Chapter 4

I stared at the wall, at the larger-than-life images of my own sleeping form. My mind raced, trying to place the moments. The pattern on the pillowcase was from our bed. The curve of my shoulder, the way my hair fell-it was me, vulnerable and completely unaware. He had turned my most private, unguarded moments into a public spectacle. The feeling of violation was absolute, a cold dread that seeped into my bones.

"Incredible, isn't he?" a voice slurred from the corner of the room. One of Liam's friends, a gallery owner named Marcus, was lounging on a leather couch with a glass of whiskey in his hand. "He captures such raw intimacy. She looks so... available."

Another man, a writer Liam often collaborated with, chuckled. "Liam always said she was a different person in bed. Looks like he was right. I'd pay good money for a print of that one." He gestured toward a photo where the sheet had slipped low on my back.

A hot, white-hot rage burned through me, eclipsing the shock. They were talking about me as if I were a piece of meat, an object in a frame. I was not a person to them; I was an extension of Liam, an artistic subject to be consumed and commented on.

"Take them down," I said, my voice shaking but firm. I walked toward the wall, my eyes locked on Liam, who had just emerged from the back room, a smug look on his face.

"Evelyn," he said, as if he were greeting me at a cocktail party. "I was wondering when you'd come around."

"Take. Them. Down. Now," I repeated, each word a shard of ice. "Or I will call the police and have you charged. This is an invasion of my privacy."

Liam laughed, a sound that was both arrogant and dismissive. "Don't be so dramatic, darling. It's art. It's a tribute to your beauty. I thought you'd be flattered." He gestured to the photos. "This is how I see you. Pure. Beautiful. Mine."

"I never consented to this," I hissed.

"You're my wife," he said, as if that explained everything. "Your consent is implied."

Marcus, the gallery owner, chimed in again. "Lighten up, Evelyn. It's not like he's the only one taking photos. We've all seen the pictures Alex Chen posts of you. The two of you look very... close in that one from the hospital gala."

A wave of confusion and anger washed over me. "What are you talking about?"

Liam's friend smirked. "Oh, come on. Everyone knows. The way he looks at you. The way you're always together. Liam's been putting up with it for years."

I turned to Liam, my mind reeling. This was his narrative, the one he' d been spinning. That I was the unfaithful one. That his affair was somehow justified.

"You've been telling them I'm cheating on you?" I asked, my voice dangerously low.

Liam didn' t answer. He just gave a small, sad shrug, as if he were the long-suffering husband. His friends started to look uncomfortable, shuffling their feet and avoiding my gaze. They had served their purpose. Liam gestured for them to leave, and they quickly made their exits, leaving us alone in the cavernous room, surrounded by images of my stolen intimacy.

"How could you?" I whispered, the fight draining out of me, replaced by a profound, hollow ache.

"How could I?" he shot back, his voice rising. "How could you, Evelyn? For years, I've watched you with him. The late nights at the hospital, the 'conferences,' the way you talk about him. 'Alex is so brilliant. Alex has so much potential.' Do you think I'm an idiot?"

"Alex is my resident! My protégé!" I shouted, the injustice of it all making me dizzy. "I'm his mentor! That's it!"

"So you say," Liam sneered. "But I've seen the way he looks at you. I'm a photographer, Evelyn. I see things. I saw it from the beginning. So yes, I found comfort elsewhere. Can you blame me? My own wife was emotionally cheating on me for years."

The logic was so twisted, so profoundly narcissistic, that I couldn't even process it. He had invented an entire narrative of my infidelity to excuse his own. He hadn't just cheated; he had built a fortress of lies around his betrayal, brick by painful brick, and he expected me to live inside it with him.

I looked from his self-righteous face to the images on the wall. The woman in the photos looked so peaceful, so safe. She had no idea that the man on the other side of the lens was not her protector, but her captor, cataloging her vulnerabilities for his own use.

In that moment, something inside me shifted. The anger, the pain, the heartbreak-it all receded, replaced by a vast, cold emptiness. I wasn't looking at my husband anymore. I was looking at a monster. And you can't reason with a monster. You can only escape it.

"You're insane," I said, my voice devoid of all emotion. And then I turned and walked away, leaving him alone with his art.