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

Chapter Twelve
5 full minutes under piping hot water, 2 bars of soap both
smelling of lavender, a bottle of shampoo meant only for my
hair, and the touch of soft, plush towels I dare to wrap
around my body and I begin to understand.
They want me to forget.
They think they can wash away my memories, my
loyalties, my priorities with a few hot meals and a room with
a view. They think I am so easily purchased.
Warner doesn’t seem to understand that I grew up with
nothing and I didn’t hate it. I didn’t want the clothes or the
perfect shoes or the expensive anything. I didn’t want to be
draped in silk. All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch
another human being not just with my hands but with my
heart. I saw the world and its lack of compassion, its harsh,
grating judgment, and its cold, resentful eyes. I saw it all
around me.
I had so much time to listen.
To look.
To study people and places and possibilities. All I had to do
was open my eyes. All I had to do was open a book—to see
the stories bleeding from page to page. To see the
memories etched onto paper.
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. My world is one interwoven web of words,
stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images
all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character