"Don't you love me, Mehr? Don't you want to spend the rest of your life with me?" Victor shakes his head in disdain as he snaps these words at me.

Victor wants me to run away with him. He wants me to leave all of my life behind and just run away, so I could be with him.

Though, let us just be honest here, that is the literally the only option we had at the moment. Abbu absolutely hates his guts, Ammi has had no say in such things at any point in time in her life. Him not being a Sunni, in fact, not even a Muslim, is not much of a help in the prevailing situation.

"I do, sweety. Believe me, I do. But I am not exaggerating or overreacting when I mention that Abbu will KILL me and you if I ever even CONSIDER doing something like this. You certainly do not understand my situation."

I shudder each time I imagine that red stormy look on Abbu's face when he finds out that his precious little daughter has run away with an agnostic bloke, as a tear escapes my left eye and runs down my cheek.

I drop down with all my weight on the king-sized bed behind me in Victor's huge, '80s rock bands poster-laden bedroom, as I sigh. I could feel the soft maroon linen sheets below my right hand.

I keep my left hand on my slightly inflated tummy beneath the lose black Hijab. It often helps me keep my composure, knowing that I am practically never really alone, knowing that I always have something like a mute friend with me whenever I needed someone.

I start again, slowly this time with trembling lips and sweat building up beneath my Niqab, "you just know about the tip of the iceberg part above the water of what I go through every single day at my house. You have no idea how little my mother's voice and opinion matters at my house. And you do not understand how powerful my Abbu really is, politically and financially. If he wants us dead, he WILL make sure that we ARE positively dead."

"Fine, then go back to him. Let's see what he does when he finds out about this stupid mess that you have got yourself into ," Victor says in an elevated voice and points at my belly while he is still standing with his other hand on his waist, feet apart and tension creasing up his generally taut and narrow forehead.

"I HAVE MADE? Am I the only responsible for OUR baby now?" I cry out with my hand still on my belly, starting to feel nauseated at this point.

"If you think that even I am responsible and have a say in this and the future of our child, then let me take care of you. And take care of IT as well," he says while kneeling down in front of me, now composed while gently taking my palms in his.

"IT?!" I cry out again while freeing my hands from his.

"What am I supposed to call the foetus now, huh? We don't even know the gender yet. In fact, nobody does as of yet. You just missed a period and took a home pregnancy test, you're not that far along for it to even have a gender," he says while standing up again. He sighed and started again, "trust me, running away is all that we can do right now."

"But we haven't even graduated from high school yet. How are we going to handle all this alone? Aren't we too young to do this without adults?" I sigh again, this time feeling the weight on my shoulders and head getting heavier than before.

I close my eyes to just relax for a moment and escape reality. I was physically and mentally tired because of all these situations and additionally because of this little person taking in the nutrients that I have been taking in just for myself.

He looks at me and then sits down again, on his knees while looking into my eyes. He takes both of my hands in his, tenderly, and sighs.

"I will do anything in my capacity to give you and him or her, whatever, all that I can. Please Mehr, let us run away together, get married and settle down somewhere, away from here. You just have to trust me."

His words tear me up as I slightly pounce on him and hug him from around his neck, feeling my chest meeting his.

"I trust you, honey. Everything's gonna be perfectly fine." I close my eyes shut to feel the adrenaline pumping up inside my belly as I hug him and visualize the steps that have to be taken from now.

Victor lets go of my hands, while he reaches for the bottle of whiskey on the stool beside his bed and pours himself a bourbon in his shiny crystal glass and hands over a glass of orange juice for the pregnant lady.

I look at his beautifully carved square-jawed face, light brown and clear eyes with dilated pupils and straight messy dark brown hair on his long swan-like gracious neck. He resembles that lead singer from one of his favourites '80s band: Guns N' Roses. I remember having to sit through those torturous noisy repetitive guitar riffs when they released a new album and Victor wanted to listen to those songs with me.

I do not understand music that well, Victor is the cooler and hip one amongst the both of us, he recommends me the popular culture songs and movies. Abbu refuses to let us even watch television without his supervision. He preaches that rock music ruins the culture and morals of the youth of this generation.

I gradually elevate the glass that Victor handed me, towards my lips, above which there was now a line of sweat.

Haram.

This is what Abbu would call this, all of this. Me, being in this room with an unrelated man, neither by blood nor marriage and at the same time expecting his child outside of wedlock; without my Niqab (veil); listening to uncultured and loud rock music, which he believes quote-unquote "praised the Shaitan (Devil)", used to drink alcohol till I found out about my pregnancy, with a tattoo on my lower thigh. I am punishable to death for these sins according to my father.

I am literally so sick of these devouring limitations. They are eating up my insides up like tapeworms. They have made me this mouse of a human-being with absolutely no personality or identity of my own. I am sick to death of residing in the shadow of this conservative and misogynistic man. Yes, he loves me to death and g gets almost everything that I that I laid my eyes on and had fondness for just for me. But this time, I wanted Freedom, something he could not buy his way through with his massive pocket or platinum credit or debit cards. Something that is way beyond the concepts of just money or credit, to understand and feel.

This loose black clothing hanging on my body, called Hijab, covering each and every inch of me is now metaphorically strangling me like a tight rope around my neck, only because I had no say in what I could wear or even do. I believe that there are so many women across the globe who are happy to wear this by their own choice, but I am not happy to wear it and it is definitely not my choice. I am feeling suffocated, having to live under the complete control over me, by my father. My own father had trapped me inside my own body and mind.

I was sent to a girls-only school since childhood, I have been restricted to talk to any man outside our family and blood without my veil, the telephone was always received by Abbu first and given to us only if he approved, Abbu accompanied me from and to school, and I am not even allowed to drive, I am not even allowed to take basic everyday decisions on my own that most people around me are.

Guess what, on top of it all, my wonderful father has already found a groom for me when I was as young as five years of age. He is about five years older than I am and I have not even seen him more than once. We saw each other once when I turned twelve and we exchanged pleasantries, while I still had my veil on. He was the son of a rich family friend of ours. Apparently due to some agreements Abbu and his friend made during that time, I would in consequence be forced to get married to this man, when he is properly settled enough and ready to get married.

WHEN HE IS READY TO GET MARRIED?! WHAT ABOUT ME, THOUGH?

I have been living this life of confinement somehow since childhood, but when I met Victor, everything changed. My life, my morals, and my personality all made a complete U-turn and I saw myself in a totally different light. I started seeing the world from a completely different angle, an angle that involved a better view of the world.

The thing is, I never really believed that any religion is at fault anywhere. Even the Catholic women in France had to fight their way into Women's suffrage and be where they are today. It is never belief or the kind of belief of God/higher power (whatever floats your boat) that ruins lives, it is the mentality of people who believe they know best- people who believe that they know more than God. I believe in Allah, and I know that he will solve all my problems as soon as it is destined to be solved.

I have multiple female friends who belong to Muslim families and still have freedom and basic rights at their homes. They have pretty cool parents, who are religious and still believe in equality between their daughters and sons. It is basically just my narrow-minded father, who lives in the 15th Century even in the 1990s.

Even though I am terrified out of my wits at this time, but suddenly the track in the subwoofer amplifiers changes and our beloved Freddie Mercury starts singing the song that Victor and I have both come to love and admire,

I want to break free...

You're so self-satisfied I don't need you...

I've fallen in love for the first time
And this time I know it's for real...

But life still goes on
I can't get used to living without, living without

Living without you by my side

I don't want to live alone, hey

God knows, got to make it on my own

So, baby can't you see

I've got to break free...

I then let my fears take a break for some time as we both sing and move along to the lyrics of the beautiful song in harmony as Victor slowly takes his shirt off to the rhythm and throws it away to reveal his skinny yet attractive body, and starts dancing like Freddie used to on-stage. I guffaw out loud as I idly dawdle towards him and kiss him with my arms around his neck.