My Masterpiece

My husband is practically useless when it comes to basic survival.

He mixed bleach and ammonia toilet cleaner, gassed himself, and ended up in a vegetative state. The internet hailed me as an absolute saint for refusing to leave his side.

But they have no idea.

I just could not bear to abandon my own masterpiece.

My phone rang while I was at the local organic market haggling over the price of jumbo shrimp.

Zane had texted me his mandatory menu for the day. He demanded a medium rare ribeye steak, garlic butter fried shrimp, and a delicate asparagus soup. Dessert was supposed to be homemade tiramisu. My plan was to grab the shrimp, hit the supermarket for espresso powder, and pick up that specific brand of cold pressed orange juice he liked.

I absolutely despised this daily grocery run. But I had no choice. Zane refused to eat anything that wasn't bought fresh that exact morning. The last time I caught a fever and dared to serve him frozen fish fillets, he locked me in the pitch black basement for two days to think about my mistakes.

Right as I was bagging the shrimp, my screen lit up.

"Hello, is this Olivia? This is Memorial General Hospital. Your husband..."

A loud ringing drowned out the rest of the sentence. I dropped the groceries. Ignoring the vendor yelling at me to pay, I hailed a cab straight to the emergency room.

By the time I arrived, Zane had already been wheeled into the resuscitation bay. Standing awkwardly by the double doors was Jason, his newly recruited gaming sidekick.

"What happened? He gets regular checkups. How could he just pass out?" I grabbed Jason by the sleeves, shaking him with wide, panicked eyes.

"Ma'am, please try to breathe. Let the kid explain."

I turned around to see two uniformed police officers walking toward us. I put on my best face of utter confusion. "Why are the cops here? Was Zane attacked?"

Jason gently patted my back. "Liv, take a breath. I was the one who called 911." He wore a mask of sorrow, but I caught the briefest flicker of cunning in his eyes before he looked down.

I wiped a dry hand over my face. "Tell me what happened."

Jason explained that he showed up at our house at eight in the morning for their usual streaming session. He knocked for ten minutes. No answer. He called. Voicemail.

"I figured he just overslept, so I called you, Liv. You gave me the garage keypad code."

I nodded, confirming the story. I originally told him to wait in his car since Zane hated people in his space, but Jason claimed he was about to wet himself, so I let him inside.

The moment Jason opened the door, a thick, burning chemical stench hit him. Covering his mouth, he followed the smell to the master bathroom.

"Zane was just lying there dead still on the tiles. I freaked out and called the cops. That is all I know."

I looked away from Jason and stared blankly at the closed doors of the emergency room.

Honestly, I was tearing myself apart inside. Half of me was terrified the doors would open and Zane would walk out completely fine. The other half was worried he would just drop dead on the table.

After an eternity of waiting, the red light above the doors finally shut off.

They wheeled Zane out. I stumbled forward, my face twisted into a perfect portrait of agony and desperation. Anyone watching would have sworn I was a woman deeply, madly in love.

In reality, I just needed to know exactly how the rest of my life was going to play out.

The doctor pulled down his mask. "We did everything we could. But he inhaled a massive amount of toxic gas. The lack of oxygen to the brain was severe. He will likely remain in a vegetative state."

Vegetative state.

Those two words struck me like a bolt of pure electricity.

I threw myself over Zane's unconscious body and wailed. "Zane! It is all my fault. Why wasn't it me? Please wake up!"

One of the officers stepped forward to comfort me. "Olivia, his life is saved. The doctor said he might stay in this state, but medical science does miracles every day. There is still hope."

I nodded vigorously, keeping my mouth shut. I did not dare speak a single word. I knew if I opened my mouth, a wild, hysterical laugh would burst out.

A vegetative state.

This was absolutely perfect.

Rest easy, my sweet husband. I promise to take exceptionally good care of you.

After filling out the endless admission paperwork, the police pulled me aside for a formal statement.

"Our forensics team checked the scene. Someone mixed bleach with an ammonia based toilet cleaner. It created a massive cloud of chloramine gas, which dropped your husband instantly."

I nodded slowly. It sounded exactly like the tragic accident it was.

Detective Harrison leaned against the wall, his sharp eyes locking onto mine. "Except... it is common sense not to mix bleach and ammonia. Did your husband really not know that?"

He was probing. He was suspecting me. It made sense. Whenever a spouse nearly dies under weird circumstances, the partner is always suspect number one. Especially when the victim brings in the kind of money Zane did.

I sniffled loudly, wiping my nose with a tissue. "He is utterly clueless about real life. His brain only has room for video games. I am not even joking, Detective. Whenever he uses the bathroom, he leaves the toilet brush for me. He does not know how to clean a single thing in that house."

"So he is a giant toddler?" a younger cop muttered under his breath. People outside our world could never fathom this kind of dynamic.

Detective Harrison shot the rookie a glare before turning back to me. "He cannot even clean a toilet? Does he have a physical disability?"

"Of course not!" Jason chimed in, eager to defend his idol. "Zane is one of the top gaming streamers on the platform. The guy pulls in six figures a month. Why would a guy like that scrub his own toilet?"

Jason puffed out his chest. "You have no idea how jealous his fans are of Liv. If I could marry a guy with that kind of bank account, I would gladly wipe his ass for him!"

Zane had used those exact words on me. He used to tell me that if I did not want to do the chores, I could pack my bags. He had a line of girls wrapped around the block begging for the chance to scrub his floors.

Under the shocked gaze of the two cops, I offered a pathetic, embarrassed nod.

Zane had no outside vices. He did not drink or party. His entire existence consisted of sleeping and screaming at his monitors. Every dime he made went straight into a joint bank account with my name on it.

Unlike the toxic gamer bros online, Zane built his brand on being the ultimate romantic. He loved showing me off on stream. Whenever chat called me average or asked why he was with me, he would pull me into the frame and kiss my cheek.

He would tell thousands of people, "My wife is the most perfect woman on earth. I would be nothing without her."

He wasn't lying. He would literally be nothing without me.

We met back in college. I spent my evenings studying in a dingy local gaming lounge where he worked the front desk. We were both broke kids from the boondocks, which drew us together instantly. Zane was incredibly handsome. Girls threw themselves at him constantly, but they only wanted his looks and the thrill of a bad boy. They always vanished after a few weeks.

Then we got together. He told me I was the only girl who didn't care about money, and he promised to give me the world once he made it big.

During my junior year, I secretly recorded a clip of him landing an impossible sniper shot and uploaded it to social media. His ridiculous good looks combined with top tier mechanics made him go viral overnight.

Once he tasted that ad revenue, the obsession began. He streamed day and night. At first, the goal was sweet. He wanted to buy a house in the city and marry me. But slowly, buried under a daily avalanche of people calling him a gaming god, he completely lost his mind.

Right after graduation, he locked me away in his fortress.

He proposed, handed me his bank card, and told me he owed his life to me. He said he wanted me to live like royalty. He said I never had to work a miserable office job or take orders from a boss ever again. He wanted me to be his little princess.

He repeated this fairy tale on stream constantly. To his millions of followers, he was the wealthy, devoted, flawless husband. They thought I was the luckiest girl on the planet.

"But what about reality?" Detective Harrison asked, his voice cutting through my memories.

I froze, genuinely caught off guard by the question.

"Behind closed doors. Were you two really that in love?" Harrison pressed.

Behind closed doors?

Behind closed doors was a living nightmare. There was no princess. I was an unpaid slave.

I served him like a dog. When he ate, I had to sit on the floor beside his chair in case he dropped his napkin. If he woke up thirsty at 3 AM, I had to have ice water ready before he even asked. He constantly sent me screenshots of toxic forum posts about how miserable other men's wives were. He made his streamer friends complain on voice comms about their nagging girlfriends just so I could hear it.

He brainwashed me into believing that taking care of his every bodily need was a privilege. He devolved into a monstrous infant.

Sometimes, I would watch videos of exhausted women working two jobs just to feed their deadbeat husbands, and I would actually feel a sick sense of relief. I convinced myself I was lucky. Sure, Zane was lazy and demanding. But at least he wasn't cheating on me. At least he didn't hit me.

We existed in that suffocating bubble until the afternoon I accidentally overheard his Discord call with Jason.

Jason was hyping him up. "Bro, you have the cash, the fame, and you are insanely loyal. You are literally the perfect guy."

Zane snorted, a wet, ugly sound.

Jason kept pushing. "Man, with all the IG models sliding into your DMs, do you really not get tempted? What exactly does Liv have that makes you so obsessed?"

I heard the flick of Zane's expensive lighter. He took a long drag. "Because she is obedient. And she is stupid."

My blood turned to ice.

"What is the difference between Liv and those club girls? They all spread their legs the same way. Plus, who knows how many guys those models have been through. At least Liv is clean. Maybe those other chicks know a few more tricks, but whatever I want, Liv does it. Nurse, flight attendant, whatever messed up thing I ask for, she obeys."

Then came a dark, vulgar laugh that made my skin crawl.

My face burned with a fiery shame. I felt like I had been stripped naked and thrown onto a busy intersection for strangers to laugh at.

Zane kept talking.

"And get this. She is incredibly dumb. I put all my stream money into that account, and she thinks I love her to death. But the PIN code? She only knows the first three digits. I changed the backend password months ago. She has zero access. Besides, the stupid bitch never leaves the house anyway. It is not like she has anywhere to spend it."

I stood in the hallway, completely paralyzed. The grand romance I had sacrificed my youth for was nothing but a cheap, calculated cage.

But he was right about one thing. I never left the house.

He claimed his gaming lifestyle made him out of shape, and he was terrified that if I went out, I would find a better looking guy. He weaponized his own insecurities to trap me inside. To make him feel "secure," I was banned from buying nice clothes. I only wore the cheap, trashy lingerie he ordered online.

At the same time, he demanded I stay perfectly thin. He said my weight gain would make me depressed, and he just cared about my mental health. So he bought a treadmill and forced me to run every morning while he slept.

He said growing up poor made him paranoid about money, so he gave me a strict, humiliating weekly allowance for groceries and forced me to haggle over pennies at the market.

Standing in the police station, I wiped a single, genuine tear from my eye.

The only thing he ever calculated was how to break me.

When I heard that conversation, I felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to my ribs. I couldn't hear the rest of their chat over the deafening ringing in my ears.

That was the first day I ever rebelled.

At exactly three in the afternoon, the time I was supposed to serve his daily dessert, I was sitting on a dirty curb a mile away, just watching the cars go by. I realized I had spent years existing as a mindless drone. I had no thoughts of my own. My entire universe revolved around Zane's moods. If he smiled, I smiled. If he raged, I scrambled to fix it.

I felt like the tragic female lead in a bad novel who suddenly gains sentience.

For the very first time, I knew with absolute certainty that I could not live like this anymore.

That night, I declined every single call Zane made to my phone.

I went to a noisy sports bar, ate a massive plate of spicy wings, and went to a late night movie completely alone.

When I finally unlocked the front door, Zane was sitting in the dark on the living room sofa. The air in the room was heavy and toxic.

"Did you lose your phone or get kidnapped? Why the hell didn't you answer me?"

I glanced at him. The words I want to get a real job were right on the tip of my tongue.

Before I could speak, his hand cracked across my jaw. The force sent me stumbling backward.

"Are you deaf or just retarded?" he roared, his face twisting into something demonic. "I pay for your pathetic life! I keep a roof over your head! You cannot even do one simple task right. What is the point of you breathing?"

Pure instinct took over. I swung back and scratched his neck.

He did not expect me to fight back. His eyes widened in shock before pure rage took over. He kicked me square in the stomach, sending me crashing to the hardwood floor.

He knew he had a live sponsor stream the next day and needed me to bring him drinks on camera, so he expertly avoided my face. He aimed his boots at my ribs and thighs.

"You ungrateful bitch! You are nothing without me! I own you!"

He only stopped when the doorbell rang. It was the pizza delivery guy. Zane froze, staring at his own trembling hands. Then he collapsed to his knees, crawling toward me with tears streaming down his face.

"Liv... oh god, baby, I am so sorry. I do not know what came over me. I am a monster. Please forgive me." He started aggressively slapping his own face. "I am garbage. Hit me, Liv. Punish me. I am so sorry."

I lay on the floor, staring blankly at the man sobbing over my bruised body. I thought about a stray dog my dad took in when I was a kid.

The dog was sweet for years. Then one day, it snapped and bit my dad's hand down to the bone.

My dad didn't hesitate. He grabbed his shotgun and put the animal down right there in the yard.

I cried and asked him why he did it. My dad looked at me with cold, hard eyes. "Once a beast tastes blood, it will bite again. It is easier to just kill it and save yourself the trouble."

But Zane wasn't a dog.

If I shot him, I would spend the rest of my life in a concrete cell. That was a terrible trade.

I needed a flawless plan. Something that would strip away his power, silence him forever, but keep his heart beating just long enough for me to take everything.

I reached out, gently grabbing his wrists to stop him from hitting himself. I forced a wet sob out of my throat. "It is okay. I know you didn't mean it. Just promise you will never do it again."

The very next day, he bragged to Jason on Discord that I was completely broken in. He said I didn't even flinch anymore when he raised his hand.

Of course I didn't flinch. He was never going to get the chance to raise his hand at me again.