When Love's Fireworks Fade

While taking a quiet walk around our residential neighborhood, I ran straight into my ex-husband, Tristan.

For a second, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. No one knew better than I did how much Tristan detested this town, and how much he despised this exact neighborhood.

I stopped in my tracks, offering a polite but distant greeting. "Are you back to visit your grandmother's grave?"

He stood there, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit, his eyes locked onto mine without so much as a blink. "I bought a house here. I stay here whenever I'm in town on business."

A wave of disgust washed over me, instantly killing any desire to be polite. I looked down, already mentally calculating the cost of moving somewhere else, and stepped aside to walk away.

But Tristan stepped in front of me, blocking my path. "Brooke, I regret it."

I pretended not to hear him, my eyes lighting up as I waved to someone behind him. "Jasper!"

Jasper walked over, naturally taking my hand in his.

When I first met Tristan, he wasn't the powerful tech CEO he is today. Back then, in the eyes of our classmates and neighbors, he was just a lonely, impoverished seven-year-old boy. He had no parents and no friends. His divorced parents had tossed him back and forth like a hot potato before finally dumping him on his grandmother.

Winters in Seattle were wet and bone-chilling, filled with endless drizzle. While the neighborhood kids played together, Tristan could always be seen trailing behind his grandmother, collecting cardboard and plastic bottles from recycle bins. He wore thin, worn-out clothes, constantly shivering with his head tucked into his collar.

Some of the kids from our block spread the story at school, and soon, everyone started calling him "the garbage boy."

Since we lived in the same neighborhood and went to the same school, I constantly witnessed him being bullied and mocked. Eventually, I couldn't bear to watch it anymore. I began taking care of him in secret. I would pack an extra breakfast to share with him, and I gave him my spare gloves and insulated thermos.

When my dad discovered why my things kept going missing, he let out a soft sigh and brought Tristan into our home.

From that day on, Tristan played at our house, ate at our table, showered in our bathroom, and did his homework beside me. My mother started buying everything in pairs: one blue, one pink.

On Tristan's tenth birthday, my father bought him a computer. That was the day we discovered his terrifying talent for programming.

After that, his life changed completely. He swept every local and national coding competition, his room filling up with trophies and cash prizes. At fourteen, he traveled abroad as the youngest competitor in the World Programming Championship and took first place.

I still remember the video of him holding the trophy on a bustling European street, his eyes shining brightly as he smiled into the camera. "I want to thank Mr. and Mrs. Su. Without them, I wouldn't be standing here today. And thank you, Brooke."

We were only fourteen, but watching that broadcast, my face burned crimson.

During our senior year of high school, the day he received his early admission letter to Boston Tech, he wrapped his arms around me. "Brooke, please apply to a school in Boston," he whispered softly in my ear.

For that single sentence, I left Seattle and enrolled in a mediocre local college in Boston.

I had always been ordinary: ordinary grades, an ordinary life, an ordinary degree. I was nothing like Tristan. He was a man of extremes. When he loved something, he loved it to the point of obsession. He loved programming, and he worked himself to exhaustion to launch his startup. He loved me, too, often running across campus just to eat breakfast with me after pulling an all-nighter at his office.

But when he hated, he hated with equal intensity.

During our freshman year, Tristan used his hacking skills to break into his biological father's small logistics firm, systematically ruining his most lucrative contracts. During our junior year, while his startup was in its most critical phase, he took a night off to throw a lavish party, celebrating the day his mother's second marriage collapsed.

Looking back, the way he treated me after he fell out of love was entirely consistent with who he had always been.

At twenty-three, the moment I graduated, Tristan and I got married.

By then, his company was valued at millions, and he had purchased a luxury penthouse in one of Boston's most expensive districts. Because we had no financial worries, I took a quiet, low-stress job earning about three thousand dollars a month. In a city like Boston, it wasn't a high salary, but the hours were strictly nine-to-five, and the office was incredibly close to Tristan's headquarters and our home.

Tristan was consumed by his work, and I had no grand career ambitions. I preferred coming home to cook dinner and tend to our pets.

In the beginning, everything was perfect. Tristan's company grew rapidly, and he was hailed as one of the youngest, most promising tech executives in the country. He was sharp, confident, and deeply devoted to me. He would sit at our table, drinking the soup I had simmered for hours, and tell me how incredibly lucky he felt.

But gradually, his nights out grew longer, and the distance between us stretched into a chasm.

The breaking point arrived on Tristan's twenty-seventh birthday. I stayed up waiting for him all night. When he finally walked through the door at dawn, I spotted a clear smear of red lipstick on his collar.

In that instant, something inside me snapped.

I hurled his birthday cake at him, lunging forward to tear at his shirt. I smashed everything within reach: the dishes, the decorations, our framed wedding portraits.

Tristan watched my hysteria with cold, detached eyes. He calmly reached behind him to close the front door. "Brooke, if you're going to scream, at least close the door. If you don't care about your reputation, I care about mine."

He looked at me, his brow furrowed with deep irritation. "You're still my wife, and as long as you don't cross the line, nothing will change. No one is going to take your place. Be reasonable. It's better for everyone."

He didn't even bother to deny it. He just stood there and admitted it.

My mind shattered. I lunged at him again, but he pushed me away with enough force to send me stumbling. He looked down at me, his words cutting like glass. "Look at yourself. Do you look like a CEO's wife? You look like a screaming street vendor."

He turned and walked out of the apartment. He didn't return for weeks.

I was twenty-seven, proud, and entirely unprepared for that level of humiliation. I began showing up at his office, demanding a confrontation. It didn't take me long to find out who the other woman was: Vivian, his corporate partner.

Tristan hadn't even tried to hide her. They were already behaving like a married couple in front of the staff, attending meetings and dinners together. His assistants, his executives, everyone knew. I was the only one kept in the dark.

The betrayal kept me awake for days.

Eventually, I lost control and lunged at Vivian in the office lobby, grabbing her hair as we tumbled to the floor. She was thin and lacked my physical strength, but even as I pinned her down, she glared up at me with tears in her eyes.

"I know I'm wrong, Brooke! But I was there coding with Tristan when we were still in college! We pulled seventy-hour weeks, drank cheap coffee, and survived on instant noodles! Where were you? What were you doing?"

"Tristan would finish a twenty-hour shift and still have to run to your campus to walk you to your morning classes! You sat back and enjoyed his success while he nearly worked himself to death! You don't deserve him!"

My hands went limp, and I stumbled back, staring at her in disbelief.

How could she speak with such self-righteous fury? Was she actually accusing me of failing him?

Tristan rushed into the lobby. He didn't look at me once. He helped Vivian up, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and led her away.

I walked back to our empty penthouse like a ghost, sitting in the dark for days, her words echoing in my mind. Where was I while they were building his dream? What was I doing?

I was in Seattle.

I was taking care of Tristan's grandmother.

She was a gentle, kind-hearted woman who had always treated me like her own family. During our senior year of college, she fell gravely ill. Tristan's startup was at its most critical point, and he was working himself to the bone. Meanwhile, I was trying to finish my thesis and secure an internship.

Tristan had collapsed into my arms one evening, weeping as he talked about his company and his grandmother's failing health.

I remembered exactly what I told him. I told him I would return to Seattle to care for her.

Tristan had held me so tight I could barely breathe, whispering endless promises of gratitude. He told me he had decided to marry me when he was fourteen, and that he would spend the rest of his life making me happy. His tears had soaked my shoulder, and I comforted him, telling him I needed a break from the academic pressure anyway. I claimed it would be good to spend some time with my own parents.

I had gaslit myself into believing I was the one who needed a break, all to ease his guilt.

And so, I spent over a year in Seattle, working with my parents to nurse his grandmother through her final days. I didn't return to Boston until after her funeral.

Tristan had kept his promise. The moment I got back, he proposed with a diamond ring, and we married shortly after.

But now, his mistress was standing in his office lobby, demanding to know what I had done to deserve him.

It was a sick joke.

I locked myself in the apartment, weeping through the nights, slowly destroying myself. I obsessed over our history, trying to figure out where things had gone wrong. Sometimes I hated Tristan with a burning passion; other times, I blamed myself. I had married an extraordinary man, but I had failed to keep pace with him.

After two weeks of silence, Tristan came home. He held a bouquet of crimson roses, handing them to me as if nothing had happened.

"Vivian agreed not to press charges for the assault."

"Brooke, think about your parents. Your father is a high school teacher. If you keep making these scenes, do you think his reputation will survive the scandal?"

He actually had the nerve to bring up my parents.

"We have a lifetime of history together. Vivian isn't going to take your status. You have wealth, position, and everyone in this city calls you Mrs. Lu. I've given you everything a woman could want. You need to be content."

"Be sensible, Brooke. Let's just go back to the way things were."

Mrs. Lu. What a sickening title.

Looking at the man standing in front of me, a wave of physical nausea hit me. I rushed into the bathroom and threw up until my stomach was empty.

A week later, I found out I was pregnant.

The news thrilled Tristan, and he seemed to commit himself to our family. He took my hand, his eyes filled with apparent remorse. "I made a mistake, Brooke. I'm sorry. Now that we have a baby on the way, I'm done playing around. I promise I'll cut things off with Vivian. Let's raise this child and build a real home."

I wept, but eventually, I chose to believe him. I convinced myself that I shared some of the blame, that his years of hard work had taken a toll on him. He was back now, and that was all that mattered.

But the human heart is a fragile thing. I felt as though my soul had been hollowed out. I had lost my job after missing so much work, so I spent my days sleeping, staring at the walls, and waiting.

Tristan kept his word, coming home every night to cook dinner and read stories to my belly. And I might have actually believed he had changed, if Vivian hadn't started sending me video clips every single day.

He spent his nights with me, but his days were still spent with Vivian.

In the videos Vivian sent, the staff called me "the primary boss's wife" and referred to Vivian as "the little boss's lady." They joked about Tristan's ability to keep both of us happy. On Vivian's birthday, Tristan announced to the entire office that anyone who wished her a happy birthday would receive a double bonus.

He certainly knew how to make a woman feel special.

Watching those videos, I realized Tristan's love was like a firework: brilliant, loud, and easily given to anyone. All I had left was the ash.

I didn't know why I was still clinging to the ruins of our marriage. But looking down at my six-month pregnant belly, I couldn't bring myself to give up on the life growing inside me. I decided to block Vivian's number, put my head in the sand, and just focus on bringing my baby into the world.

But Vivian had no intention of letting me find peace.

On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, she showed up at my door carrying a large cardboard box. She didn't come inside; she simply dumped the contents onto the floor of my entryway.

Out spilled my old college notebooks, a framed photo from our wedding, and a small horse sculpture I had bought Tristan when he started his company.

"Brooke," Vivian said, her smile sweet but her eyes cold as ice. "Tristan said these things were taking up too much space in his office. He wanted me to throw them away, but I thought it would be a shame to lose such precious memories. I brought them here so you could keep them."

Staring at the mess on the floor, I didn't even feel angry. "Get out," I said quietly. I was done fighting with her. It wasn't worth the energy.

"Oh, are we sensitive today? I haven't even started," Vivian sneered, stepping closer and intentionally shoving her shoulder into mine. "Tristan told me you look like a bloated pig these days, and that you smell like baby formula. He says looking at you makes him sick."

She leaned in close, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Did you know we bought a new, larger sofa for his office lounge?"

My vision blurred. The fragile peace I had built shattered into a thousand pieces.

I don't remember how I lunged at her, or how we ended up on the floor. I don't even remember when Tristan arrived. There was only chaos, screaming, and then a sharp, tearing pain in my abdomen.

When I woke up, the storm had passed. I was lying in a hospital bed, and my baby was gone.

Tristan sat beside me, clutching my hand as tears streamed down his face. "Brooke, we're still young. We're only twenty-eight. We can try again. I swear, I'll cut Vivian out of my life permanently this time..."

Without a word, I grabbed the paring knife from the fruit basket on my bedside table and plunged it toward his chest.

He flinched, and the blade buried itself in his shoulder. But even as blood soaked his shirt, he didn't let go of me. He held me tight, weeping into my shoulder.

His tears felt like grease on my skin.

The moment I was discharged, I filed for divorce. Tristan refused to sign the papers. In response, I picked up another knife and drew it across my wrist, slicing deep into the flesh.

The sight of the blood terrified him, and he finally signed the papers. In the settlement, he transferred ten million dollars to my account. I didn't refuse the money; I knew I would need it to pay for my medical treatment.

My mind was broken. I was diagnosed with severe, clinical depression.