I woke up to the beep of a heart monitor, though everything felt blurry, is this the afterlife?, is this how I die?, a terrible headache slamming at my temple. My throats dry like the sahara, I thought they said there’s no pain after death, then why do I feel like a truck ran me over?

My eyes opened to a sharp ray of white that stings my eyes. I tried to look around and my eye landed on a figure-head bent on my bed beside me, just as soon the person stirred.

Recognition hit me then, it was Sarah the housemaid, her face etched with worry. This means I’m alive?

“Oh thank goodness, you are awake”. Said in a half whisper almost as if talking audibly would worsen my situation. I tried to sit up but another bout of very nasty headache hit me again, I winced in pain. Sarah rushed to my side to help sit up, she placed two pillows behind me to help prop me up. I opened my mouth to thank you, all that came out was a croak that stinged and triggered cough. Sarah gave me water, but every swallow felt like I was swallowing thorns.

H-how m-any da-yss?” I finally managed to whisper.

“Three days, he locked you in the basement for three days” she replied softly.

“Austin brought me here?”

“I did, he has not visited since I brought you here.”

I meant nothing to him. He didn’t come. He left me for dead. A lone tear slid down my eye. I thought being married to him meant I was free from my stepmother’s claws and I’d final be loved, I was willing to patient with him, because I’d understood that our marriage was rushed. We did not get enough time to know each other well enough. I’d made several excuses on his behalf. I thought of his cold eyes, he’d slapped me and dragged me by the hair into the house, and it didn’t satisfy him, he locked me up for three days without food and water.

I turned to look at Sarah, the only person who has been kind to me.

“Why are you helping me?”

Sarah smiled warmly as she held my hand “Because you don’t deserve what he did to you, you’re also a good person, you’ll readily help anyone in need of help too.”

My chest constricted at those words, for the first time someone had shown concern, and seen her pain.

Those words she said to me cut deeper than any suffering I’d endured.

I caught my reflection in the mirror, I looked awful. Bruised cheek, pale skin and disheveled hair.

The woman staring back at me in the mirror look broken and dejected, luck has definitely not been on my side, so I might as well just live with it.

The doctor entered with two Nurses, turns out Sarah had brought me to her cousins clinic, I looked at her gratefully. If she had taken me to any other hospital, the press would have had a field day, which would have made the situation worse.

“Good morning, Mrs. Barnes, you’re awake.” He said with a smile

“And alive,” he added, and looked at Sarah.

And alive? I raise a questioning brow at the doctor.

He quickly added, “Oh you gave Sarah quite the scare, she brought you in thinking you were dead, she kept asking when you’d wake up”.

The doctor checked my vitals, dressed my bruises, and asked.

“How do you feel?”.

“I feel so sore, and dehydrated, then there’s this terrible headache hitting me hard as well”. The doctor jotted some things down while I was talking, he tore the sheet out and handed it over to one of the nurses.

“Get her these medications and administer them”. He turned to me and said “You’ll be as good as new in no time Mrs. Barnes, but you need enough rest and take lots of liquids to stay hydrated.”

“Thank you so much, doctor”.

He nodded and left the room.

“Will you take me home?” I asked Sarah quietly.

Sarah looked surprised “You want to go home? But you’ve not fully recovered, besides you heard the doctor say you need rest”.

“I can as well get the rest at home”.

“B-but ma’am, going home is-

“If I don’t go back there, where else do I have to go?, I can’t hide in the hospital forever; sooner or later, I’ll still have to go home”. I said, cutting her short.

Sarah does not look convinced, but still, she went to process my discharge papers.

And as I walked out of the hospital with nothing but scars and a heavy heart, I knew there was no love for me in this love, not from my family, nor the man I married.