The Easiest Target

Over Before It Started

His switch as flipped when he wakes up in the morning. He's cold and cruel — dismissive and commanding at the same time. We go back to school and things get worse. I go back to wearing hijab and sweats in my own ... temporary housing unit.

Home-Athan is nothing like school-Athan. He's two-faced and it's terrifying.

He becomes loud and arrogant the second he parks his car and steps out. He hugs and kisses the girls that come at him and people laugh at me when he makes out with Carla in broad daylight. The profanity that comes out of his mouth and the disgustingly lewd things he says about the girls he's with would make a porn star blush.

If that isn't enough, he insists on dressing me every morning. I can't say his taste is bad but it's tighter and more revealing than I would ever wear. Today he has me wear leggings, an oversized sweater that reaches my mid-thighs, boots, and an unpinned hijab.

He even convinced his mom I want to put makeup on so she helps me every morning. She looks happy to so I can never tell her not to. She hasn't had any episodes since we moved in and always either spends her time cooking, gardening, or reading, looking like a fairy regardless of what she's doing. She's so docile it saddens me how scared she gets when she hears Athan's voice.

It took her nearly a month of watching me interact as casual as possible with Athan for her to actually reach out on the couch and smooth one of his stray hairs down. He looked so shocked it nearly made me cry. She smoothed more of his hair down then gave a thin, teary-eyed smile and left. Athan went the other way and when I had secretly followed, I found him sitting in the backyard crying, holding his head where she touched him.

I hate how he can be like that towards her and choose to be so cruel to me when all I'm doing is my best to help him.

"I lose more of myself the longer I'm with you," I whisper as he carefully puts a headpiece on me to match the outfit he got me into.

"All you do is complain when I improve you."

"Why choose me just to change everything about me?"

"Because I like you," he sighs.

"How when you changed everything I was?"

"You're welcome," he cocks his eyebrows up. "Now you're someone pleasant to look at."

I feel sick today when I look in the mirror before I leave. I mean, I've never looked better but I've never felt worse. It's too revealing for me considering I usually look like I'm wearing sweats. For weeks I do what I do best: ignore the attention — positive or negative.

I walk through the hall to my next class one day when a guy flattens me to the lockers so hard I feel my brain rattle, grabs my private so violently I scream in pain. He lets me go so fast I can't even straighten myself. I fall under the weight of my backpack and gape at the group of loud boys passing by, all throwing lewd looks at me and copying the sound I just made.

The one that flattened me winks and licks his palm. My stomach crawls up my throat, choking me.

It isn't until that second that I realize that all of Athan's boasting about what he does at night implies he does all of those things ... to me. As my husband. Because ... I'm his wife no matter how much he avoids me.

My body starts shaking. The crowd of boys scatters like bugs, a girl screams out of nowhere. I hold my breath and glimpse Tokyo pounding his fists into the winking boy's face through the crowds' legs. One of the boys' friends attacks Tokyo in return and Ali, jumps to help Tokyo. He tries to pull Tokyo away from the winking boy but it all turns into a melee.