“Shadi.”
I hesitated at the sound of his voice. He sounded raw, close to pain. He turned, I turned, I searched his eyes. I saw something in his face that scared me, sent my heart racing. I touched his cheek almost without meaning to, traced the curve of his cheekbone. He sighed, the sound scattered.
“What are we doing?” he whispered.
I felt something snap inside of me, felt something sever. I stared at him with a trembling hope. My soggy mind didn’t know what it was doing. My own name pressed against my tongue.
Shadi meant joy, and all I ever did was cry.
Ali touched my chin, grazed my lips with his fingers. “Do you know what my mom said to me when you left?”
I shook my head.
“She was like, Ali, you idiot, that girl will never be interested in you. You don’t even know how to talk to girls like that. She’s way too good for you.”
I almost laughed. I felt closer to crying.
“Seriously,” he said, and I felt him smile, felt his words touch my skin as he spoke. “My own mother.”
That heat, that inexpressible heat pushed up my throat again, the feeling so familiar now I almost didn’t notice it.
His smile faded in the proceeding silence. He took a deep, bracing breath. He was trembling with cold, with fear. “You know what I want?” he said, pressing his forehead to mine. “What I want more than anything?”
“No.”
His hands were around my waist now, the two of us holding each other upright. “I want you to be happy.”
My eyes stung; I blinked. “Ali—”
“I still love you,” he whispered. “I still love you and I don’t know how to stop.”
I was becoming familiar with this feeling, these wings beating in my chest, this desperate acceleration of emotion. I couldn’t breathe around it, couldn’t see around it, couldn’t have imagined my heart could fissure and fuse, fissure and fuse on into infinity.
“Don’t,” I said softly. “I never did.”
About the Author
Photo by Ransom Riggs
TAHEREH MAFI is the National Book Award–nominated and New York Times bestselling author of many books for children and young adults. She lives in Southern California with her family.
Find her online at www.taherehmafi.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Books by Tahereh Mafi
Furthermore
Whichwood
Shatter Me
Unravel Me
Ignite Me
Destroy Me
Fracture Me
Shatter Me Complete Collection
Restore Me
Defy Me
Imagine Me
Shadow Me
Reveal Me
A Very Large Expanse of Sea
An Emotion of Great Delight
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Copyright
AN EMOTION OF GREAT DELIGHT. Copyright © 2021 by Tahereh Mafi. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover illustration © 2021 by Rik Lee
Cover design © 2021 by Rodrigo Corral Design
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020949382
Digital Edition JUNE 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-297243-9
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-297241-5
21 22 23 24 25 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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