Someone once said that if you talk about the devil, he’s bound to appear. Most would keep silent, hoping that they’d never be found by such a monster, but I prayed for his touch every night. I knew the devil when I was a child and fell in love with him the first time he taught me that I wasn’t as damaged as I was led to believe that I was. He cared for me, helped me learn how to smile, and see the world in a different way even though he didn’t realize that he had done so....

She never saw herself like I did. Monster, ugly monster. If you asked her, that’s what she would tell you she was. But I always saw the real her. The one that loved me. The one that made me feel like I belonged anywhere we went even when I knew that I didn’t. She wanted to go back home to set things right and I’d follow her straight into Hell if I had to. She wanted recompense for what they did to her—to me.