Rose Tinted

Sebastian loves me.

He loves me in a way that dims the rest of the world from his gaze, he says. He paints beautiful paintings of the trees and the sky and the sea, but they don’t hold a candle to the beauty he sees in me, he says. Where the flowers in the garden stop growing and the path to our home starts winding, he sits me down after I cry and kisses my face better until nature repairs itself. He tells me sorry, and cries floods of regret from his bloodshot eyes because he loves me more than life itself, he says.

Each time, I go to park alone for a while because I can never really stop crying. I blend right in with the fruit trees, my face shades of plum and rose and berry, but nature heals nature, and the flowers bring me peace. Children stare at me, fascinated by my mosaic cheeks, but they are too young to understand that with a love as great as ours must ultimately come pain. And every time I return home, I am met with apologies and heartbreak and a room full of paintings depicting the stars and the sun and the moon as his gift to me. He couldn’t be more sorry if he tried, he says. He sobs into my chest and loves me to the moon and back, he says. And I forgive him, because what is there to life without love?

This Monday is not like any other Monday. There’s something strange in the air that I’ve felt before, looming around us- the calm before the storm. As expected, the lightning strikes that evening. Our home turns into four walls when he leaves in a blinding rage at night, stomping on the flowers I have worked tirelessly all month to grow and nurture since the last bloodshed. The door slams, and I am afraid, but picking up the pieces now comes as naturally to me as the tide- the roses and chrysanthemums and lilies go in the compost, as they always do, and the broken shards of glass from the window go in the trash, as they always do. Tonight will be spent brainstorming the next excuse for the chaos when the glazier inevitably asks in the morning. But I mustn’t worry about that now. My face is plum-coloured and rosy liquids are dripping from my nose like nectar. I look so similar to the beautiful bright flowers he describes me as looking like, yet for some reason he doesn’t like it on me this way, despite him being the painter. I go to sleep with pools clouding my vision and stars burning into my eyes. My heart pumps with life, and I am so grateful, but so petrified for his reappearance. 

He returns home bearing gifts from far and wide- a bouquet from the most magical meadow to replace the flowers he destroyed, and glimmering pearls from the bottom of the ocean. The pearls make me look like a princess, his princess, he says. And he is so remarkably sorry for not making me feel like one, he says. His hugs and kisses feel like fresh air after last night’s fire and I am a fruit of his violence no more. I am as delicate as the first dandelions of the springtime, and as beautiful as them too, he says. He wipes away the dried rose petals crusted around my nose, and strokes my bent leaves back into place.

He is the seasons of the year and I am the trees that fall victim to the winter. But when summer naturally rolls around again, he allows me to bloom in the most unimaginably beautiful way.

Sebastian does not love her.

He does not love her in a way that would wilt the leaves of her soul if she were ever to realise. He paints beautiful paintings of the trees and the sky and the sea to distract her from the carnage in their own home. Her face is as gorgeous as nature, he lies. The thick, dark blood and swollen bruises of his violence are far from gorgeous- nature does not take well to destruction. How well can a flower really thrive if its petals are snapped off?

She visits the park to get away from him- just one hour of peace before she returns to the war. Children stare at her because they understand better than her that a love so great must never end in pain. She meticulously cleans up the hurricane in their dilapidated home. She cuts her tender, nimble fingers on the jagged shards of broken glass, her mind frantically brainstorming excuses for the rubble that don’t incriminate her husband. Her nose gushes with hot blood, not nectar, delivering a metallic taste to her mouth that makes her vomit violently in the kitchen sink. She looks so far from the dandelions he describes her as, and she goes to sleep with dark splotches across her face that do not resemble the shade of a plum, no matter how hard she tries to convince herself that they do.

He returns to the wreckage with bribes to silence her back into submission, and mendacious stories promising a change. New flowers that he can tear up the second his fury reawakens, and pearls to choke her out of resistance. He is so sorry for his actions and they will never happen again, he lies. They are tearing him apart with guilt, he lies. She is the most elegant, exquisite woman he has ever seen, and whom he loves so dearly, he lies.

His next eruption comes so soon after the previous. He lies dormant for a mere two days before hot, bubbling lava sprays out of him, leaving a cloud of ash in their home, suffocating her. It is so hard to breathe, yet he leaves her writhing on the floor, gasping for air, unable to let out a scream. Her pearls are choking her, and he doesn’t care. Sebastian does not love her.