Soliloquy of Love

My boyfriend was hailed as a once-in-a-century painting prodigy, while I struggled to even distinguish the most basic color wheels.

For seven years, he shielded me from the world's ridicule, until a brilliant young artist named Giselle entered the picture.

When I broke my leg and desperately needed his care, he spent the night refining draft sketches for Giselle.

When a creep stalked me down a dark alley and I called him crying for help, his priority was rushing Giselle's dog to the veterinary clinic because it was having a difficult labor.

Today, when his friends teased him once again, saying he and Giselle were a match made in heaven, Tristan didn't snap back in my defense like he used to. Instead, he simply offered a bittersweet, regretful smile and let it slide.

That very evening, over dinner, he looked up and asked, "Maybe I should ask Giselle to consult her uncle? Hes a specialist. Who knows, he might be able to cure your color blindness."

My hand, holding the ladle over the bowl of chicken soup, froze.

On the surface, Tristan looked like a devoted partner trying to salvage a fracturing relationship. But in reality, his heart had already drifted. He was finally confronting my mediocrity, and worse, he was starting to resent it.

Instead of answering, I offered a faint, bitter smile. "Why do you bring up Giselle so much lately?"

Tristan blinked, a rare flash of guilt crossing his face. "You know how it is," he stammered, trying to justify himself. "Shes the only one in the industry who can actually challenge me right now..."

Tristan was a proud man. In the past, he would never have bothered with such defensive explanations. Back then, he would have wrapped his arms around me and whispered, "Sia, my world only has room for my brush and you. I don't have the energy for anyone else."

Now, without him even realizing it, Giselle had climbed the ranks. She was his priority, and I was just an afterthought.

When my broken leg kept me bedridden, he spent the night refining her canvases. When a stranger followed me down the street and I called him in tears, he told me to wait because Giselle's Frenchie was in labor. When I finally confronted him, screaming through my tears, his voice was cold as ice. He claimed it wasn't about Giselle, but about art and saving a life.

But Tristan, I had told him from the very beginning: I do not tolerate dirt in my eyes. I do not share.

His defensive bravado crumbled the moment I slid a photo across the table. It was a picture of him and Giselle locked in a tight embrace.

His face paled, then twisted in outrage, as if he were the victim of some profound betrayal. "You spied on me?"

Catching his own defensive tone, he tried to backtrack, his voice softening in a desperate bid to smooth things over. "Giselle was drunk, Sia. I was just catching her so she wouldn't fall..."

Watching his clumsy performance, I swallowed the lump of burning sorrow in my throat. I decided to give him one last chance. "If you want us to have a future, delete her. Block her number, throw out her socials, and never see her again."

Tristan stared at me, his eyes darkening to a cold, predatory pitch. Then, without warning, he stood up and violently swept the entire dinner off the table. The plates shattered against the hardwood floor.

"All you do is cook and clean!" he roared. "You have zero connection to my art! You can't possibly comprehend the mutual respect between two geniuses! I have tolerated your mediocrity and your incompetence for years, and now you want to control my career and my life?"

I didn't say a word. I just stared at the broken porcelain and spilled soup scattered at our feet. It looked exactly like the end of our seven-year relationship.

His rage was hideous, entirely foreign. For seven years, Tristan had been cool, collected, almost detached from the world. He only cared about his canvas and me. He had never been this savage, this monstrous, screaming as though I were trying to tear away his most prized possession.

I knelt down, my fingers brushing against a sharp shard of a broken plate. My voice was as calm as a summer breeze. "Tristan, let's break up."

My mind drifted back to eight years ago.

The day I met Tristan, I was hovering on the edge of life and death. Severe depression had blurred the lines between reality and delusion. I had wandered onto a bridge, staring down at the churning river that seemed to be beckoning me. Tristan, who happened to be passing by, noticed my trance-like state and pulled me back from the ledge.

He had been at his own rock bottom back then. We found solace in each other, licking each other's wounds until we became each other's entire universe. Eventually, Tristan scaled the heights of the art world, while I settled into the quiet role of a supportive, stay-at-home girlfriend.

Even so, whenever anyone sneered at me or looked down on my lack of ambition, Tristan was always the first to stand up for me. He fiercely defended our love. "Ignore them, Sia," he would say, wrapping me in his warmth. "You will always be the only one for me."

I used to believe that love could conquer any obstacle. As it turned out, our forever had an expiration date of seven years.

A sharp, stinging pain snapped me back to the present. Tristan kicked a broken bowl in frustration. The heavy ceramic shard ricocheted off the baseboard and sliced deep into my forearm. Blood welled up instantly, staining my skin crimson.

Tristan froze. Panic washed over his features, and he rushed over, tears welling in his eyes as he grabbed my arm. "I'm sorry, Sia! God, I'm so sorry... I shouldn't have done that. I've been hitting a wall with my painting, and the pressure has just been eating me alive..."

Babbling apologies, he practically dragged me out the door to head to the hospital. In his frantic haste, the usually composed and meticulous Tristan lost his shoes three times on the way to the car.

For a fleeting second, he looked like the man who would lose his mind just to keep me safe. But deep down, I knew. There was no going back.

After the doctor finished stitching up my arm, Tristan left the room to buy me some warm soup. I sat alone on the hospital bed, holding my phone, and began deleting seven years of memories.

That was when Giselle walked in.

It was our first face-to-face confrontation. She was striking, possessing a sharp, ethereal beauty that mirrored her artwork.

She looked down at me as if I were a speck of dust. "An idiot like you doesn't deserve Tristan," she said, cutting straight to the chase. "Do yourself a favor and leave him."

I let out a soft laugh. I didn't even have the energy to argue. I just kept tapping my screen, deleting photo after photo.

Annoyed by my silence, Giselle shoved her phone in front of my face, displaying her chat with Tristan.

Sia has changed, Tristan's message read. She never used to pick fights like this. Tonight, she didn't even try to dodge the broken plate. I think she did it on purpose just to play the victim and get my sympathy.

My chest tightened so hard it was difficult to breathe. In the past, if I so much as stubbed my toe, Tristan would lose sleep worrying about me. Now, with a deep gash on my arm, he dismissed it as a cheap trick to win sympathy. I suppose its true what they say: when a man stops loving you, even if you hang yourself, hell just assume you're playing on a swing.

I blinked rapidly, forcing the hot tears back. Giselle smirked and scrolled up. I watched, numb, subjecting myself to the torture of reading their history.

This was the man who was supposedly a man of few words, who treated everyone but me with cold indifference. Yet here he was, texting Giselle every single day. They shared art, jokes, and even pictures of mundane things, like a crooked tree they saw on the street.

The weight of it all suddenly felt incredibly tedious. I looked away from the screen and locked eyes with Giselle's smug face. "You really are a shameless home-wrecker, aren't you?" I said, emphasizing every syllable.

Her smile flickered for a second before turning into a venomous grin. "Want to make a bet?" she whispered. "Let's see who Tristan actually believes. Let's see who he cares about more."

Before I could react, she grabbed a fistful of my hair, dragged me off the side of the bed, and slammed my head against the sterile white wall.

My injured arm made it impossible to fight back effectively, and her attack was entirely unexpected. Once, twice, three times. She didn't stop until warm blood began to trickle down my forehead.

Instantly, her face morphed into a mask of pure terror. She stumbled backward, screaming as she ran out the door, "Doctor! Nurse! Help! Someone's trying to hurt themselves!"

Tristan came rushing back into the room. Before I could utter a single word, Giselle threw herself at him, gripping his sleeve and sobbing hysterically. "Tristan, you have to believe me! I didn't even touch a single hair on Sia's head!"

After a long, agonizing silence, Tristan murmured a few comforting words to her, then turned toward me with a conflicted expression. He stared at the fresh bandages wrapped around my head. "Sia, tell me the truth," he said, his voice laced with pre-determined accusation. "Are you just jealous of the artistic connection Giselle and I share? Is that why you did this to yourself?"

Slap!

I cut his absurd accusation short with a stinging slap across his face.

My left hand throbbed from the impact, but compared to the shattering pain in my chest, I felt absolutely nothing. Was this really the man I had loved for seven long years?

Giselle gasped, rushing forward to pull the stunned Tristan away from me. "It's one thing to frame me," she cried, tears spilling over her cheeks, "but Tristan was only trying to understand! How could you lay a hand on him?" She turned to him, her voice dripping with sympathy. "Tristan, stay here. I'll get an ice pack from the nurse."

I watched their little drama with cold, detached eyes. I pulled out my phone and dialed the police. "Don't leave just yet," I said calmly. "Since you claim I'm framing you, let's let the police sort this out."

Giselle instinctively glanced up at the ceiling. I knew what she was thinking; she knew there were no security cameras in this private recovery room.

Unfortunately for her, I had learned my lesson the hard way years ago. The moment she had walked in, I had quietly activated the voice recorder on my phone.

I also knew Tristan too well. He was fiercely protective of those he cared about, and I was no longer the one he held dear. If I didn't wait for the authorities to arrive before showing my hand, he would find a way to bury the evidence.

Giselle stood quietly while I finished the call. She bit her lower lip, offering Tristan a brave, watery smile. "It's okay, Tristan. As long as you believe me, nothing else matters. A clean conscience fears no accusation. I'm sure the officers will see through this."

Tristan looked at her with profound pity before turning his fury back on me. "When did you become so malicious, Sia? Making a false police report is a waste of public resources. You'd better have a damn good explanation when they get here!"

I let out a sharp laugh. "Tell me, Tristan. From the second you walked into this room, have I uttered a single word accusing Giselle?"

Tristan froze. A flicker of realization and embarrassment crossed his face.

An exhausting wave of fatigue washed over me. I closed my eyes, refusing to engage with his pathetic deflections, and waited in silence for the police to arrive.

Giselle was always one to seize the narrative. The second the officers walked through the door, she rushed forward, pointing a trembling finger at me. "I only came to visit her out of goodwill, but she suddenly started throwing her head against the wall to frame me!"

Tristan stepped in, his expression apologetic. "I'm sorry about this, officers. My girlfriend has been very unstable lately. She has a history of severe clinical depression, and..."

My chest tightened. During the darkest years of my illness, Tristan would threaten anyone who dared mention the word depression around me. When I used to hurt myself, he would hold me so tight, ignoring the cuts from the sharp blades in my hands, whispering over and over, "Sia, you're not sick. You're just unhappy right now. I'll make it better, I promise. Just don't give up on yourself."

Yet now, to protect another woman, he weaponized my deepest trauma without a second thought.

The lead officer didn't buy their story immediately. He turned to me. "Miss Sienna, do you have anything to add?"

I offered a polite, chilly smile and tapped my phone screen to play the recording.