Reveal Me_Shatter Me Novella by Tahereh Mafi

Author:Tahereh Mafi [Mafi, Tahereh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

Seven

We’re back in the war room.

I’m standing at the door with J by my side—Warner needed a minute to pick out a cute outfit and braid his hair—and in the fifteen minutes I was gone, the atmosphere in this room changed dramatically. Everyone keeps glancing between me and J. Glaring, more like. Brendan looks tired. Winston looks irritated. Ian looks pissed. Lily looks pissed. Sam looks pissed. Nouria looks pissed.

Castle looks super pissed.

He’s staring at me through narrowed eyes, and our years together have taught me enough about Castle’s body language to know exactly what he’s thinking right now.

Right now, he’s thinking that he’s more than a little disappointed in me, that he feels betrayed by my reneging on a promise to stop using the f-word, that I deliberately disrespected him, and that I should be grounded for two weeks for shouting at his daughter and her wife. Also, he’s embarrassed. He expected more from me.

“I’m sorry I lost my temper, sir.”

Castle’s jaw tenses as he appraises me. “Are you feeling better?”

No. “Yes.”

“Then we’ll discuss this later.”

I look away, too tired to drum up the necessary remorse. I’m too spent. Depleted. Wrung out. I feel like my insides have been scraped out with blunt, rusted tools, but somehow I’m still here. Still standing. Somehow, having J by my side is making this whole thing more tolerable. It feels good to know that there’s someone here who’s on my team.

After a full minute of awkward silence, J speaks.

“So,” she says, letting the word hang in the air for a moment. “Why didn’t anyone tell me about this meeting?”

“We didn’t want to disturb you,” Nouria says too sweetly. “You’ve had such a rough couple of weeks—we figured it best not to wake you unless we had a firm plan of action.”

J frowns. I can tell she’s considering—and doubting—what Nouria just said to her. It sounds like bullshit to me, too. We pretty much never make special arrangements to let people rest or sleep after a battle—not unless they’re injured. Sometimes, not even then. J, in particular, has never been given special treatment like this before. We don’t treat her like a child, handling her like she’s made of porcelain. Like she might still shatter.

But Jello decides to let it go.

“I realize you were trying to be kind,” she says to Nouria, “and I’m grateful for the space and generosity—especially last night, for Aaron—but you should’ve told us right away. In fact, you should’ve told us the minute we landed. It doesn’t matter how much we’ve been through,” she says. “Our heads are here, in the reality of what we’re dealing with right now, and Aaron is going to be fighting alongside us. It’s time for all of you to stop underestimating him.”

“Wait— What?” Ian frowns. “What does underestimating Warner have to do with James?”

J shakes her head. “Aaron has everything to do with James. In fact,” she says, “I can’t understand why he wasn’t the first person you talked to about this. Your biases are hurting you.

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