He didn't know how many days had passed since she told him but it was all the same. Riyaadh could barely even look at her, much less be in the same room with Saudah and had taken to sleeping on the couch- passing out after hours and hours of the same thought plaguing him.

He wasn't rid of her.

The thin metal rail indented itself into his palm as his knuckles tightened around it. His breath was staggered, and his lungs ached with the smoke that he had been forcing into them. Pain so consuming suffocated him and all he wanted to do was scream into the darkness to let it out.

Instead, he brought his cigarette to his lips, inhaling deeper than he was able to, before exhaling the smoke to be carried away by the heavy breeze.

His hands began to shake. Subtly at first but increasing rapidly as uncalled adrenalin coursed through his veins. From there, shivers ran through his arms, then his shoulders... then his whole body began to tremble as deep-seeded fear boiled in his memories.

He didn't want her to know. He didn't want her to see how weak he was. He didn't want Saudah to know that he had allowed someone to hurt him as much as Farhana had. She had broken him and he had allowed it because he was stupid enough to believe that she loved him.

He thought it was okay because she would apologise and then she did it again and again until she had twisted him into the most warped version of himself. She had ripped him up into someone he couldn't even recognise, and he had let her do it.

Every single time he accepted her apology and made love to her after she bruised and burnt him was his way of allowing it. And who would ever believe him? Who could ever believe that a woman could abuse him as she had done?

He didn't even know if he was a man if he had allowed that to happen to him. He was a coward and a loser and everything was his fault. How could he have ever thought that he could move on? How could Saudah ever love him if she really knew just how scared he was? She would want him to protect her, but could he when he didn't even know how to protect himself?

All he could picture was cowering on the floor and covering his face as she threw plate after plate at him when he came home late. Or screaming as she dragged her little nail file deeper and deeper into his skin. He couldn't even push her off him because she had laid over him and wouldn't let him up. How could he be a man if he couldn't even stop a woman from hurting him?

Saudah was too strong and too brave for him.

He wasn't worth shit anymore.

Not after Farhana. Not after she made him realise just how pathetic he was.

He was nothing.

He didn't want to know what she thought of him after she had seen all the marks.

Why did she have to look? Why did she have to know who he really was? She should never have looked.

It wasn't her business. It was his problem and she should have never involved herself in it. how dare she? How dare she pry into his past the way she did?

Saudah was just another person who tried to take what little control he had just because she thought she could. She should never have looked.

He lifted his right sleeve and ran his finger along all the little dots and scars along it. The marks would have disappeared but she had pressed the stubs so deep into his skin that it would never fade away.

Farhana still wielded power over him. He wasn't free of her. He would never be free of her.

Never.

"Please stop, Riyaadh." Her arms wrapped around his stomach as she pressed her body into his back. "Please."

Her hand was over his, stopping him from scratching himself further.

"Please stop."

His shirt was damp, and his skin tingled with her whispered pleas for him to forgive her.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I didn't mean to hurt you. But please stop hurting yourself."

"You're just like her. You can't fix everything with an apology."

Her gasp was warm on his back as his words cut into her.

"Okay..." she sniffed. "I'm just like her."

"Why did you do that?"

"Because I needed to know why you were so sad." She kissed his spine, her lips lingering.

"Why?" his voice cracked on the word.

She turned him around and cupped his cheeks in her hands. "Because you're my husband and I want you to be happy."

"Why?" he held onto her wrists, unsure if he wanted to push her away or pull her closer.

"Because it's important." She lifted his face.

"To who?"

"To you."

He looked at her.

Just looked at her. Her beautiful, earnest, sincere face and her pure heart and he knew he was wrong. She wasn't Farhana.

Her heart was beautiful. Her heart was so beautiful.

His lips were on hers. Soft and unsure. He wanted her heart for himself.

He wanted to be happy. He wanted to deserve it.

He gripped her jaw, tilting her head so he could kiss her the way she deserved. She needed to be kissed as if she were everything. She was the beginning of the world and its end. She was love and she was beauty and kindness. She needed him to be hers too.

His other wandered down her body, cupping, caressing, feeling, loving. He touched her as if it were the first. Everything else before this didn't exist. It was only now.

He gripped the back of her thigh and picked her up, carrying her out of the cold and into the warmth of their bedroom. She wrapped her legs around him, holding onto him in the darkness. He sucked hr earlobe into his mouth, biting gently before he put her down. "I don't want you to see."

He was breathless and so was she.

"Okay."

He tugged his t-shirt off, tossing it away. Her hands were warm in his as he guided them to his chest. His heart was pounding so hard, he knew she would feel it. His breath quickened as she touched him- touched the massive cross-stitch right over his heart.  

"It's okay," she kissed his shoulder, then his neck as her hand moved lower. Her breath was warm on him-his only anchor s everything in him told him to run. "It's okay..." she kissed him again, her hands were soft and gentle as she explored every bump and scratch and scar that dotted his body. Riyaadh's breaths were so shallow that he couldn't breathe properly. "I got you, Riyaadh."

Lips met skin as she kissed the burn along his collar bone, then her lips moved towards his heart then down his sternum, along the deep stitches on his ribs, stopping above his belly button. Her lips set fire to him. "You're still my Riyaadh and I still love you." She kissed the scar that burned his navel- her lips brushing over that spot again and again.

She stood up and cupped his cheek before she gave him a kiss that scorched the very seams of his soul. "I love you."

He picked her up and set her carefully on their bed. The moonlight illuminated her smooth skin as he slowly undressed her. That was all he needed- no other light would do justice to her body. He kissed her knee and her thigh and her stomach before his lips ghosted over her bra, teasing her. She unhooked her bra, allowing him to pull the straps down her shoulders and off her body before he touched her goosebump-ridden skin.

"You're so beautiful." His voice was heavy as he leaned back and looked down at her. "You are so, so beautiful, Saudah. You don't even know what you do to me."

He supported his weight on his forearms, as he leaned back down and kissed every bit of her that he could reach. His hand was gentle along her belly before he moved it lower and lower and lower beneath the violet cotton.

"Are you ready?" he asked above her shuddering breaths and pleading whispers.

"Uhm hmm..."

"Look at me." He smiled as she struggled to keep her eyes open. "Are you sure you're ready?"

"Yes." Her voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper as she unbuttoned his jeans and pulled down the zipper. "I've never been more ready." She kissed his dimple.

He rolled her panties down her legs, savouring the feel of her skin. She was soft and silky and responded to his touch by curling her fingers tighter and tighter around the sheets.

He moved back up, paying homage to her lips once more before he grasped her hands. She shucked his jeans down his legs, pressing herself to him.

He kissed her again, relaxing her and setting her on fire all at the same time.

His hand travelled down...

Down...

Down...

And then a gasp.