I stared at the rice for a moment, my chest tightening. It had been so long since I’d seen clean, untouched white rice. In prison, rice wasn’t food—it was a weapon of humiliation, spat on or thrown to the floor for me to scavenge. Eating slowly meant eating nothing at all.
Driven by hunger, I sat at the table and began eating ravenously, shoveling food into my mouth as though it might vanish at any second.
“Look at yourself, Amelia,” Gilbert sneered, his tone laced with contempt. “Do you even remember what it means to be a lady?”
I paused briefly, my hand trembling. The words stung, but I swallowed them down along with the rice. The truth was clear, I wasn’t a lady anymore. I wasn’t the noble daughter of the Byrd family. I wasn’t anything but the murderer everyone believed me to be.
Nobility couldn’t fill an empty stomach. I didn’t need their approval—I just needed to survive, to live for my father.
I ate until my stomach felt like it would burst. The pain was unbearable, and I clutched my midsection, rushing to the bathroom. Moments later, I was hunched over the sink, retching violently.