Page 22 of Devoured

“Carrying that weight by yourself. No one to confess to. No one to absolve you.”

I knew this game. Theo had played it too.

Touch that pretended to be kind but was really about control.

I sat still and answered his questions and let him think he was getting somewhere. Better to be his success story than his special project.

Now I stood in the breakfast line, trying not to think about any of it.

Same gray trays as always. Same plastic spoons that couldn’t hurt anyone. Same oatmeal that looked like cement.

I took my tray and found my usual corner table, away from the clusters of women who still seemed to care about things like conversation and companionship.

Dr. Alan passed through the cafeteria, her blonde hair perfect as always. She stopped at a table of younger patients, bending down to talk to them. Her voice was soft, asking about their medications, their sleep, how they were feeling. She touched one girl’s shoulder gently. Smiled at another.

Everyone loved Dr. Alan. She was warm where the other staff were cold. She remembered names, asked about families, seemed to actually care.

But something about her bothered me in a way I couldn’t explain.

Maybe it was how her smile never quite reached her eyes.

Or how she always seemed to appear right when patients were at their worst—like she could smell desperation.

Last week, she came into my room during one of the bad nights. I hadn’t heard the door open. One second I was alone with Theo telling me I was worthless, the next she was standing there in her white coat, watching me shake.

“Oh, sweetie,”she said, moving to sit on the edge of my bed. No other staff did that. They kept their distance. But Dr. Alan touched, hugged, got close.

“Having a hard time?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

Theo had vanished the moment she entered, but I could still hear his words echoing.

She pulled me into a hug that felt wrong somehow. Her hands were cold through her coat, and her perfume was too strong. I didn’t like it.

“Poor thing. Your mind is trying so hard to process what happened.”She pulled back to look at me, still smiling. “It must be so difficult, carrying all that guilt. But you know, sometimes we get exactly what we deserve in life. Don’t we?”

The words were gentle, but they cut deep.

“The mind has ways of punishing us when we’ve done something truly terrible,”she continued, stroking my hair. “These visions you’re having? That’s just your conscience trying to balance the scales. Your husband is visiting you even in death. How devoted he must have been.”

“He beat me,”I whispered.

“And you killed him by stabbing him,”Her voice stayed soft, sympathetic. “Multiple times. That’s quite a lot of anger, isn’t it? Quite a lot of rage for someone who was just defending herself.”

She tucked me back into bed, smoothing the blanket with those cold hands.

“We should definitely increase your medication. Help quiet that guilty conscience of yours. Though sometimes, sweetie, the punishment fits the crime.

And sometimes we need to feel it to heal from it.”

Then she stood in my doorway for a long moment, silhouetted against the hallway light.

“Sweet dreams, Zahra. Try to forgive yourself. Though I understand if your husband can’t.”

The door closed with a soft click.

I still didn’t know why she had been doing rounds at that hour—or how she had known to check on me specifically.