At eighteen, I was desperate to get into the renowned K University's amphitheater classrooms.

By thirty, I found myself and my boyfriend of ten years in a tiny, barely ten-square-meter rental, sitting through my confinement after childbirth.

In the same budget private hospital, I lost two children due to poor-quality condoms!

——

Another sunny day, I sat across from the familiar doctor, belly still not showing.

"This is your third baby. Young lady, your uterine wall is very thin. It will only get harder and harder to get pregnant in the future!"

The nearly fifty-year-old doctor adjusted his glasses, looking at my report with a well-intentioned, bitter earnestness.

I turned to glance at the small BMW Mini parked below the hospital, hardened my heart, and nodded vigorously.

I went on the operating table alone and lay in the ward alone.

"The child has already been aborted!"

I sent a brief message to Jack Smith, then coldly blocked all his contacts.

From that point on, I knew that my ten-year long romantic run with Jack had finally ended.

The BMW was an engagement gift from David Wilson, who hated to see me squeeze onto the bus every day. With a playful laugh, after several polite refusals, I happily accepted.

David was my fiancé, average-looking, about 5.7 feet tall, just about my height.

Honestly, both in looks and demeanor, he was leagues behind my ex-boyfriend, Jack.

However, counting David's local status in K City, his well-off parents both university professors, and his modest success from entrepreneurship, Jack could never catch up to David in this lifetime!

I was never a gold digger. When I was young and beautiful, I chose to believe in love.

I had been pregnant three times for Jack, and I had three abortions. For a decade of love, no matter how naive we were in our youth, I felt I had paid enough!

Memories surged, piercing my heart like a thorn, impossible to pull out or swallow.

Jack was my boyfriend of ten years, four years in college, three years in grad school, three years post-graduation.

I spent the best years of a girl's life with Jack.

During these ten years, I wore the most expensive clothes from e-shop that would not exceed two hundred dollars, and always dared only to eat the fifty-cent pudding sticks.

Living like this day after day for ten years, the biggest skill I learned was how to save money.

Bread sold at half-price after six in the evening at the supermarket, a store at the end of the market that sold damaged cosmetics at just 20% of the price—these trivial details were carved into every corner of my brain over ten years.

But back then, I was just in my early twenties, who would care about all that?

''As long as Jack treats me well, that's enough.''

I often used this phrase to interrupt my mother's nagging on the phone.

Yes, I was content as long as Jack treated me well.

How well? At one in the morning, Jack would cross several streets to buy my favorite mung bean rice balls. No matter how tired, whenever I threw a tantrum, Jack would soothe me for hours despite his dark circles.

I was always a princess in front of Jack, all the favoritism I never got as a child, he gave to me.

Wasn't that enough? Wasn't such love worth more than the bread of life?

It wasn't worth it!

Back then, I didn't realize how powerful the daily grind of life could be!

And this so-called ''being good to me'' could be so miserably small.

Love is so fragile. How can it withstand trials?

Jack and I both came from rural areas in other provinces. He had a younger brother, and I also had a younger brother. We both had parents who favored sons over daughters, the difference being, he was the eldest son, enjoying the rare care from his family, while I was a girl, destined to marry and never receiving any special affection at any stage of growth.

As a child, I could only play with toys my brother didn't want, and only ate the snacks he couldn't finish. So, I knew from a young age the importance of studying hard, never daring to miss any chance to change my fate.

Jack and I were the same. We both squeezed through the millions of candidates in the college entrance exam, struggling into a prestigious university in K City, as they say now, we were typical "poor kids."

In our backward rural hometown, we were seen as the most promising children in the neighborhood.

However, it seemed this did not change our fate much!

In K City, a place where every inch of land is worth its weight in gold, even with the title of graduate students from a prestigious university, Jack and I could only afford to live in this tiny old room.

How small was our rental?

The house was less than ten square meters, with a shared bathroom and kitchen.

When I first moved in, I went to take a shower and saw through the glass door a man in his forties from next door, his greasy, corpulent body blocking the door, which scared me from ever using that bathroom again.

Our rental was near the city center of K City, close to where Jack and I worked. The rent was expensive, but the room was pitifully small. Apart from a bed, a desk, and two pots, nothing else fit.

Whenever Jack and I were intimate, we had to be extremely careful with our movements. Any slight indulgence would either result in complaints from the neighbors or the sound of those two pots falling off the desk next to the bed.

Such days naturally bred some resentment.

Actually, both Jack's and my jobs weren't bad, our combined salary definitely reached nearly thirty thousand a month.

We scrimped and saved, penny by penny, all to have a home of our own in K City.

''Baby, let's have a child!''

On an ordinary night under dim light, Jack lay beside me, turned towards me, and whispered into my ear.

''What are you thinking? I've already lost two children!''

Remembering what the doctor said last time, I sat up annoyed, shaking off Jack's hand and turning away with a frown.

Jack stayed silent, the air still filled with the scent of hormones.

''My mom has already pushed us to get married and she really wants to have a grandchild. You have already had two abortions, otherwise, you give birth to this child this time!''

Jack moved behind me, his flushed face as if he was proposing, his tone pleasing, even cautiously probing.

And all of this, I couldn't feel a shred of romance.

I looked around the shabby rental, the anger choking up to my throat was suppressed by another inexplicable sadness.

I sighed deeply, feeling heavier than if a thousand kilos were pressing on my chest.

"How can I give birth to a child? Can you afford it?"

I turned away from Jack, silently for a long time, calmly yet helplessly stating the facts, without a trace of blame, yet enough to give us a cold war all night.

He couldn't afford it, yet I was pregnant again!

During lunch break, while colleagues went out to eat, I hid in the last stall of the office bathroom, carefully placing the test strip in the urine cup.

Watching the urine soak the test strip and slowly climb up was more nerve-wracking than waiting for the college entrance exam results.

When the glaring two red lines appeared, I felt like I had been struck by lightning, violently throwing the urine cup into the trash. The arrival of this child, like a loud slap, pained me deeply.

The tears I had been holding back all day were almost bursting out.

After calming down for a long time, I gently picked up the urine cup from the trash, wrapped the test strip with two lines in layers of toilet paper, and then stuffed it into a fake Gucci bag to take away.

I had no choice. I had waited three years for a promotion opportunity. If my manager found out I was pregnant, not to mention a promotion, I might not even keep my job.

''I'm pregnant again!''

Sitting at my desk, I quickly sent a message to Jack, then swiftly turned off my phone's screen light, guiltily stuffing the phone back into my bag.

Ten minutes later, I took out my phone, Jack hadn't replied.

Was he busy? Was he in a meeting?

I still habitually made excuses for him, never wanting to admit, maybe we didn't love each other anymore.

If it were a few years ago, how could Jack be like this, no matter how busy, he wouldn't take more than ten minutes to reply to my messages. Ten years had passed, the passion between us had long been exhausted, leaving either kinship or something else, I didn't know.

After much thought, I still sent a message to my mom, thousands of miles away.

''I plan to marry Jack!''

The moment I pressed the send button, my hands were trembling.

Yes, this decision was hasty and ludicrous, but other than getting married, I couldn't think of any other way to give a perfect ending to these ten years of effort.

I didn't want to abort this child again. I wanted stability, even if it was impoverished stability. I desperately wanted it.

"Without a betrothal gift of 200,000 dollars, forget it!"

My mom's reply came almost instantly.

I held the phone, tiredly resting my forearm, tears buried in the 300 dollars women's suit from e-shop I was wearing.

'Angel, you have to understand mom. Jack's family is poor, relying on you two to struggle, you won't have good days!"

My mother's message popped up again.

My heart felt like it was soaked in bile-filled vinegar, both bitter and sour.

''Baby, I'm sorry. This is all my fault. let's go to the hospital together tomorrow!''

Jack finally replied to my message two hours later, but his words lacked the resolve of that night.

I sneered, typed a response, and then deleted it, eventually stuffing the phone back into my bag.

I Understood Jack's pressure. Given our current life, we indeed did not have the capacity to bear the arrival of this child. This pressure weighed on him and on me.