Introduction

The phone buzzed, a relentless vibration I tried to ignore, but Sarah' s furious face on the video call told me I couldn' t.

My artist husband, Ethan, had unveiled his new exhibition, "Raw Truths," a brutal public dissection of our dead marriage.

The centerpiece? A twenty-foot-tall projection of me sleeping, mouth open, drooling.

The internet exploded, half calling him a monster, half calling me a willing muse.

Then I scrolled to the next piece: a distorted loop of my voice, crying after a fight, packaged and sold as art. My phone buzzed again, Ethan' s name on the caller ID. Sarah, my lawyer, ordered me not to answer, but a primal urge to understand the "why" gripped me.

He told me he' d made art, groundbreaking art. I screamed that he was selling my tears, my private grief, for fame.

His response? This backlash was hurting his career. Then came the real dagger: he' d bring my devout grandmother into this, expose our secret marriage, destroy her if I didn' t release a public apology calling myself a willing collaborator.

My world shattered. How could he? How could he use my deepest fear against me?

Before I could even process his threat, my aunt called, sobbing.

Grandma had collapsed, she' d seen something on the news. It was too late. He had already destroyed the last innocent part of my life.

Lying in the hospital, my grandmother gone, I watched Ethan on TV, publicly mourning, accepting accolades.

He had taken everything.

My peace, my privacy, my family.

A cold, hard resolve settled in my chest.

If the world wanted a tragic muse, I' d give them a tragedy they' d never forget.

I would erase myself from his world completely.