"Hopefully, Maybe"

A/N: The Book Thief is by far my favorite book ever. Every time I read it, I find something new to move me. I especially love Max and Liesel's relationship—one built on understanding and empathy, and the understanding of the awesome and damning power of words.

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My lips seem to tingle from the feel of Liesel's hand, her soft, smooth hand that fits someone her age, as I kiss her palm. Dear God, why does she have to see me this way? Why does she have to be witness to the animal I have been beaten down to?

She's just a child…

No. Not just a child. Her eyes are old, and her mouth is twisted with anguish and relief seeing me. Standing in the road she is not simply the thirteen-year-old girl that she is—she is a woman, a wiser one than most at that. I cannot handle the sight of her tears as they fall down her face, and I know I am crying as well.

She has read my story, The Word Shaker. She has read it and understood it better than anyone else possibly could. And now she has to see the results first-hand of what words can do: the destruction of individual souls after their bodies are whittled away to nothing. It is not only the SS guards who kill us, the Jews, the outcasts—no, what people forget is that it all began with Hitler's words swaying others against the weak.

Without words, we would not have this war.

Liesel understands. And that is why I love her. I'm not sure how I love her, but I do.

Please, Liesel, leave me. Don't suffer on my account.

But she refuses to, and she is punished for her audacity, forced to her knees on the pavement of the road by the soldier's whip. As I am pushed away from her, I can only hear one thing: a single voice raised in a hysterical shout that holds neither calm nor reason.

"Max!"

At that moment, I know she is not completely grown—that there is still something hidden deep within her heart that still begs for a leading hand, for an adult's leadership. There is insecurity and terror warring within the bosom of this young blonde-haired girl who steals words and builds herself up with them, and I cannot even look back at her.

I cannot even bear to think that everything will turn out alright in the end—because in this hellhole of a war, who could ever dare say such a thing?

Liesel Meminger, I will do everything I can to return to you alive.

That is the only thing I can promise her. It is the only thing I can have any resolve in. It is the only thing that will (hopefully, maybe) make everything bearable in the end.

I can only pray it will be enough.