Page 3 of Devoured
When he finally left, I lay down and waited for the medication to work—hoping there would be no sign of Theo tonight.
But the bastard showed up right on schedule.
“Miss me?”Theo stood in the window’s reflection, picking at the holes in his chest.
“Bet you thought those pills would make me go away.”
I kept my back to him, face pressed into the flat pillow. But it didn’t matter. His voice lived in my head now.
“Look at you. Curled up like a fat little grub. Orange really isn’t your color, baby. Makes you look like a bloated pumpkin.”
The guard’s flashlight swept across my floor during night rounds.
“Can’t sleep?”The female guard stood in the doorway. Older, with gray streaks in her hair.
“Trying to.”I said into the pillow.
She moved on without another word. I was a husband killer. Not her problem.
Theo chuckled.
“Alone again. Just you and me, like old times.”
“You know what’s funny? Even here, in County, you’re still the ugliest bitch in the cell block. That blonde they brought in for meth? At least she’s got a face worth looking at. Not like you. Pizza face. Grease hair. Built like a garbage bag full of cottage cheese.”
I pressed my palms against my ears, but he wasn’t speaking through the air. He was in my bones. My blood.
“Thirty-six years old, and what do you have to show for it? No kids. No career. No friends. All you had was me. And you couldn’t even keep that.”
“You’re pathetic,”Theo whispered. “Poor little victim. But we both know the truth. You’re not a victim. You’re a murderer. An ugly, worthless murderer who’s exactly where she belongs.”
I sat up, pulling my knees tighter to my chest. I started counting cracks in the wall instead of listening. One. Two. Three. But his voice kept going.
“We’ve got all night, baby. And every night after. Just you and me, and the truth about what a disgusting piece of shit you really are. No one’s coming to save you. You’re exactly where you belong.”
I lay back down. There was nothing else I could do. I was trapped. Trapped between the ghost I’d created and the guilt that fed him, counting the minutes until dawn.
Chapter 2
My mom, a Pakistani student, came to Michigan for college in the early ’80s, she met my American Dad and they fell in love and soon…got married. And because of that, both of their families cut them off. But they were happy, together.
When I came into the world, my mom named me Zahra, after her grandmother in Karachi. Zaa-hh-ra—the way she said it made it sound like music. Teachers and neighbors called me Sara because they couldn’t pronounce it right. I learned to answer to both names. To be both girls. To be neither.
I had Mom’s face—Pakistani features: light brown skin, dark eyes, thick black hair that frizzed in the summer humidity. The kind of hair that fought every brush, just like hers. But I got Dad’s build. His genes gave me a soft, round body.
I never fit in. I never could. I wasn’t white enough for the white kids who saw my brown skin, not desi enough for the Pakistani aunties who clicked their tongues at my broken Urdu. I lived in the space between worlds…never quite belonging to either.
Our house always smelled like cumin and cardamom mixed with apple pie. Mom cooked dal while Dad made grilled cheese for my lunch—cut into triangles, no crusts, because he knew I liked it better that way.
He learned enough Urdu to argue properly. She learned football so she could yell at the TV with him on Sundays. They slow-danced in the kitchen while dinner cooked. Held hands during movie nights with me squished between them on the couch. Dad called me his princess. Mom called me her jaan—her life.
They loved me like I was their whole world.
I was twelve when my life turned upside down. My parents had gone out for an anniversary dinner at the Italian place my Mom loved. A truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into their car.
The police said it was instant. That I should find solace in knowing they didn’t suffer. But how does that help a child who’s lost everything? They didn’t suffer. I did.
The police didn’t even let me stay in my own home. No one came forward to claim me, no family, nobody. So the social workers had to step in. They couldn’t figure out where to place me. Zahra Mitchell—Pakistani face, American last name. Foster families looked for children who mirrored them, and I was nobody’s reflection.
