Shatter Me

Juliette looks out of the window at dawn and watches the rainy weather outside. She hears a rustle and swiftly turns away, feeling like she has been caught “stealing food again” (5). Her parents didn’t believe her when she told them that it happened just once and that she was stealing food to feed neighborhood cats. Juliette thinks she is in the psychiatric institution because her parents “never believed anything [she] said” (5). Adam, her cellmate, wakes up and studies her. He asks for her name, but instead of answering, she asks why he is there. When Adam tries to pick up the tray with breakfast, he burns his hand and Juliette advises him “to wait at least three minutes before touching the tray” (8). She, too, has burn marks on her hands. Adam is angry that he has made a mistake in front of her, and he tries to hide his embarrassment.

When Adam puts his hand on Juliette’s shoulder, she strains and doesn’t even breathe. He asks her if she is hungry, and even though she is starving, she says no. He keeps asking questions, but she doesn’t answer any of them and only says that he cannot touch her because “things happen when people touch [her]. Strange things. Bad things. Dead things” (11). They are interrupted by the knock on the door, signaling that it’s time to shower.

Seeing the door open, Adam is confused because he thinks they are being let out. Juliette explains that they must move quickly if they want to shower. No one told her “how the system worked” (13), so she didn’t shower for the first three months of her imprisonment. Juliette tells her cellmate to be quiet as she walks him down the corridor. She is sure that his ignorance of the rules makes him very vulnerable because “they might kill him for no reason at all” (14).

Juliette finds Adam familiar and decides not to be afraid of him. When they enter the shower area, which is completely dark, she searches for a piece of soap on the floor. She finds two pieces and hands one to Adam. He is so quiet that she wonders if he is still there and if this is a plan carried out by The Reestablishment to kill her. Although she feels like she might have deserved it, she admits that she is there “for something [she] never meant to do” (16). Juliette is alarmed when she hears no other showers running—an indication that there’s no one there but the two of them. Adam asks her for her name again, this time standing very close to her. Instead of answering, Juliette explains that he needs to take his clothes off and that they have only two minutes for showering. After they are both done, they come back to the “familiar 4 walls of claustrophobia” (18), and Juliette wonders if she has been too hasty in trying to become friends with Adam. However, while she is trying to summon her courage to take her blanket from him so that she won’t get sick, he is already covering her shoulders with two blankets. He apologizes to her and finally introduces himself: his name is Adam. “Adam is a nice name” are the only words on Juliette’s mind when she (18), exhausted, falls asleep.

When Juliette wakes up, drenched in sweat, Adam is looking at her. He asks her if she is okay, and she wonders what he heard while she was sleeping. Adam reassures her, then admits to fearing that he was going to be locked up “with a psycho” (22). Juliette confesses that she thought the same thing, and Adam smiles. She offers him his blanket, but he takes it only to wrap it more tightly around her. She doesn’t let him sit next to her, and instead, she studies his body, “raw with power, every surface somehow luminous in the darkness” (22).

Adam tells Juliette that he is “burning up” (22), and she is worried that he might be sick. She asks him many questions about his symptoms, but instead of answering them, he asks her name for the third time. She ignores his question and instead tells him that he might be sick. Adam denies this and apologizes for mistreating her the day before. She finally tells him her name—Juliette—and he repeats it like it “delights him” (24).

The chapter opens with Juliette remembering her childhood at her parents’ house. She recounts the events associated with her condition: her mother screaming when it became clear to her that she could no longer touch her daughter, her father terrified at what Juliette had done to her mother. After the accident, her parents locked Juliette in her room and told her she should be grateful “for their humane treatment” and for the food they gave her (25). She remembered how her parents told her that she “ruined their lives” and “stole their happiness” (25). Although she tried to fix what she ruined, it never worked because she did not know what she should do and how she should do it.

Juliette notices that it’s snowing outside. She prefers this weather to the hot humidity of summer. Adam asks Juliette what time it is, but she does not know the time, day, or even the season because “the animals are dying, birds don’t fly, crops are hard to come by, flowers almost don’t exist” (26). Because of food shortages, many people have died, but The Reestablishment came to power and promised to fix the food situation. Since then, “more people have died at the end of a loaded gun than from an empty stomach” (27).

Adam interrupts Juliette’s thoughts by asking if they are going to get food just once a day. Juliette explains that it’s inconsistent. She confesses to Adam that until he arrived, she hadn’t talked to anyone in almost a year. Juliette asks Adam why he is in the psychiatric institution, but he doesn’t answer her question directly and instead only assures her that he is in good mental health.

Juliette doesn’t reveal to her cellmate that she was taken from her home three years ago, so she knows very little about what is happening outside. Adam goes on to explain that The Reestablishment “had its hands in every country, ready for the moment to bring its leaders into a position of control” (31). He says that they killed all the members of the opposition under the pretense that there would finally be peace. Juliette nods as she remembers multiple starving people and casualties. Adam explains that The Reestablishment is trying to become a worldwide form of government. They are burning all artifacts of human history—supposedly to give people a chance “to start fresh” (32).

They are interrupted by the knock on the door—breakfast has been served. As they wait for the tray to cool off, Adam asks Juliette again why she’s there, and she asks him the same question. Both questions remain unanswered.