Cheating By The Rules | Harry Styles AU (ongoing)

chapter 01

I wish people would've warned me about marriage. I wish people would've told me a happy-ever-after doesn't exist. I wish people would've stopped me from walking down the aisle. I wish people would've told me that my fiancée could switch personalities once we tied the knot.

No-one stopped me. I didn't stop myself.

Jace Davis aka my husband aka the biggest fucking liar I have ever met, managed to make me his wife.

Numerous times I've laid awake at night asking myself Why didn't I see this coming? Well, Jace and I were inseparable since high school. We instantly clicked at a young age, so we became best friends and ultimately ended up catching feelings during our senior year. There had never been someone else except Jace. He knows everything about me, he knows every inch of me. What scares me is that I have never known the real him. Just the persona he wanted me to know; he wanted me to fall in love with.

It makes it even harder that it's impossible to get a divorce. Even though it sounds like the perfect way out (trust me, I would have loved to go there) I couldn't do it. Not because It'd break my heart and I'd miss him endlessly, but because my parents wholeheartedly adore him. Their heartbreak is what stops me from going forward with it.

I sometimes think they won't even believe me if I tell them Jace has been a compulsive liar for years.

"Our Jace would never do that." my mother would say.

So I stayed.

Two years passed since our wedding and I'm still with him. Call me crazy (I'd call myself crazy) because we haven't made any progress.

In the beginning, I thought he'd miraculously change back to his 'old' self. I labeled it as a phase, but that wasn't the case over time.

First Jace began to make downgrading comments about my career. He kept on saying how he should've been the one with a successful firm instead of me, seeing he pictured himself as a true leader from a young age and thinking he should've been on top.

I consistently wondered why he thought it was such a bad thing I build my marketing company from the ground up. In my eyes, he should be proud of me. He should be proud of all the hard work and hours I put into it, because if it wasn't for my thriving company we wouldn't be living in this beautiful house. His salary alone couldn't make up for all the expenses, but he didn't see it that way.

Sadly, his negativity regarding my career wasn't the only thing that changed about him. After a while, Jace started to wave me off whenever we were about to have sex.

"I'm not in the mood."

"I am going to meet the boys at the bar."

"I have to get up for work early."

Of course, setting boundaries when you're not into it is a good thing. I encourage that at all times. However, Jace was always in the mood. He never liked it when he couldn't touch me because he loved to have his hands all over my body. He wanted to devour it all day, every day.

Whenever he didn't want to continue, I didn't push him but I accepted it. . . until weeks and months passed by without any intimacy. Something I truly wanted at one point. I couldn't understand why Jace didn't want to have sex with me. Wasn't he attracted to me anymore? Those insecurities became bigger and bigger the moment I talked to him about it.

"Are you hearing yourself, Ivy?" Jace said with disgust.

"I am, Jace. I'm just telling you that I've got a feeling you don't want to have sex with me anymore." I replied to him.