When I felt our baby kick for the very first time, I was so thrilled I recorded a five-second video and sent it to my husband, Ethan. But by sheer, cruel luck, the video was seen by his childhood best friend, Chloe—a woman suffering from a severe phobia of pregnancy. That very night, overwhelmed by a panic attack triggered by my video, she attempted suicide by slitting her wrists. In a blind rage, Ethan marched into my mother’s hospital room and yanked her oxygen mask off for exactly five seconds. “I warned you over and over again! Why the hell did you send me that video?!” “You love recording the baby kicking so much, huh?” “Fine. Let’s see how much you love it now!” For five agonizing seconds, my mother’s face turned deathly pale. The monitor flatlined into a horrific, steady scream. Tears streaming down my face, I dropped to my knees, begging him, promising over and over that I would never send another video. Ethan rejected me with ice in his eyes. He forced me to wear a 24-hour fetal movement monitor strapped to my chest. “From now on, for every second your baby moves, I will have someone pull your mother’s oxygen mask off for the exact same amount of time.” “This continues until Chloe wakes up from her coma!” For an entire month, I walked on eggshells, desperately trying to control my own body. But you cannot stop a baby from moving. After watching my mother’s oxygen ripped away for the sixth time, my tears completely dried up. I didn’t try to stop Ethan anymore. I simply took out my phone and booked an appointment for an abortion. If he wanted the kicking to stop permanently… getting rid of the baby was the only way, wasn’t it? BEEP… BEEEEEEP…! In the ICU room, my mother’s oxygen mask was removed for the sixth time. This time, it lasted exactly seventeen seconds. Watching the jagged peaks on the heart monitor slowly flatten out into a straight line, my mind was consumed by pure, suffocating terror. “Enough!” “Ethan, time is up!” “The baby only moved for seventeen seconds last night!” Tears blurring my vision, I scrambled forward desperately to put the oxygen mask back on my mother’s face. But Ethan’s expression was as cold as a glacier. “Twenty-five seconds!” “Mia, you secretly took the monitor off for eight seconds last night.” Spitting the words out like venom, Ethan began tapping his finger against his luxury watch. Tick. Tick. Tick. Until, an agonizing eight seconds later. He finally signaled his guards to let me go. “Mia, I don’t ever want to see you sneaking that monitor off again.” “This is your absolute final warning.” My ears were ringing violently. With trembling fingers, I strapped the oxygen mask back onto my mother’s face. My eyes were glued to the heart monitor. One second… Five seconds… The heart rhythm slowly, painfully, returned to normal. My entire body went limp. I carefully leaned against the wall just to keep myself from collapsing. Over the past month, I had tried a million different, agonizing ways to force my baby to stay still. But it still happened six times. And my mother’s oxygen mask had been ripped off six times. Every single time the mask was finally put back on, I was terrified I had lost her forever. My heart had been shredded and glued back together over and over again. I was physically and spiritually broken. This time, it was twenty-five seconds. What about next time? With a deafening buzz in my head, I opened my phone to a forum post I had made earlier. [How can I stop my baby from moving in the womb?] Below it, a random user had left a mocking comment: [You want to be pregnant but you don’t want the baby to move?] [Then why the hell are you having a kid?] [Just get an abortion, then it’ll never move again!] Yeah. If I just got an abortion, the kicking would stop forever, wouldn’t it? My hand gently rested on my swollen belly. In a daze, I remembered the day Ethan found out I was pregnant. He had hugged my stomach so tightly, his eyes shining with tears and absolute joy as he asked me over and over again. “Mia, I’m going to be a dad?” “I’m really going to be a dad?!” That day, he bought a mountain of parenting books and subscribed to dozens of pregnancy health blogs. He even created a group chat just for us called: [Mia’s Pregnancy Journey]. In his phone, cluttered with endless corporate chats and executive emails, that group was always pinned to the very top. Every single time I sent a message about the baby. He would reply instantly. Chapter 2 Time and time again, his love had slowly erased the terrifying anxiety I felt about pregnancy. Until his childhood best friend, Chloe, returned to the States. The moment she saw my slightly swollen belly, she started trembling violently, convulsing in a full-blown panic attack. Without a second thought, Ethan ripped off his suit jacket and threw it directly over my stomach. “Cover it up!” That “cover-up” lasted for three agonizing months. Whenever Chloe was around, I was forced to hide in corners where she couldn’t see me. I questioned him. I screamed at him. The only response I ever got was the same cold, dismissive sentence from Ethan. “She suffers from severe tokophobia (fear of pregnancy). Why are you being so petty and fighting with her?” “Her condition is a lifelong illness. You’re only pregnant for a few months.” The words I wanted to scream back were forced down my throat. The pain and the suffocating injustice wrapped around me like a spiderweb, tightening day by day. “Mia. Did you hear a word I just said?” Ethan’s freezing voice snapped me back to reality. I took out my phone and confirmed the abortion appointment. “Ethan, the baby will never kick again.” “What did you just say?” I put my phone down and looked up. Ethan was staring at me, his brow furrowed in annoyance. “If you’re done throwing a tantrum, go home.” “I have to stay and help the doctors with Chloe’s therapy.” He spat the words out like ice and turned on his heel, striding away without looking back. I moved my feet slowly, dragging myself down the long, sterile hospital corridor to the OB/GYN ward. Two hours later, the surgery was over. I was resistant to the anesthesia, so I was fully conscious as the nurse wheeled me into the recovery room. “Ms. Vance, if the pain gets to be too much, please take these painkillers immediately.” “Otherwise, your body might go into shock from the pain.” The nurse handed me a small paper cup of warm water and left. Enduring the horrific, tearing agony in my abdomen, I forced my mouth open and swallowed the pills. Before the pain even began to subside, my phone buzzed violently. [Hey Mia, want to see exactly how Ethan is ‘helping’ Chloe with her therapy?] A random, anonymous text. I frowned, just about to lock my screen. Suddenly, one of Ethan’s frat brothers flooded my phone with dozens of photos and videos. Blindingly explicit, half-naked photos assaulted my eyes. My entire body turned to stone. [Mia, Ethan’s ‘therapy’ is just one step away from finishing the job!] [The doctors said this is the fastest way to wake Chloe up from her coma.] [Don’t go blaming Ethan for this. After all, you brought this on yourself!] My mind went completely blank. It felt like a rusty saw was violently hacking at the raw flesh inside my stomach. Trembling fingers clutching the phone, tears burning my eyes, I stared at the endless stream of photos and videos. I always knew Ethan was assisting the doctors with Chloe’s therapy. But I never imagined it would be this utterly repulsive. My finger stopped on one specific photo. Ethan was leaning down, gently and intimately kissing Chloe’s neck. My vision went black. When it finally cleared… [Mia’s Pregnancy Journey] Those words flashed through my mind. That group chat had remained pinned to the very top of my messages app. But Ethan had unpinned it months ago. The group he had created with so much joy had long since been buried under an avalanche of his work chats. His new pinned chat was [Chloe’s Recovery Team]. I pulled up the camera app and snapped a photo of my abortion discharge papers. I sent it directly into our pregnancy group chat. Exactly as I expected, it sank like a stone in the ocean. No reply. I unpinned the chat, stood up, and walked out of the recovery room. When I got back to our house, Ethan wasn’t there. I lay down in our bedroom and fell into the deepest, most peaceful sleep I had had in months. I didn’t have to worry about the baby kicking anymore. I didn’t have to worry about accidentally bumping the heart monitor. It wasn’t until the next afternoon that Ethan finally came home, trailing two massive bodyguards behind him. His expression was as cold and detached as ever. “Mia. It’s time to check yesterday’s fetal movement logs.” He didn’t waste a single breath on small talk. He just gestured for the private doctor to step forward. Chapter 3 The fetal movement monitor was unstrapped from my chest, and the doctor plugged it into a tablet to extract the data. I stared at Ethan’s icy face and opened my mouth. “Ethan, what exactly is this ‘therapy’ you’re doing for Chloe?” “What kind of medical treatment requires you to perform it on her alone, behind closed doors?” My voice was dry and raspy. I waited quietly for his answer. Ethan frowned, just opening his mouth to speak. Suddenly, the doctor gasped in shock. “Mr. Sterling! Your wife’s log shows… nine fetal movements yesterday?!” Nine times? I froze. The baby was aborted first thing yesterday morning. How could there be any movement? “The data has to be wrong…” I blurted out anxiously. But before I could finish, Ethan’s brow furrowed tightly. “Mia, you did this to yourself, now you take the punishment!” “We agreed: however many times the baby kicked, that’s how many times we pull your mother’s oxygen.” “Nine times. A total of two minutes and twenty-three seconds.” “Do you want it pulled all at once, or broken up into sessions?” He was as cold and indifferent as a block of ice. I stared at him in utter disbelief. His phone suddenly rang. “Ethan! Chloe’s condition just crashed! You need to get to the hospital right now!” The panicked voice on the other end echoed through the room. Ethan’s face darkened instantly, his voice laced with fury as he barked an order at his guards. “Supervise my wife. Make sure the punishment is carried out in full. Record a video and send it to me!” Spitting out every word, he turned on his heel and stormed out of the house. The shock hadn’t even faded from my eyes. I scrambled forward, grabbing his sleeve desperately. “Ethan, our baby is already a—” “Mia, stop making excuses!” “You are absolutely disgusting to me right now!” The words died in my throat, cut off by the intense, overwhelming loathing and disappointment in Ethan’s eyes. My brain buzzed violently for several seconds. My fingers twitched uncontrollably. It felt like my nose and mouth were drowning in the freezing depths of the ocean. I literally couldn’t breathe. Outside the mansion, the roar of his sports car tearing out of the driveway echoed through the walls. My legs completely gave out, and I collapsed onto the hardwood floor. “Ma’am. It’s time to go to the hospital.” The bodyguard’s robotic voice sounded above me. They hauled me up by my arms and dragged me to the car. Standing in that ICU room once again, my eyes were dead and hollow. The person lying in that bed was supposed to be me. In the critical millisecond of the car crash, my mother used every ounce of her strength to shield my body with hers. Covered in blood, her final words before slipping into a coma were: “Thank god my Mia is okay…” Ethan used to hold me while I cried, swearing on his life, over and over, that he would spare no expense to save her. And now… it hadn’t even been a year… Tears fell silently, pooling on the linoleum floor. With trembling fingers, I pulled out my phone and texted Ethan. [I’m begging you, please don’t pull my mom’s oxygen mask again.] [Ethan, it’s all my fault. I never should have sent you that video of the baby kicking.] [Punish me however you want, do whatever you want to me…] [I’m begging you. My mom is all I have left…] I sent dozens of texts. Every single one vanished into the void. I stared at the screen over and over again. No reply from Ethan. “Ma’am, we are initiating the protocol.” The bodyguard hit ‘record’ on his phone, reached out, and ripped the oxygen mask off my mother’s face. I threw myself forward with everything I had to stop him. But I was brutally pinned to the floor by the other guard. Once. Twice. … Seven times. My mother’s oxygen mask was violently removed seven times. Each duration longer than the last. My tears had completely dried up. My throat was raw and bleeding from screaming. Two minutes and twenty-three seconds. It was finally over. The bodyguard let me go. I scrambled desperately to my mother’s side and strapped the oxygen mask back on. My eyes were glued to the EKG monitor. One second. Three seconds. Ten seconds. The green line on the monitor remained completely, horrifyingly flat. Chapter 4 “Doctor!” “Please save my mom!” “I’m begging you, please save my mom…” The heavy, metallic taste of blood filled my mouth as I grabbed the doctor’s coat, begging in sheer terror. The defibrillator shocked my mother’s chest again. And again. And again. The line on the monitor remained a flat, unwavering green. “Ma’am. We did everything we could…” “I am so sorry for your loss.” The doctor’s words buzzed in my ears like a swarm of hornets. I stared blankly at my mother’s lifeless face. My brain completely refused to process reality. Right at that moment, brilliant, deafening fireworks exploded outside the hospital window. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The sky lit up with dazzling colors. I looked up and saw massive, glowing letters spelling out a message in the night sky. [CELEBRATING CHLOE WAKING UP!] Chloe was awake? My paralyzed brain slowly began to turn. I pulled out my phone. Five minutes ago, Chloe had posted an update on her Instagram. [In a coma for a month. So incredibly blessed to have had someone by my side the entire time!] In the photo, Ethan was kneeling on one knee, his head bowed, gently putting a pair of socks on her feet. The absolute tenderness in his eyes was so foreign to me it made my head spin. So, his gentleness was still there. It was just reserved for Chloe. So, Chloe had woken up a long time ago. He just intentionally ignored my desperate texts begging for my mother’s life. The final string holding my sanity together snapped violently. I put my phone in my pocket and walked, step by slow step, down the hallway to Chloe’s VIP suite. “Ethan, thank you so much for this past month.” “I heard everything… I heard that to help wake me up, you performed that special ‘therapy’…” Chloe’s voice drifted through the door, sounding shy and demure. My hand, resting on the doorknob, froze. “Don’t worry, I’m not saying this because I expect you to take responsibility for me.” “I’m just afraid that my being here will cause misunderstandings between you and Mia.” “Now that I’m awake, I’m planning to move back to the States…” Before Chloe could finish her tearful, disappointed speech. Ethan’s voice abruptly cut her off. “Why do you have to leave?” “Mia’s baby is due in five months.” “After she has this baby, I’m getting a vasectomy.” Through the crack in the door, I heard Ethan making that promise, pronouncing every single syllable clearly. The man who had once promised me we would have a boy and a girl. To appease Chloe, he was going to get a vasectomy. A hollow, mocking smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. I shoved the door wide open. “Ethan, you don’t need a vasectomy.” “Because our baby is already a—” Before I could finish my sentence. Ethan shot up from his chair, snatched a pile of dirty clothes off the nearby armchair, and hurled them directly at my stomach. “Mia!” “Are you trying to make Chloe pass out again by flaunting your pregnant belly?!” “Cover it up right now!” My body went completely rigid. I stopped walking for a few seconds. Then, stepping directly onto the dirty clothes he threw at me, I walked closer, step by step. “Mia!” “I said, cover your damn stomach right now!” “This is your final warning!” Standing protectively in front of Chloe, Ethan’s face was terrifyingly cold. Seeing that I didn’t stop, his brow furrowed heavily. His eyes were filled with exhaustion and profound disappointment. “Mia, stop throwing these irrational tantrums.” “Chloe and I have always been completely platonic.” “The bond we share isn’t the filthy, romantic garbage you have in your head!” Spitting the words out like ice, Ethan pulled out his phone, ready to call his security guards. I spoke, my voice raw and raspy. “Ethan. Let’s get a divorce.” “Divorce?!” “Mia, say that one more time!” His jaw clenched so hard a muscle feathered in his cheek. Ethan stood completely stunned. His eyes were wide with utter disbelief. “You’re the one who completely crossed the line, and you’re demanding a divorce from ME?!” The words were practically roared out of his lungs. Furious and agitated, Ethan took a massive stride toward me.
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