INAYAT'S POV

10 months later

Our wedding was gauche and solemn. There was no kissing the bride, no holding hands and no reception. It made people talk for months. While I am a nobody in everyone's eyes, a girl with no family or surname, my husband is a duke.

He comes from power and status and his relatives were expecting for his bride to come from a similar background and while I do, I cannot tell them. Our wedding didn't make the headlines of any newspapers outside of the country and I'm happy about it.

I left my family, and I don't want them to find me. Their royal status was a noose around my neck just as my husband's noble status is.

I would've known he is a noble before our wedding if I had talked to him. But I didn't. I talked to no one. I still don't understand why he married me. What is he getting out of this suffocating relationship we pretend to have? I don't ask either.

He has given me the most freedom I have ever had. No monsters chase me in his mansion. Nobody tries to touch me in any way, shape or form. His mother is kind and has accepted me like her own.

My father in law is a snob to his own son so I have no expectations from him anyway. I have a job now. I became a therapist, putting my psychology degree to some use. I can go out and do as I please. I have nothing to worry about.

My husband is rich and provides for everything. He even bought me a car and got me a driver for any commute I might need to make. He bought me a new wardrobe because I had no clothes when I ran away with him.

He had them especially made to fit me the way I want and if that wasn't enough, he hired people who knew and understood my culture to make the clothes I usually wore. I didn't expect to wear suits and sarees here but I do. And I enjoy it because I hear him tell me I look beautiful in them.

He does everything right. And yet.......

I twirl the blade between my fingers. They say humans are greedy and I believed I wasn't one of them. But I am. I have everything I dreamed of and I'm still not happy. The scars from my body have faded but the ones on my soul burn still.

They ache and nothing soothes them. Not my freedom, not the lack of torture and not this marriage. I'm suffocating every single day from the weight of my own decisions. Harold barely talks or looks at me. He is sweet and kind when he does but the occasions are rare and I told him to keep it that way.

We both live our separate lives. He told me he wouldn't cheat on me and I told him I wouldn't care if he did.

It true.

I am so scared of being touched that as long as he wasn't putting his hands on me, I wouldn't have cared.

I know he still didn't cheat. He doesn't like anyone enough to do so. Something tells me he has given up on people altogether.

Harold has the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen but they're dead. He never shared what happened to him but something did. He strays away from relationships. The only people he talks to gently are his mother and I. But our communication is limited.

I set boundaries in this relationship and he respected them. But then I wanted them to change. I created distance before he did all the nice things for me. I don't even care for the car, the custom clothes and the jewellery.

But he stood up for me. He has taken my side more than my own family. He has chosen me over everyone else on more occasions than I could count.

When his great aunt came to visit because she missed our wedding and looked down her nose at me, he stood close by to step in when needed. When she condescendingly forwarded her hand for me to kiss the back of and I simply stared because I refused to touch her, he told her that I'm not a peasant she expects at her feet.

He told everyone who questioned my background that I'm now his wife and the duchess so they should shut their mouths and find a better hobby.

When his extremely racist grandmother said he could find a British woman to marry instead, he told her to get a life. She passed away two months after that but that wasn't on him.

We've been married for a little over nine months and he has fought everyone he knows for me. Except his mother because she is an angel. He has done so much for me and all I've had to do in return is stand next to him at the alter.

He doesn't even realise what he has done. He saved me, he gave me hope, he gave me a life. So what if I saw his bloodstained hands the day I met him? I never saw them again. We left that island, that country to come back to Manchester and he left his bloodlust behind.

At least that's what I believe.

He has been nothing but supportive of me. He is a good man. The duke who takes care of the estate. The man who is the head of the house, much to his father's chagrin. He is a good son to his mother. He is a good businessman who invests in the right things and gives money to charities. And above all, he is a good husband to me.

He is all I could've ever wanted but I know my damaged soul and broken heart are too much to bear for a man as good as him. I bring the blade closer to my thigh, but before I could follow with my routine, a knock comes through the door.

The blade slices my finger instead and falls to the floor. I yelp. Not because it hurts, truly, nothing hurts anymore. I yelp because I'm caught off guard.

Another knock comes through the bathroom door. "Sweetheart, are you hurt? I heard a shriek, I believe." I sigh at my mother in law's voice and pick the blade up to hide it again.

She knocks again, and tries to turn the knob. Her worried voice makes my chest ache. My mother sometimes used to worry the same way. She always believed I wasn't well and needed constant monitoring. If I spent more than half an hour in the shower, she would pick the house up on her head.

I don't blame her. I was mostly washing off blood in that shower. Some of it was my fault, some of it was caused by a monster. The only monster. I know there are more in this world but I've only had the chance of meeting one. I wish I hadn't met him either. Life would have been easier.

I put on a robe and unlock the door to step out and ease her worries. Mum stands a couple steps away, mindful of my need for distance.

Harold is closer. Too close. I take a step back out of habit and he lowers his arm. "Were you trying to break the door?" I ask. His stance was violent. His shoulders ease at my voice.

"You were not responding and you've been in there for two hours. We were worried, darling." Another thing he does. He worries about me. Sometimes when he notices me zoning out, he brings me out of my head to the real world.

We might not talk much but sometimes even his silence saves me from my demons.

His eyes roam down from my face to my neck and then he trails them over my whole body. His shoulders stiffen when he looks at my hand. "You're hurt."

I look at the couple drops of blood that are starting to dry over my fingers. "It's nothing. I was shaving and the blade slipped." I lie. I can tell by his demeanour he doesn't believe a word of what I said. He never believes them.

I initially thought he just didn't trust me. But it's not that. He knows when I'm lying. There are many occasions and he knows every single time. He doesn't believe any of my lies.

Mum does though. "Oh dear! Let me get you a plaster." I try to object when she turns to leave but Harold shakes his head. "Let her go. You need to cover it. And we should get you a tetanus shot too."

"I'm fine." I would need a million shots if we go by how many blades have cut me. He moves out of the way and points at the sofa on his left. "Sit."

"I'm not your dog." He closes his eyes and sighs before opening them and sitting on the sofa himself. "Come sit with me." I'm being difficult for no reason so I sigh and move too. I sit beside him just as his mother brings the medicine box.

I clean the cut and put the plaster on myself and when his mother is satisfied that I'm not hurt anywhere else, she leaves us be. Harold looks at me throughout this time. "Why do you do this Inayat?"

"Do what?" I hide my trembling hands under my thighs.

"Test us all." I look at him. His eyes are on me but he might as well be looking through me. Can he see how hollow I am on the inside? "More than often you hurt yourself and worry us all. You should be careful darling."

I resort to self harm every time something bothers me. I do not know whom to talk to, so I try to fix my problems myself. I like the sight of blood. It fixes something in my demented brain.

"Sorry." I say. He sighs and tries to get up, when I stop him. "Harold, I need to talk to you." He sits back down and looks at me. I know he is late for his office. I know he has places to be at but he sits down and gives me his whole attention as if nothing else matters to him but me.

"Thank you." I say. "What for?" He asks.

"For everything you've done since the beginning. If I didn't have you, I probably wouldn't have survived."

"You still have me, darling. And you'll always have me." I know he doesn't love me. Because he doesn't believe in love but when he says things like these I wish he did. Being loved by him would change someone's life.

If he cares for me so much now when we barely have a relationship, he would've loved someone with all his being.

He gives me a small smile before he gets up and leaves for work. He is halfway through the door when I grow a spine.

I'm suffocating in this sham of a marriage every single day and while he does give me everything I need, I'm still stuck feeling empty.

I can't demand his love because he doesn't believe in it. I can't bind him to myself when I won't even let him graze his finger against mine. I thought I could live like this. I believed that the freedom and luxury would be enough but I'm still not satisfied with what I have.

I want more, I need more but I'm not normal. I don't know if I can ever have what most people do and I can't keep getting tangled in this web of deceit and broken hearts. Before I sink deeper into this sea of despair and drown, I need to pull myself out and leave.

"Harold, I want a divorce."

He stops with his back towards me, contemplates my word for a single second before giving his response and walking out the door.

"No."

~~~~~~