Deceitful Relations

Most people say their wedding day is the happiest day of their lives but not Nicholas. Not when it was the day he lost his freedom to an emotionally abusive woman. Not when he knew Lyra didn’t love him and most likely never will. The fact that she only had a look of contempt when she laid eyes on him on their wedding night was proof enough. So was the fact that she kept her last name and especially the multiple affairs she was having. He knew about them, and she knew that he did but also that he wouldn’t dare say anything. After all, she was behind the funding for the orphanage he grew up in. One mistake from him, and she’d stop. Which is why he entertained her every whim without complaint.

Although their marriage was purely for business, and they wouldn’t be able to love each other or at least learn to, it still hurt him to know that his own wife was doing more with other men than with him. He was greatly aware of the difference in treatment. To them, she was like a nymph, but to him, she was more of an uptight boss or master and him, the personal, but unpaid servant. What made it worse was that she took those men to their marriage bed.

He had tried on a few occasions to plead with her to not have affairs, or at the very least, not in their bed. Unfortunately, he was always met with comments such as “You’re that attractive so you can’t blame me”, “You’re not worth much so be grateful that I’m letting you stay in MY house at all” or “How do you expect me to love you when your own parents didn’t even love you enough to keep you”. At first, he tried not to let her words get to him, but he could only take so much. She was slowly killing his self-esteem and confidence. As a result, he moved to the guestroom, but she didn’t seem to care at all, as she never brought it up or even questioned him about it.

Besides a luxurious roof over his head and funding the orphanage, the only things she contributed were groceries, utility bills and other household consumables. Whatever else he needed was his problem. Hence he kept his job as a bartender.

Her parents were oblivious as he never complained to anyone about the situation. Not that he’d like to admit that he was being tormented by someone smaller than him. Her sister, on the other hand, knew as she once caught Lyra belittling Nicholas over a small mistake he’d made. Alexis had tried to tell her that Nicholas was her husband and she had no right to treat him, or anyone, the way she did. However, Lyra didn’t care. After all, she never saw Nicholas as her husband and, rather, as a sorry excuse for a man.

Alexis had tried multiple times to bring this up to their father, but Nicholas would always deny the accusations. He would state that Lyra had been nothing but a good wife to him and dismiss his sister-in-law’s accusations as jealousy. Afterwards, he’d politely tell her to stop interfering as he was indeed happily married and trying to enjoy marital bliss in peace. This resulted in their father ordering her to not interfere with her sister’s marriage.

Since she was obviously getting nowhere, Alexis resorted to defending him whenever she could. She would often visit to check on him, and if she wasn’t able to, she’d call instead. He wasn’t used to such attention because of his wife, but he liked that someone cared. Because of that, they slowly formed a friendship.

One day, however, he found Lyra with another man in their bed again. This was his breaking point. He didn’t barge in or anything of the sort. He left them to continue and slowly made his way to the kitchen to grab a chair before heading off to the garage.

Once he got there, he looked for a rope and found one that looked strong enough. He set everything up, but before he could go through with his plan, a pair of arms wrapped around his waist and tried but failed miserably to yank him off the chair.

“Nic, what are you doing? Are you an idiot?” Alexis scolded.

“Leave me alone. You can clearly see that I’m busy.”

“You call this being busy? What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me? I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I’m in a loveless marriage with a tyrant who barely sees me as a human being and is hell-bent on making my life hell on earth. Let me not even mention she’s having an affair as we speak. So excuse me for not having anything to live for anymore.”

“Oh Nic, you do have something to live for. Think of those kids at the orphanage. Please, just get off the chair so we can at least talk about this.”

He thought long and hard about it. Was he really going to give up just like that? No. Alexis was right, he couldn’t. What would happen to the orphanage if he did? He didn’t want to let them down because of one person who seemed as though she had issues.

“Alright, fine,” He got off.

“Jesus, you almost gave me a heart attack. Never do that again. You’re crashing at my place because there’s no way I’m letting you stay here unsupervised.”