Shatter-Me-PDF-Shatter-Me-Series-Shatter-Me-Shatter-Me-1-Tahereh-Mafi (1)

Chapter Seven
I remember televisions and fireplaces and porcelain sinks. I
remember movie tickets and parking lots and SUVs. I
remember hair salons and holidays and window shutters
and dandelions and the smell of freshly paved driveways. I
remember toothpaste commercials and ladies in high heels
and old men in business suits. I remember mailmen and
libraries and boy bands and balloons and Christmas trees.
I remember being 10 years old when we couldn’t ignore
the food shortages anymore and things got so expensive no
one could afford to live.
Adam is not speaking to me.
Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe there was no point hoping
he and I could be friends, maybe it’s better he thinks I don’t
like him than that I like him too much. He’s hiding a lot of
something that might be pain, but his secrets scare me. He
won’t tell me why he’s here. Though I don’t tell him much,
either.
And yet and yet and yet.
Last night the memory of his arms around me was enough
to scare away the screams. The warmth of a kind embrace,
the strength of firm hands holding all of my pieces together,
the relief and release of so many years’ loneliness. This gift
he’s given me I can’t repay.
Touching Juliette is nearly impossible.
I’ll never forget the horror in my mother’s eyes, the torture
in my father’s face, the fear etched in their expressions.
Their child was is a monster. Possessed by the devil. Cursed
by darkness. Unholy. An abomination. Drugs, tests, medical
solutions failed. Psychological cross-examinations failed.