time some stupid shit went down, my dad got a little too brave. They used his own gun against him. Dad got shot. Mom got shot trying to make it stop. I was seven.”

“A cartoon? Tangled is not a cartoon. Tangled is one of the greatest movies of all time. It’s about fighting for freedom and true love.”

“ Besides, we don’t love him for his jokes, do we, Nazeera?” The two of them lock eyes for a moment. “ We love him for his heart. ”

“ My heart is pounding in my chest, blood rushing to my head. I feel confused: terrified, excited, hopeful, horrified. All the best and worst things always seem to happen to me at the same time. It’s not fair.”

“As far as I can tell, you’ve got food in your mouth and clothes on your back and a place to pee in peace whenever you feel like it. Those aren’t problems. That’s called living like a king. ”

“ I am an hourglass.

My seventeen years have collapsed and buried me from the inside out. My legs feel full of sand and stapled together, my mind overflowing with grains of indecision, choices unmade and impatient as time runs out of my body.”

“ Loneliness is a strange sort of thing.

It creeps on you, quiet and still, sits by your side in the dark, strokes by your hair as you sleep. It wraps itself around your bones, squeezing so tight you almost can’t breathe. It leaves lies in your heart, lies next to you at night..”

“ Loneliness is an old friend stand beside you in the mirror, looking you in the eye, challenging you to live your life without it. You can’t find the words to fight yourself, to fight the words screaming that you’re not enough never enough never ever enough.”

“ I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. ”

“ Run, I said to myself. Run until your lungs collapse, until the wind whips and snaps at your tattered clothes, until you’re a blur that blends into the background. Run, Juliette, run faster, run until your bones break and your shins split and your muscles atrophy and your heart dies because it was always too big for your chest and it beat too fast for too long and run. Run run run until you can’t hear their feet behind you. Run until they drop their fists and their shouts dissolve in the air. Run with your eyes open and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Juliette. Run until you drop dead. Make sure, your heart stops before they ever reach you. Before they ever touch you. Run, I said.”

“ Sometimes I wonder about glue. No one ever stops to ask glue how it’s holding up. If it’s tired of sticking things together o r worried about falling apart or wondering how it will pay its bills next week. Kenji is kind of like that. He’s like glue.“

“ I wish I could talk to my mom. I wish she were here to hold me, guide me(..) I miss her so much I think my chest is caving in. I feel like I’m sinking in the feeling, like I might never come up for air(..)I think I could just die there, in those moments, violently drowned by emotions. “

“ I am so happy for my friends. I love them, even when they piss me off. I care about them. I want their joy. But it still hurts a little when it feels like everywhere I look, everyone seems to have someone. Everyone but me. It’s crazy how much I wish I didn’t care.”

“ Stop messing with me. You don’t know me. You don’t know everything about me. You say you want to be my friend but you talk to me like I’m an idiot. You touch me, constantly, like I’m a child, like you’re trying to comfort me, like you have no idea that I’m a grown ass man who might feel something when you put your hands on me like that.. I don’t care what you think you know about me or how stupid you think I am but right now I’m exhausted, okay? I’m done. So if you want nice Kenji maybe you should check back in the morning, because right now all I’ve got is this jack shit in the way of pleasantries.”

“ Oh my God, I’m worse than stupid. I’m a bad human being. I have no idea what’s wrong with me. I need to stop talking.”

“ but there’s something reassuring about her reaction, it means that at least something is right with the world. Because I knew. I knew that, unlike everyone else, she’d see right away that I wasn’t okay. That I’m not okay. No superpowers necessary. And somehow, that means everything. “

“ Way to late to realize that I might be more than just really, really tired. Hell, I think I might be dying. (..) Someone is shouting. Someones. Wait, what’s the plural of someone? I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many people say my name at the same time. ”

“ Huh. I guess that means my immune system is screwed for life. Even so, I think I’m feeling better. I’m not only able to distinguish the sounds of their voices, but I’m now realizing that there’s a needle in my arm and it hurts like a bitch.”

“ Because, I think you might be the best person I’ve ever met.”

“ And if we hadn’t done any of that, I never would’ve seen my best friend screaming her way into dawn. I would’ve missed this.”

“ It’s not insane to imagine that sometimes even horrible people are searching for a way out of their own darkness.”

“ 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 believe it.”

“ It is only in the desperate seconds before death that we realize the windows against which we broke our bodies were only mirrors, all along. “

” It’s easy, during those moments, to throw in the towel. To shrug off humanity. To tell yourself that you tried to be happy, and look what happened: more pain. Worse pain. Betrayed by the world. You realize then that anger is safer than kindness, that isolation is safer than community. You shut everything out. Everyone. But some days, no matter what you do, the pain gets so bad you’d bury yourself alive just to make it stop.“

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

” Maybe I was crazy to consider it, but 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 thought they might finally love me. I always had that stupid hope.“

” It just gets really heavy sometimes. Too heavy. Even for me. And some days I don’t want to laugh, I don’t want to be funny. I don’t want to give a shit about anything. Some days I just want to sit on my ass and cry. All day long.“

” No need to wave at the people, princess. It’s not a coronation ceremony.“

”..about the way she looks at me that always makes me feel

insignificant, as if she’s the only one who’s realized I’m entirely hollow inside. She’s found the cracks in this cast I’m forced to wear every day, and it petrifies me.

That this girl would know exactly how to shatter me.“

‘numbers scrawled all over everything, sometimes the same number repeating over and over and over again. Sometimes the same word has been written and rewritten, circled and underlined. And nearly every page has sentences and paragraphs almost entirely crossed out. It’s complete chaos.’

” I feel crippled. Desperate and out of control. And it keeps getting worse. Every day I feel sick. Empty and somehow aching.

Love is a heartless bastard.“

” 26 letters are all I need. I can stitch them together to create oceans and ecosystems. I can fit them together to form planets and solar systems. I can use letters to construct skyscrapers and metropolitan cities populated by people, places, things, and ideas that are more real to me than these 4 walls.

I need nothing but letters to live. Without them I would not exist.

Because these words I write down are the only proof I have that I’m still alive.“

“ I’ve never read anything like this before. I’ve never read anything that could speak directly to my bones. “

“I’ve always been thought to focus on power and pain, gaining and inflicting.

I grieve nothing.

I take everything.

It’s the only way I know how to live in this battered body. “

“ People seldom realize that they tell lies with their lips and truths with their eyes all the time. “

“ I’ve come to believe that the most dangerous man in the world is the one who feels no remorse. The one who never apologizes and therefore seeks no forgiveness. Because in the end it is our emotion that make us weak, not our actions. “

“ I’m lonely but I’m not alone. My body works, my brain works, I’m alive. It’s a good life. I have to make a conscious effort to remember that. To choose to be happy every day. If I didn’t, I think my own pain would’ve killed me a long time ago. “

“ 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. And I’ve got no one to share it with. “

” In the dead of night I hear birds.“

” I know the sky falls down every day. “

” I will not sleep.

I cannot sleep.

I cannot hear those screams again. “

” Stop touching me with your eyes. “

” No one is ever close enough. “

” I am a whisper that never was. “

” I always had that stupid hope. “

” I haven’t looked in the mirror in 3 years. I’m so scared of what I’ll see. “

” How are you? 3 words no one ever asks me. “

” He’s a walking oxymoron. “

” I’m too ashamed to admit I’m afraid of the fall. “

” Laughter comes from living. I’ve never really been alive before. “

” I’ve searched the world for all the right words and my mouth is full of nothing. “

” Because moving forward is the only way to survive. “

” All at once I implore my mind to imagine nothing but walls. Walls. White walls. Blocks of concrete. Empty rooms. Open space. “

” Sometimes I wish I could step outside of myself for a while. I want to leave this worn body behind, but my chains are too many, my weights too heavy. “

” I will give no one the satisfaction of my death. “

” I wanted to meet the real girl trapped behind the fear. I wanted her to finally break free of her own carefully constructed restraints. “

” Forgive me.

I hit rewind too many times. “

” And suddenly this small, battered notebook means more to me than anything I’ve ever owned. “

” This is my life.

This sorry world.

Most days I feel just as caged as these civilians, and that’s likely why I always come here. “

” And some days I wonder why I insist on keeping myself alive. “

” Sometimes I’m just so tired of this life. “

” I fall back against the wall.

And crumble to the floor. “

” If she’s out there, he will find her. And he will kill her.

Just to teach me a lesson.

My only hope is to find her first. Maybe I could hide her. Or tell her to run. Or pretend she’s already dead. Or maybe I’ll convince him that she’s different, better than the others .that she’s worth keeping alive.

I sound like a pathetic, desperate idiot.

I am a child all over again, hiding in dark corners and praying he won’t find me. Hoping he’ll be in a good mood today. That maybe everything will be all right. That maybe my mother won’t be screaming this time. “

“ I can’t help my need to just stare; to know her and her features: the slope of her nose, the curve of her lips, the line of her jaw. ”

“ And I can’t help but be amazed at the power such small, unassuming animals wield over us; they so easily break down our defenses. ”

“ But nothing is working and all my parts are broken. ”

“ This planet is a broken bone that didn’t set right, a hundred pieces of crystal glued together. We’ve been shattered and reconstructed, told to make an effort every single day to pretend we still function the way we’re supposed to. But it’s a lie, it’s all a lie. ”

“ I’ve never been able to follow through. ”

“ But time is beyond our finite comprehension. It’s endless, it exists outside of us, we cannot run out of it or lose track of it or find a way to hold on to it. Time goes on even when we do not. ”

“ I wish I could put his words in my pocket just to touch them once in a while and remind myself they exist. ”

“ Anxiety has built a home on his shoulders. ”

“ I want to trust but it scares the skin off my bones. ”

“ It’s the kind of kiss that makes you realize oxygen is overrated. ”

“ Because a quiet night is not the same as a silent one, a firm man is not the same as a steady one, and a bright light is not the same as a brilliant one because the way they wedge themselves into a sentence changes everything. ”

“ I forget, sometimes, that there are people out there who still manage to smile every day, despite everything. ”

“ Hope can make people do terrible things. ”

“ It’s too cold to be alive today. ”

“ Because it’s stupid. It’s stupid and it’s ungrateful. You don’t have a clue what everyone else in the world is going through right now. You don’t have a clue, Juliette. And you don’t seem to give a damn, either. ”

“ Terror waves hello to me. ”

“ I’m just beginning to realize that he’s one of my favorite people on this planet and I’m so happy he’s okay. I’m so happy he is my friend. ”

“ I’m checking my pockets for spare words and sentences but I’m finding none, not an adverb, not a preposition or even a dangling participle because there doesn’t exist a single response to such an outlandish request. ”

“ The body of a perfect boy.

What a lie appearances can be.

What a terrible, terrible lie. ”

“ A handful of letters doesn’t always make a word, love. ”

“ Nothing in this life will ever make sense to me but I can’t help but try to collect the change and hope it’s enough to pay for our mistakes. ”

“ he’s pouring molten lava into my limbs and I never even knew I could melt straight to death. ”

“and I’m breathing like I’m the first human who’s ever learned to fly, like I’ve been inhaling the kind of oxygen only found in the clouds and I’m trying but I don’t know how to keep my body from reacting to him, to his words, the ache in his voice. ”

“ He’s holding me like I’m made of feathers.

He’s holding my face and looking at his own hands like he can’t believe he’s caught this bird who’s always so desperate to fly away. ”

“ Gone is the boy with the guns and the skeletons in his closet. These hands holding me have never held a weapon. These hands have never touched death. These hands are perfect and kind and tender. ”

“ "Please don’t shoot me for this.”

And he kisses me. "

“He has a hundred thousand million kisses and he’s giving them all to me. ”

“ I’ve never felt this, not to this degree, not like every moment is about to explode, like every breath could be our last, like every touch is enough to ignite the world. ”

“ Let’s go let’s go let’s go! Today is our day to die, ladies ”

“She’s not dying! She is not going to die! ”

“And I can’t help but think this is an interesting parting gift from the world.

That at least, in the end, I didn’t die alone. ”

“Impossible is such a stupid word. ”

“Everything has changed.

Because once upon a time I was just a child.

Today I’m still just a child, but this time I’ve got an iron will and 2 fists made of steel and I’ve aged 50 years. Now I finally have a clue. I’ve finally figured out that I’m strong enough..”

“Mass chaos is my future.

And I’m leaving my gloves behind. ”

“In

Out.

Count them.

I’ve been here before, I tell myself. I’ve been lonelier than this, more hopeless than this, more desperate than this. I’ve been here before and I survived. I can get through this. ”

“She exists in a constant state of agony, and I’ve always been too selfish to let her die. ”

“We forget that the blackness is not a blanket; we forget that the sun will soon rise. But in the moment, at least, we feel brave enough to say things we’d never say in the light. ”

“and we start walking, two invisible kids in the middle of nowhere. ”

“Sometimes I think you live in some fantasy and where everyone survives on optimism-but it doesn’t work that way out here. In this world you’re either alive, about to die, or dead. There’s no romance in it. No illusion. ”

“ I’d rather be shot dead screaming for justice than die alone in a prison of my own making. ”

“ I had nothing to compare these new experiences to. Of course I thought I was in love. ”

“ Maybe we both fell in love with the illusion of something more. ”

“ This is about me and what I want. This is about me finally understanding where I want to be in ten years. Because I’m going to be alive, Kenji. I will be alive in ten years, and I’m going to be happy. I’m going to be strong. And I don’t need anyone to tell me that anymore. I am enough, and I always will be. ”

“ How strange that we can go from friends to inseparable to hateful then casual all in one lifetime. ”

“ Kenji, I love you, I really do, but right now I’m so anxious, and I feel so sick, that the more you speak, the more I want to kill you. ”

“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. ”

“ And we are quotation marks, inverted and upside down, clinging to one another at the end of this life sentence. Trapped by lives we did not choose. ”

“ It’s the kind of kiss that inspires stars to climb into the sky and light up the world. The kind that takes forever and no time at all. ”

“ I will be here every night to keep you warm. I will kiss you until I can’t keep my eyes open. ”

“ Did you know that I wake up, every morning, convinced you’ll be gone? ”

“ And every moment in the world drops dead just then, because they woke up and realized they’d never be as important as this one. ”

“ But the fire of true hatred, I realize, cannot exist without the oxygen of affection. I would not hurt so much, or hate so much, if I did not care. ”

“ I have a great fear of drowning in the ocean of my own silence. In the steady thrum that accompanies quiet, my mind is unkind to me. I think too much. I feel, perhaps, far more than I should. It would be only a slight exaggeration to say that my goal in life is to outrun my mind. “

“ The world tried to crush you, and you refused to be shattered. You’ve recovered from every setback a stronger person, rising from the ashes only to astonish everyone around you. And you will continue to surprise and confuse those who underestimate you. ”

“ 'I love you,’ she says.

The words do something to me every time I hear them. They change me. Build something new inside of me. ”

“ I feel empty, like there is nothing inside of me but this broken heart, the only organ left in this shell. ”

“ I have a heart, says science, but I am a monster, says society. ”

“ A human need to find a magical portal to escape our pain. ”

“ It’s a strange thing, to never know peace. To know that no matter where you go, there is no sanctuary. That the threat of pain is always a whisper away. ”

“ My parents started screaming when they’d lock me in my room and tell me I should be grateful. For their food. For their humane treatment of this thing that could not possibly be their child. ”

“ It’s a picture of a little boy standing next to a little girl. She’s sitting in a stairwell. He looks at her as she eats a piece of cake.

I flip it over.

Aaron and Ella ”

“ I love how empathetic she is. I love how she feels things so deeply that sometimes even joy manages to wound her. It’s who she is. She’s all heart. ”

“ I was the only one, apparently, who didn’t think it was okay to be missing two of my teammates. ”

“ Her eyes are big and bright and she’s staring at me like she’s just a girl and I’m just a guy and we’re not both just a pair of dumbasses headed directly for the sun. Like we’re not both murderers, more or less. ”

“It’s been a devastating, awful couple of days. It’s been a devastating, awful couple of weeks.

Months, really.

Years.

Some days, no matter how far back I go, I can’t seem to find the good times. Some days, the occasional happiness I’ve known feels like a bizarre dream. An error.”

“ Dirt kisses my face, welcomes me home. ”

“ He’s nothing but thorns. ”

“ The boy looks up, then. His eyes are a deep, dark blue. He’s the saddest boy I’ve ever met, and it makes me sad just to look at him. ”

“ Day after day we drag injured wings and eyes and organs around the same four walls; open or closed, the exits elude us. We hope to be rescued by a breeze, hoping for a chance to see the sun.

Decades pass. Centuries stack together. ”

“ Still, we move closer. No matter what comes next, we fight to the death. That was always the plan, from the first. And it’s what we’ll do now.

Round two. ”

“Shatter me.

Break glass in case of emergency. ”

“ No one comes to the funeral. (..) But there weren’t many of us to do the work then, and there aren’t enough of us to attend a funeral now. ”

“ I stare directly into the newborn sun, daring it to burn my eyes out. ”

“ In the darkness, I imagine light.

I dream of suns, moons, mothers. I see children laughing, crying. I see blood, I smell sugar. Light shatters across the blackness pressing against my eyes, fracturing nothing into something. ”

“ “Come back to me, love. Come back. ”

“ Where? ”

“ Here, ” he whispers, pressing my hands to his heart. “Home. ” “

“ "What is your name?“ I ask.

He steps forward, so close our lips touch. Part. His breath whispers across my skin and my nerves hum, spark.

"You know my name,”

(.)

“You know my name. You’ve always known me, love. I’ve always known you. And I’m so-I’m so desperately in love with you-” “

“And this time, when I look up, I see his face.

” Aaron “ I gasp. ”

“ She is small. Scared. She reminds me of another version of myself, a person I can hardly remember, a young girl thrown in prison, too broken by the world to realize that she’d always had the power to break herself free. To conquer the earth. ”

“ I tell her how much I love her. How much she means to me. How much more I wish we could’ve had. I tell her that I will never forget her.

That I will miss her, every single day. ”

“ the injustice of it all roar through me. I feel it fracture me apart. I feel her take part of me with her as she goes. ”

“ It’s only been two weeks. Two weeks since the end of an old world. The beginning of a new one.

She still feels like a dream to me. ”

“ A darkness still clings to all of us- will probably cling to all of us forever- ”

“ When I hear her laugh, I am happy.”

“Ella is strong where I have forever been weak.”

“You know, I’ve tried, I really have, but I just don’t know what she sees in you. She’s like—she’s like sunshine. And you’re a dark, violent rain cloud. Sun and rain don’t—” (..) Sun and rain make a rainbow!”

“If Ella were a house, she would be a grand home, one with many rooms and doors, all of which were easily unlocked, flung open.

If I were a house, I would be haunted.”

“Sometimes I fear I will be trapped forever in this cycle: incapable of happiness, inseparable from my demons.”

“Was there ever truly a world wherein parents did the job expected of them? Was there ever a reality in which the adults were not murdered merely for resisting fascism, leaving their young children behind to raise themselves?”

“Her desperate, anguished sounds send shock waves of pleasure through me, setting me on fire.”

“I told you I couldn’t marry you if the bleeding didn’t stop, because then I’d get blood all over my dress, and your suit, and then we’d both just be covered in blood, and everything we touched would get bloody. And you”—she takes a deep breath—“you said you’d marry me right then. You said you’d marry me with my bleeding teeth, with a visibly broken leg, with dried blood on my face, with blood dripping from my ears.”

“I’ll marry you as you are right now, in the clothes we’re wearing, right where we’re standing.”

“A playground. Rusted and abandoned, a set of swings screeching as the wind pushes around their empty seats.”

“She’s, and always has been, a better person than I’ll ever be.”

'My parents’ old house was little more than a graveyard, a museum of darkness. This house is bright with possibility, the windows big and brilliant, and beyond them: people. Familiar faces and bodies, crowding together in the front room. If I strain, I can hear their muted voices’

“I can’t recall the last time I saw a cat. I feel as if I’ve stepped into a time machine, into a vision of a future I was told I’d never have.”

” “There’s no one in the whole world like you,” she says, and I can practically feel her heart beating between us. “I’m so grateful for you.” These words cause me an acute pain, a kind of pleasure that makes it hard to breathe” "my traitorous body shutting down, and Ella takes my hands, anchoring me. I look into her eyes even as my heart races.“

“You and I— Aaron, people like us think good things will disappear because that’s how it’s always been. Good things have never lasted in our lives; happiness has never lasted. And somehow we can only expect what we’ve experienced. But do you know what I’ve realized? I’ve realized that we have the power to break these cycles. We can choose happiness for ourselves and for each other, and if we do it often enough it’ll become our new normal, displacing the past. Happiness will stop feeling strange if we see it every day.’

“How’s this for a surprise? This beautiful piece of shit right here?” He gestures at the dilapidated house next door. “This one’s mine.”That wipes the smile off my face.“That’s right, buddy.” Kenji is grinning now. “We’re going to be neighbors.”

“You’re not coming with me?”-“Yeah,” he says finally. “Of course I’m coming with you.”

“Okay.Okay.Shit. So you can, like,feel everything they’re feeling right now?Right.Shit.Of course you can. Okay. All right, what should I do? You want me to talk to you? How about I just talk to you? Why don’t you just focus on me ,on the sound of my voice. Fade everything else out.”

"She does not look like she belongs in this world, or in this dingy backyard, or in this dilapidated neighborhood, or on this crumbling planet. She is above it. Above us all. A spark of light separated from the sun. ”

“Kenji.”-“Yes?”-“Thank you,” I say, still staring at Ella. “For everything.”-“Anytime,” he says, his voice more subdued than before.

“This is the beginning of a new chapter for all of us, man. For the whole world. This wedding is making history right now. You know that, right? Nothing is ever going to be the same.”

“I’m smiling now, smiling like the most ordinary of men, staring at the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever known.“Believe me,” I whisper. “I do.”

my SHATTER ME SERIES SPOTIFY PLAYLIST:

https://at.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/books-shatter-me-series/aspsbcu0gpag

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/12Z7lhVdTmfNQ6K2l2u4wL?si=8fb111f1c247457a

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