Restore Me (Shatter Me #4)(62)

“No, what I’m trying to say is that I think it might be a good time for you to focus on yourself for a little while. Take a beat. And anyway, Lena’s going to be here any minute, so it’s probably best for you to stay away from that situation for as long as you can.” She shoots me another knowing look. “I really don’t think you need any more drama in your life, and that whole”—she gestures to the air—“thing is bound to just—you know—get really ugly.”

“What?” I frown. “What thing? What situation? Who’s Lena?”

Nazeera’s surprise is so swift, so genuine, I can’t help but feel instantly concerned. My pulse picks up as Nazeera turns fully in my direction and says, very, very slowly, “Lena. Lena Mishkin. She’s the daughter of the supreme commander of Europe.”

I stare at her. Shake my head.

Nazeera’s eyes widen. “Girl, what the hell?”

“What?” I say, scared now. “Who is she?”

“Who is she? Are you serious? She’s Warner’s ex-girlfriend.”

I nearly fall out of the tree.


It’s funny, I thought I’d feel more than this.

Old Juliette would’ve cried. Broken Juliette would’ve split open from the sudden impact of today’s many heartbreaking revelations, from the depth of Warner’s lies, from the pain of feeling so deeply betrayed. But this new version of me is refusing to react; instead, my body is shutting down.

I feel my arms go numb as Nazeera offers me details about Warner’s old relationship—details I do and don’t want to hear. She says Lena and Warner were a big deal for the world of The Reestablishment and suddenly three fingers on my right hand begin to twitch without my permission. She says that Lena’s mom and Warner’s dad were excited about an alliance between their families, about a bond that would only make their regime stronger, and electric currents bolt down my legs, shocking and paralyzing me all at once.

She says that Lena was in love with him—really in love with him—but that Warner broke her heart, that he never treated her with any real affection and she’s hated him for it, that “Lena’s been in a rage ever since she heard the stories of how he fell for you, especially because you were supposed to be, like, fresh out of a mental asylum, you know? Apparently it was a huge blow to her ego” and hearing this does nothing to soothe me. It makes me feel strange and foreign, like a specimen in a tank, like my life was never my own, like I’m an actor in a play directed by strangers and I feel an exhalation of arctic wind blow steadily into my chest, a bitter breeze circling my heart and I close my eyes as frostbite eases my pain, its icy hands closing around the wounds festering in my flesh.

Only then

Only then do I finally breathe, luxuriating in the disconnection from this pain.

I look up, feeling broken and brand-new, eyes cold and unfeeling as I blink slowly and say, “How do you know all this?”

Nazeera breaks a leaf off a nearby branch and folds it between her fingers. She shrugs. “It’s a small, incestuous circle we move in. I’ve known Lena forever. She and I were never close, exactly, but we move in the same world.” Another shrug. “She was really messed up over him. It’s all she ever wanted to talk about. And she’d talk to anyone about it.”

“How long were they together?”

“Two years.”

Two years.

The answer is so unexpectedly painful it spears through my new defenses.

Two years? Two years with another girl and he never said a word about it. Two years with someone else. And how many others? A shock of pain tries to reach me, to circumvent my new, cold heart, and I manage to fight the worst of it. Even so, a brick of something hot and horrible buries itself in my chest.

Not jealousy, no.

Inferiority. Inexperience. Na?veté.

How much more will I learn about him? How much more has he kept from me? How will I ever be able to trust him again?

I close my eyes and feel the weight of loss and resignation settle deep, deep within me. My bones shift, rearranging to make room for these new hurts.

This wave of fresh anger.

“When did they break up?” I ask.

“Like . . . eight months ago?”

Now I stop asking questions.

I want to become a tree. A blade of grass. I want to become dirt or air or nothing. Nothing. Yes. I want to become nothing.

I feel like such a fool.

“I don’t understand why he never told you,” Nazeera is saying to me now, but I can hardly hear her. “That’s crazy. It was pretty big news in our world.”

“Why have you been following me?” I change the subject with zero finesse. My eyes are half lidded. My fists are clenched. I don’t want to talk about Warner anymore. Ever again. I want to rip my heart out of my chest and throw it in our piss-filled ocean for all the good its ever done me.

I don’t want to feel anything anymore.

Nazeera sits back, surprised. “There’s a lot going on right now,” she says. “There’s so much you don’t know, so much crap you’re just beginning to wade into. I mean—hell, someone tried to kill you yesterday.” She shakes her head. “I’m just worried about you.”

“You don’t even know me. Why bother worrying about me?”