Birth Night Betrayal

At two in the morning, my water broke, and I was staring blankly at Ethan's latest Snapchat message.

Vanessa's bathroom pipe burst, and her kid was so scared he got a fever. I'm going to help out. Won't be back tonight.

Immediately after, an Instagram notification popped up, a red dot. From Vanessa.

The photo showed a man's hand holding a wrench, fixing a pipe, sleeves rolled up, revealing a long, firm forearm. The watch I'd scrimped and saved to buy him gleamed under the light, a painful stab in my eyes.

The caption: "So grateful to have you in this city. Leo's fever is down, and that back-view fixing the pipe? Hottest ever."

The baby in my belly seemed to sense my emotions and kicked me hard.

Sharp pain, accompanied by warm liquid, instantly gushed out, soaking the bedsheet.

I panicked, my hands shaking violently as I dialed Ethan's number.

The first call, hung up.

The second call, still hung up.

I wouldn't give up, desperately dialing a third time.

Finally, it connected.

What came through the earpiece wasn't an anxious inquiry, but a low growl, brimming with anger.

"Chloe, are you done yet? Didn't I tell you? Vanessa is a single mom, it's not easy for her and her kid. Her house is flooded in the middle of the night. If I don't go help, should I just watch them drown?"

The heavy ache in my abdomen made it almost impossible to breathe. I pleaded with him, my voice cracking. "Ethan, my water broke... I'm in so much pain. Where are you? Can you come back and take me to the hospital..."

The other end of the line was silent for a second.

Then Vanessa's panicked voice came through: "Ethan, Leo just threw up again! Is he having a seizure? Please come quickly!"

Ethan's slight hesitation vanished instantly.

His tone became extremely impatient. "Are you jealous because of my Instagram post? Chloe, when did you become so manipulative? To trick me into coming back, you'd even lie about your water breaking? Your due date is still three days away. Stay home by yourself. Don't be unreasonable."

"Beep"

The call was ruthlessly cut off.

When I tried to call again, his phone was off.

Outside, thunder boomed. Lightning tore through the night sky, illuminating my ghastly pale face.

Despair washed over me like a tide.

This old apartment building had no elevator. Ethan, in his eagerness to provide "on-call support" for Vanessa and her kid, had bought our marital home in a run-down building just two streets away from her place.

Now those six flights of stairs became my gate to hell.

I bit my lip until it bled, grabbed my hospital bag, and leaning against the wall, started to inch my way out, step by agonizing step.

With each step, my lower body felt like it was tearing apart.

Sweat mingled with tears, flowing into my mouth, bitter and salty.

When I finally made it downstairs, the rain was pouring down.

Soaked to the bone, I stood in the heavy rain for a full twenty minutes before finally flagging down a taxi willing to stop.

The driver looked at me, his face turning pale with fright, and he ran two red lights to get me to the nearest hospital.

Inside the emergency room, a nurse pushed a wheelchair toward me, shouting, "Family? Where's the patient's family? We need to get her checked in!"

People came and went in the hall, but I lay alone on the gurney, feeling like trash abandoned by the world.

Trembling, I pulled a card from my soaked bag, handed it to the nurse, and forced a smile uglier than a cry. "No family... I'll sign for myself."

The labor process felt like a trip through hell.

Due to excessive amniotic fluid loss and extreme emotional fluctuations, my cervix dilated agonizingly slowly.

The delivery room was filled with heartbreaking screams. The woman on the next bed cursed her husband in pain, and he was wiping sweat, forcing a smile, holding a Red Bull, ready to serve her.

Only I lay there, all alone.

The midwife looked at me with a hint of pity and asked softly, "Do you want to try contacting the baby's father again? In situations like this, having family present helps a lot."

I stared at the glaring fluorescent light on the ceiling and shook my head.

He wouldn't answer.

Just before I entered the delivery room, I'd seen Vanessa's second Instagram update.

"Leo finally fell asleep. Thank you, best godfather, for staying up all night. With you, we always have someone to lean on."

In the photo, Ethan was asleep by the bedside, his hand tightly holding the boy named Leo.

Heartwarming, touching, a picture of fatherly love.

And my child was fighting for her life.

In that moment, the last shred of my love for Ethan, along with the pain in my body, shattered into dust.

"Push! I see the head!" the doctor shouted sharply.

I bit down hard on the towel in my mouth, turning all my hatred into strength.

Ten hours.

After ten grueling hours of torment, with a loud cry, my daughter was born.

The nurse held the wrinkled baby for me to see. "It's a beautiful little princess, six pounds, four ounces."

I weakly glanced at her, tears silently streaming down my face.

Back in the hospital room, the anesthetic wore off, and the wound burned.

My phone vibrated.

It was a message from Ethan: "Are you awake? I just woke up. Leo was a handful last night. You said your stomach hurt yesterday? Try to relax, don't always overreact. I'll bring you breakfast later."

Every line was pure perfunctory nonsense.

He didn't even consider that my desperate call for help last night was real.

I didn't reply, tossing my phone aside.

It wasn't until noon that the hospital room door was suddenly pushed open.

Ethan rushed in, looking disheveled, carrying a bag of cold sandwiches. When he saw me in a hospital gown, lying in bed, with a baby sleeping in the bassinet beside me, he froze.

His expression went from impatience to shock, then to panic.

"Chloe... you, you really gave birth?"

He rushed to the bedside, trying to take my hand, but I coldly pulled away.

"Don't touch me." My voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping a table.

A flicker of embarrassment crossed Ethan's face, quickly replaced by angry self-justification. "Why didn't you call me? Giving birth is such a big deal, and you just came to the hospital by yourself without a word? Do you know how worried I was?"

I laughed, a bitter sound that pulled at my wound, making me gasp in pain.

"Ethan, did a dog eat your memory? At two in the morning, I called you and told you my water broke. You told me to stop acting, and you hung up on me."

Ethan froze, seemingly recalling last night's events.

A moment later, his eyes darted away, and his tone softened. "I thought... I thought you were just jealous of Vanessa, deliberately trying to trick me. You know, after hearing the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf too many times, who would've thought this time it was real..."

"So in your mind, I'm someone who would joke about our child's life just to create drama?" I looked at him calmly, my eyes hollow.

Ethan looked a little guilty, placing the sandwiches on the table. "All right, I was wrong, I apologize, okay? Vanessa's situation was an emergency too, she's a woman..."

"Is she more important, or is our unborn child more important?"

Ethan frowned, lowering his voice. "Chloe, can you stop being so aggressive? The baby was born safely, wasn't she? Vanessa's kid was sick, it was an emergency! We're all friends. What's wrong with helping each other? Can't you be a little more open-minded?"

Friends. Helping each other.

I looked at his self-righteous face, and suddenly the man I'd shared a bed with for three years seemed terrifyingly unfamiliar.

Just then, his phone rang.

A custom ringtoneit was Vanessa.

Ethan instinctively glanced at me, then took his phone into the hallway to answer.

Through the glass panel of the door, I saw his expression soften, even showing a hint of tenderness, as he nodded repeatedly into the phone.

Five minutes later, he pushed the door open, looking troubled.

"Chloe, um... Vanessa said she left in a hurry and forgot her keys, and Leo needs a follow-up checkup at the hospital. I need to take her a spare set of keys. Anyway, you're at the hospital with nurses taking care of you, and your parents will be here this afternoon. I'll be back soon."

With that, he turned and left without waiting for my reply.

From beginning to end, he didn't even glance down at his newborn daughter sleeping in the bassinet.

Ethan was gone for three days.

During those three days, my parents rushed over from back home.

Seeing my pale face and the empty bedside, my mother's eyes instantly welled up, and she turned away to wipe her tears. My father was so angry he smoked an entire pack of cigarettes in the hallway; if I hadn't stopped him, he would've gone straight to confront Ethan.

Ethan's Snapchat messages, however, never stopped.

One moment it was, "Vanessa's car broke down, I'm helping her fix it," the next it was, "Leo needs an IV at the hospital, Vanessa can't handle it alone."

Every excuse was righteous, and every one felt like a knife twisting in my heart.

My daughter hadn't been given a formal name yet, so looking at her sleeping face, I gave her the nickname Annie.

I only wished for her to live a life of peace and safety, unlike her mother, who had been so blind.

On the day of discharge, Ethan finally appeared.

He drove up, but Vanessa and Leo were in the passenger seat.

The car stopped downstairs from the inpatient ward. Ethan rolled down the window and waved to me. "Chloe, over here! Vanessa needs to bring Leo for a follow-up too, so I just gave them a ride home since it was on the way, saves her a taxi."

My mother was shaking with anger, pointing at Ethan and about to unleash a torrent of curses.

I stopped her, and with a blank expression, I held Annie and opened the back door.

"Mom, Dad, get in."

The atmosphere in the car was incredibly strange.

Vanessa turned around, a perpetually soft and harmless smile on her face, but her eyes held blatant provocation.

"Chloe, I'm so sorry to trouble Ethan again. Leo insisted on riding in Ethan's car, saying his godfather's car is the safest. Chloe, you're so generous, I'm sure you don't mind, right?"

I looked at her coldly. "I do mind."

Vanessa's smile froze.

Ethan frowned at me in the rearview mirror. "Chloe, what kind of talk is that? Don't be so harsh in front of your parents."

"Harsh?" I let out a soft laugh, pulling at my still-healing wound. "Ethan, I just got discharged, my wound hasn't fully healed, and you make me and our newborn sit in the back, while another woman and her child sit in the passenger seat. Who's being harsh?"

Ethan choked, speechless. Before he could say anything, Leo suddenly shrieked, "Godfather! This bad woman is bullying Mommy! I want her to get out!"

With that, he picked up his Transformers toy and violently threw it at me.

The hard, sharp edges of the toy grazed my forehead, a sharp pain, instantly swelling red.

Annie was startled and cried loudly.

"Leo!" Vanessa feigned a scolding, but her eyes were full of amusement.

Ethan wasn't angry; instead, he reached out to pat the brat's head. "Good boy, Leo, don't fuss. I'll take you to KFC."

My mother finally couldn't take it anymore and slapped the back of the driver's seat. "Ethan! Are you even a human being?! Your own daughter is crying her eyes out, your wife just got hit, and you're still planning to take this brat for KFC?"

"Mom" Ethan stopped, then corrected himself. "Susan, why are you talking so nastily?" He slammed on the brakes, his face ashen. "Leo is just a kid. What does he understand?"

"If a child doesn't understand, do adults not understand either?" my father, Thomas, roared.

The car descended into chaos.

I took a deep breath and pushed open the car door.

"Mom, Dad, let's get out. We'll take a taxi."

Ethan panicked. "Chloe, what are you trying to do now? Your parents are here. Do you want people to laugh at us?"

I ignored him, got out of the car with Annie in my arms, hailed a taxi, and left without looking back.

Behind me, I vaguely heard Vanessa's insincere pleas and Ethan's frantic honking.

On the way home, watching the scenery flash by outside the window, I made a decision.

This marriage was rotten to the core.

Like a festering wound, it had to be cut out for me to survive.