"Sina looked back on when Ptara first introduced Zeke to the family: they themselves were around eleven, and Casper was seven. ‘The Terrible Two’: that’s what Zeke called them, back when he was kind. Back when he didn’t break Ptara’s collarbone, or almost cut off Sina’s pinkie finger, or . . . do *that* to Casper. He always had a glint in his eye: not one of love and sweetness and a thick syrup like candy, but a glint of steel; a sharp knife, poorly concealed behind his back. In retrospect, there was always something off about him. Before he forced them to all eat aspic and meatloaf and various meat-based meal kits, he would always push around Ptara’s food on the plate; said the sauces were too rich, the meat too firm, the pumpkin salty. Of course, Ptara didn’t argue, as she wanted to please her new boyfriend, and for her, that meant complete and total servitude.
Looking back on it, Sina didn’t think Zeke and Ptara ever made love. It just didn’t seem in the cards for their relationship: Zeke was a strongwilled, so-called independent man, and the weakness and protests–or desires–of a small, brown-skinned woman was of no concern to him.
They remembered, not fondly, the times that Zeke would lock Casper in the old shed at the edge of the property, leave him in there with the light off and the dirt covering his brittle knees as he cried uncontrollably and clawed against the rotting wood door until his nails bled.

They remembered Zeke’s funeral, and how they decided on a closed casket so no one would see what he had done to himself. That’s what it was at the end of the day: it was his own damn fault that that shotgun hit the ground at the worst moment. It’s his fault it went off. It was all his goddamn fault."

cute of me for thinking I was doing better haha