My Personal Demon

01:33

I can't eat.

I mean, I've tried to, don't get me wrong, but the food doesn't feel right in my mouth. Everything is a tasteless mush like my taste buds have decided to stop working.

Oh well. I guess murderers don't deserve to eat.

Not that I think I'm a killer that shouldn't be breathing the precious air of life. That's what his mother called me, by the way, a month after the funeral. While everyone reassures me that my husband didn't die at my hands, she blames me every chance she gets.

I usually ignore her calls for that reason, but today, I felt like picking up the phone. Maybe it was because she called me five separate times that day already. Maybe I was sick of the phone ringing in my ears so much that I unplugged it from the wall. Maybe, like any other sane daughter-in-law, I was afraid that something had happened to her so I plugged the phone back in.

I'm too nice for my own good. I let her yell at me for an hour straight and say the vilest things.

Like how she should've forced him to marry their neighbor's daughter, Sarah, a perfectly nice woman who would've never gotten her son killed. Sarah would've forced him to live a safe life in the suburbs with a white picket fence and their two-and-a-half children. She would've been a stay-at-home wife who always made his dinner and ironed his shirts. She was the kind of woman who would have kept him alive.

I didn't have the energy to tell her that her son was never going to live that kind of life. He would much rather die than subject himself to that. Not that the life she described was unpleasant at all. But Charles wasn't the kind of person meant to live that life.

He wouldn't have fallen in love with me otherwise.

So I try to eat again. The demon has made pasta for lunch, fully monopolizing the kitchen. He refuses to let me cook, even going so far as to call my food subpar.

"It's not your fault," he said, tossing the noodles into the boiling pot. "You haven't had the kind of practice I've had."

"I've had to cook my whole life. I'd say that's plenty of practice."

"That's a short amount of time," he pointed out. "And there's nothing quite like the challenge of cooking over the fires of hell."

How old did he have to be to consider my lifetime short? I was thirty-three for crying out loud.

But if he wanted to make lunch, I wasn't going to stop him. Between the calls from my mother-in-law and the dreams where I'm forced to watch Charles die, I was exhausted. Despite the sunny weather that had decided to grace my small port town with its presence, a palpable gloom had settled over my heart. I didn't smile as much as I used to.

And the tattoo shop I had recently opened? I hadn't returned since the funeral, but I did get a few calls from loyal customers asking for fresh ink. I wanted to go back and do what I love most. If only I had the energy to.

The aroma of sizzling pork wafts by, mingling with Parmesan cheese. My stomach growls in response. As irritating as he was, that demon certainly knew how to cook.

He sets down a plate of spaghetti carbonara before me. "Give it a taste," he said. "I've never had a single complaint from the sinners I used to punish."

I twirl my fork in the noodles, giving him a skeptical look. "That's a bold statement." I slurp up the noodles, keeping eye contact with him.

"It's just the truth," he shrugged.

The pasta tastes heavenly, the flavors melting in my mouth in savory bliss. I tried to mask my enjoyment of the meal, but he already saw my smile before I could wipe the expression off my face.