AAYAT’S POV

There is this thing about shame, it sneaks up on you. You could be happy, sad, angry or even irritated because you have the right to be. Shame has its own rules. It comes uninvited and it makes everything else look insignificant.

As a child I believed the world is a rosy red place where one day I'll see my Prince Charming come and sweep me off my feet. I truly wanted that. But as I got a little older, I realised that princes don't exist. Monsters do. They lurk around in dark but also in broad daylight.

They can get you if you step out of your house but some stay right beside you. In the same house, the same room, the same bed. I have screamed so much in my life that sometimes even I'm surprised that I still have a voice.

Of course no one ever heard me. Not my screams, not my cries for help or my silence. No one ever noticed. No one ever paid attention. Everyone was too busy believing I'm the problem.

And when someone did, when someone listened, when someone cared, when someone asked, I broke. I didn't know how to react to that. I fell in love, I forgot my past, I forgot my fury, I forgot my pain. I surrendered.

I never knew touch would mean anything but pain but then Harry touched me and changed the meaning of it.

I am still me, I am still scared so I changed the position. I acted like a sex crazed woman and I got what I wanted. I wanted to get over the fear. And I did.

For a couple minutes at least.

When my skin was against his, when I was lost in his eyes, I forgot where I came from, I forgot what happened to me. I believed therapy helped me. Maybe it did but I don't feel like it right now.

Not when I stare at the blood. My blood.

Getting out of his arms wasn't easy. He held on to me so tight, I would've probably lived there forever if shame didn't hold me by the throat.

How could you enjoy something you spent your life running away from?

Shame!

How could you let someone touch you?

Shame!

How could you forget what you spent your whole life fighting against?

Shame!

You hated when he touched you but you enjoyed it now when it was another man.

Shame!

You're a slut, huh, Inu? You like this, I know you do. You cry and beg, but you enjoy it. You fucking love it.

Shame! Shame! Shame!

I shut my eyes. Sitting completely clothed in a bathtub might not be ideal, but as the blood drains down my wrist, the water soothes the burn of it. There is no pain in the cut, just blood. The pain resides in my heart. It's so real, so gruesome, it makes my life bleak and dark.

The only light I had was Harry. And now? Now my shame has tainted it too. He was my sun and while he is still the sun, he doesn't seem like mine. I don't even seem like mine.

I took so many years to move on from my past, even believing I did but I was wrong. It's stuck to me like a ghost, begging for my soul in return, shaming me for every decision I make about my life, my marriage.

How will I ever survive the shame? How will I wake up beside him without looking into the hollow eyes of a young me who loathed a person's touch? How will I face her disappointment? Her tears? Her bloody thighs? Her gut wrenching screams? Her scars and bruises?

How will I ever fucking face her?!!

I won't. I can't face her.

The whole bathtub is filled to the brim. The water is now crimson. I've bled so much. So fucking much and yet the pain won't ease. Maybe dying is an answer to things. The sight of blood soothes me. It always has.

Sometimes when I'm alone, I dream of draining the life out of Akeeb. He bleeds more, and it makes me happy. It brings me peace and justice. But I can't touch him. I don't know where he is so I'll choose my own peace.

If it's my blood that brings it then so be it.

~~~~~~

HARRY’S POV

I woke up to an empty bed and despised it. I remember tucking us both in and wrapping the comforter around us tightly. She somehow got out of it. I knew she was in the bathroom, I heard the water running, so I decided to wait.

Wait for an hour.

I knocked on the door and she hummed, letting me know she is in there but then another hour went by. My shoulder meets the door but it doesn't budge. I push in harder, trying to break it off its hinges. The terrifying part is that Aayat doesn't make a single sound throughout any of this.

With one last shove I break the door and enter into something that looks like my worst nightmare. My wife is unconscious, her head is fortunately still above the water. If I can call it water.

"Aayat!" I pick her up, pulling her out of the tub immediately to rest her on the counter instead. There is a wide and ugly gash on her wrist. I pick up a towel and put pressure on it, screaming to call for someone.

"Aayat! Baby please wake up!" I make desperate attempts to make her regain consciousness. My one hand is occupied in putting pressure onto her wrist and the other splashes water on her face. Nothing changes.

Mom comes rushing in followed my dad. She gasps. I look at my father. "Do something! Anything, please!" He is a surgeon, he must know what to do. I hate his gut but I'll beg him if need be. I'll do anything!

He doesn't make me do it though. He pushes me away and checks her pulse using her other wrist. He removes the towel to look at her wrist. It makes me wince. Just looking at it brings me pain. "Get the car ready, we need to get her to the hospital." He says.

Mom runs out the bathroom while I pick Aayat up to take her downstairs. Her clothes are soaking wet but we don't have the time to change her clothes.

"You can't leave me." I mumble in her ear when I'm sitting holding her in the car. "You're not allowed to."

~~~~~~

My mother is sitting beside me, praying for my wife while all I do is sit and stare at a wall. She was fine yesterday. Everything was fucking fine. Then why?! Just fucking why?

Nobody besides me touched her and she has been fine with my touch. The only thing different was...sex.

I turn to look at the door she is behind, and heavy weight squeezes my chest. Did I do something? I must've done something.

I always knew Aayat had self harming tendencies but I did fucking nothing! She tried so hard to hide this from me and I thought I was being a civilised person by not poking my nose in something so private. I wanted her to have her privacy. Knowing that this could one day lead up to me not having my wife!

I press my hands to my face, hiding away from the shame that's trying to wrap itself around my neck like a noose.

All I did was throw away each blade she ever had but somehow she always found another one and I knew this happens. I fucking knew!

I can't lose Aayat. My wife is everything to me, I love her! I fucking love her and I can't let her go. I can't mourn my wife, I can't let it fucking happen!

I stand up and pace around the corridor, gripping my hair one second and fisting my hands the next. "Harry." Mum calls. She asks me to calm down. She says nothing would happen to Aayat. She wouldn't leave us but I saw the blood. The bathtub is probably still filled to the brim with bloody water.

How will I ever move on from this? How will I ever forget her pale face and lifeless body, drenched in water that is mixed with her own blood?

The door opens and the doctor walks out. My father did the only good thing in his life and found a specialist to take over Aayat's case. "How is she?" I ask. She takes off her mask and nods. "She is fine. She missed the artery and instead cut her vein, which led her to bleed much slower. She lost a lot of blood.

We've stitched the wound, taken care of the vein she cut but we need to monitor her. This is your hospital and she is your wife but this is a suicide case. If you believe authorities need to be involved then the hospital will send out a call."

My mother closes her eyes and thanks god and the doctor for saving Aayat. She is safe now. They will monitor her but she is out of danger. But the only thing I'm stuck on is suicide. She tried to kill herself.

I know my wife has some secrets she never shared and I didn't push her because I was afraid of this exact thing happening. But I can't wait anymore. I need answers. I don't know if she hurt herself today because I did something.

If I was the reason, I'll let her do whatever she wants to get her peace. But until then, I'll start with the other most obvious suspect. She hates his name, she ran away from him and found me in mount Palacia, she doesn't even look at his picture that hangs on the wall of her home back in India and she fights with her own parents when they side with him.

I turn away and make a call. The line rings for a single time before the person answers. "Hello?"

"Can your Prime Minister father use some of his contacts in Canada to find me a guy?"

Faisal takes a long beat before answering. "What for?" Saying it would make it real but it already is. "Aayat tried to kill herself and I think that man has something to do with it." Or I do. But I'll die from heartbreak if that's true.

Faisal mutters some curses. "Is she okay now?"

"Doctors have stabilised her but she is still unconscious. Can you help me or not?" I hear movement before a different voice comes through the phone.

"Hello Harold. I hear you need something from me?" I've never met him. I've never even talked to him before and it's a little bit unnerving.

"I need your help to find a man. His name is Akeeb. That's all I know. He has been trying to save his failing business in Canada and he was raised in Hyderabad by the Nizam. He isn't their biological child, he is an orphan. This is all I know and I'm aware it's not enough. But he has hurt my wife so terribly that she prefers dying over facing him." A tear falls down my eye.

Every time I think of Aayat, an image of her, bleeding in the tub comes to mind. It's enough to shake me to my core. "I really need your help." My voice almost cracks. A soft sigh comes as a response before the determined voice reaches my ears.

"I'll find him for you. Don't worry son."

~~~~~~