I was already eight months pregnant when Theo Irvine suddenly declared that I had to prepare a feast to celebrate his birthday and cook a home-cooked meal myself. He even invited his friends to celebrate it.

At the party, during a game of Truth or Dare, Susan Evergreen purposedly lost the game and chose the Truth. She pointed at my baby bump and said, "Amy, your stretch marks are so disgusting, like a swarm of maggots crawled across your skin."

Laughter erupted and instantly drowned me in humiliation. Shame crushed the last shred of my dignity.

I demanded she apologize to me, but Theo frowned. "Jenny was just joking. Why are you taking it so seriously? If you don't want to eat, then don't."

On that rainy night, he kicked me out of the house. At that time, I only wore thin pajamas.

As I stood there in the storm, he turned around and bragged to his friend, "She is eight months pregnant and still thinks she is a princess! She is as fat as a pig! Who else would want her but me? Just wait! She'll be back on her knees apologizing in under ten minutes."

However, this time, he was wrong.

I turned around, went downstairs and took a taxi. Then without any hesitation, I scheduled an induced abortion.

A man like him did not deserve to be a father.

——

When the man on duty that night heard my request that I wanted to have an abortion, he was hesitant. He asked, "Your pregnancy is at a quite advanced stage, are you sure you want to terminate this pregnancy? Does the father know about this?"

"He's dead," I replied coldly.

The light on the doctor's eyes softened with sympathy. Since Theo had never accompanied me to any prenatal checkups and we weren’t legally married, there was no record of him in the system. So, the doctor did not question my words.

After multiple confirmations, the procedure was scheduled for two days later.

When I returned, the rain had drenched me entirely despite my being as careful as I could be. The icy wind bit my skin, but I felt nothing.

Numbly, I climbed the stairs and opened the door.

The party had ended, but the mess had not been cleaned yet.

Theo was sitting on the sofa, smoking. When he heard the door open, his face immediately turned gloomy and he hurled a pillow at me.

"Amy! Jenny was just fooling around. Did you really have to storm out in the middle of the night? She is just a kid. What could she possibly understand? You're about to be a mother, why do you have to stoop to her level?"

So, calling my stretch mark maggot was a joke. Calling me a pig was also a joke. 

To Theo, every insult from Jenny's mouth was just a harmless joke. For him, she was just a young child, who had not grown up.

However, he conveniently forgot that I was just a young girl too before I married him. After all, I was only a year older than Jenny!

Why should I tolerate it all without any complaints?

Whenever I felt upset by Jenny's words, Theo always stood by her immediately and belittled me. I felt smaller than dirt.

"Besides, Jenny isn't wrong," he added. "Why are you so petty? Can't you even handle a little truth?"

Anger surged through me, followed by despair.

I used to argue, desperate to salvage the scraps of my dignity left in this marriage. However, I did not do it anymore, because a rotten relationship like ours wasn’t worth fighting for.

The pillow had struck my waist and it felt hurt and sore.

Theo mistook my silence for submission. With a smirk, he sneered, "What are you standing there for? Can't you see how messy the house is? Clean it up!"

As I held my waist, I glanced around. The floor was littered with remnants of their party. There was spilled alcohol mixed with cake frosting. The mess was overwhelming.

When they were having fun, they found me got in the way. However, when it was time to clean up, I was the only one expected to do it.

I had no intention of tidying up. I turned around, planning to go to the bedroom. However, when I opened the door, Jenny stepped out. She was wearing a seductive silk gown.

The moment Jenny saw me, she feigned surprise.

She said, "Amy? I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you’d come back. I had nothing to wear, so I borrowed your clothes. Besides, you’re pregnant and too big to wear them now. You don’t mind, do you?”

I frowned and turned to Theo, who was still on the couch, hoping for an explanation.

Amid puffs of smoke, his voice was icy. “It’s pouring outside. I didn’t want something to happen to her, so I told her to stay over. You’re not going to start a fight over this, are you?”

He did not care that his eight-month-pregnant wife was shivering and wet. Yet, he cared so much for his so-called “sister.”

I was beyond disappointed and couldn’t even muster the energy to argue. I walked straight into the bedroom and I did not notice the flicker of surprise in his eyes.

I thought with Jenny in the house, Theo would not bother to find me for the rest of the night.

Yet, imagine my surprise seeing him tiptoeing into the bedroom just before I slept.

His hand that was rubbing my waist felt hot on my skin and he murmured apologetically, “Does it still hurt?”

Then he continued, "I've cleaned up the house. Can you just let things go? There were many people coming here tonight. Why are you so angry, it was just a joke? Being angry is bad for the baby. Just be good and stop making a fuss."

"Huh? Do you still have some concerns about the baby?" I said sharply, could not hide the sarcasm in my tone.

His hand's movement froze for a second.

When he leaned over to kiss me, I grabbed his hand and pressed it against the stretch marks on my belly. He immediately leaped away as if being burned.

When he realized he had overreacted, he tried to apologize but before he could do that his phone rang.

In the silence of the room, I could hear Jenny's pitiful voice, "I'm sorry, Theo. I must have made Amy upset. I shouldn’t stay and be a burden to you. I'll leave immediately, you don't have to worry about me …. Ah!"

After the unfinished word and her cry of alarm, the call was cut off.

Theo panicked, he immediately put on his jacket and pulled me out of the bed.

"If something happens to Jenny tonight, I won’t forgive you! This is all your fault!" He snarled.

“She went out on her own! I didn't ask her to go tonight. How is that my fault?” I asked in bewilderment.

However, he didn’t care. Despite my attempt to fight back, he managed to drag me into the car.

Due to the thin pajamas that I wore, I kept sneezing in the freezing wind.

Yet, Theo did not notice my discomfort. He just pressed his foot hard on the accelerator.

Ten minutes later, we finally found Jenny. She was sprawled on the roadside.

He immediately jumped out, scooped her up and sped toward the hospital like a madman.

Even as he drove, he spat out a warning toward me “If anything happens to Jenny, I’ll never forgive you!”

While Jenny was being examined, sharp pain gripped my stomach. The chaos of the night was taking its toll.

Sweat beaded on my forehead, so I leaned against the wall to keep myself from collapsing.

After what felt like an eternity, Theo finally noticed my condition. However, instead of concern, his voice was cold. “Stop acting it. Did you have to fall to seeing her fall?”

"Amy, I didn’t think you could be this kind of person! Pretending to be all decent, but you can’t even tolerate a young girl behind closed doors!”

At that moment, the night-shift doctor from earlier passed by. His gaze shifted between the two of us and he looked puzzled.

“What’s your relationship?” he asked. “Didn’t you say ….”

My heart sank. As I scrabbled how to come up with the answer, Jenny's pitiful cries echoed from the hospital room.

In a flash, the man beside me turned around and entered the room.

I forced a bitter smile. “It’s nothing. Just distant relatives. A little spat between husband and wife.”

The doctor sighed softly.

“Even though you’ve scheduled the procedure, you still need to be careful. Don’t get caught up in their mess. If something goes wrong, you might not make it to the surgery.”

I nodded silently. As I watched the doctor’s retreating figure, my heart filled with sadness.

Just as I was about to crouch down and rest, Theo came storming out and dragged me back inside. He pointed at Jenny who was lying on the bed and barked, "Apologize to her!"

Then he continued, "Amy, if you didn't stir up trouble tonight, Jenny would've been safe and sound at home and she would not be hit by a car."

I furrowed my brows then laughed angrily at his shameless accusation. "Huh, me? I'm the troublemaker? Didn't you hear the personal attack that she hurled at me tonight?"

"Theo, I’m carrying your child! When she insults me, she’s insulting you too! Are you that clueless?”

It was the first time in five years I had shown him such a cold face. This made Theo so angry, that his eyes turned red because of it.

Before he could say anything, Jenny, who was lying on the hospital bed, burst into tears.

“I’m sorry, this is all my fault! I just wanted to lighten the mood. I didn’t mean to upset Amy. Please don’t fight because of me. It’s all on me.”

“When I recover, I’ll resign and leave. I won’t ever appear in front of you two again," she wailed miserably.

Theo, suppressing his rage, clenched his teeth and growled, "This is the last time I'm saying this, Amy! Apologize!"

“Don’t stoop to her level. I’ve told you this many times before. She is just a little girl.”

I looked at him coldly and stared at him for a long time before turning away silently, walking out and leaving the room.

As I stepped into the hallway, his furious roar echoed behind me, "If you dare leave, don’t ever come back! Amy, sooner or later, you'll come crawling back and begging before me along with that belly of yours!"

Tears streaked down my face as I quickened my pace, ignoring the gawking eyes of the people around me.

Outside the hospital, the rainstorm hadn’t eased up. I wandered the vast hospital alone, wearing nothing but my thin pajamas.

The hospital was in a remote area and I couldn’t hail a taxi no matter how hard I tried.

As if sensing my distress, the baby in my belly finally stopped moving and grew quiet.

After waiting for two hours, the rain subsided and I walked three kilometers to the nearest hotel to check-in. By then, it was already four o'clock in the morning.

As I paid for the room, a notification of a friend update popped up. When I looked at it, it was from Jenny.

The post featured a candid photo of Theo. He was holding a steaming bowl of porridge while gently massaging her swollen ankle.

The accompanying text read, "Sweet words don’t compare to porridge at dawn. The one who loves you never complains of being tired. Thank you, brother.”

As soon as the picture was posted, it quickly gathered many likes., mostly from Theo's friends who had attended the birthday party earlier.

These people had always looked down on me but taken care of Jenny with special affection. It wasn’t hard to imagine what role Theo had played in shaping their opinions and what kind of lies he must have told them about my so-called clingy, desperate behavior.

I was about to put my phone away when the comments began flooding in.

“Wow, Theo! Is there anything you can’t do? You're worthy as a top student who is proficient in everything, even porridge-making! How come I never knew you had this skill in the ten years I’ve known you? So unfair!”

“Next gathering, you better make some for us too, Theo. Show off your skills in front of Jenny again!”

“If I remember correctly, didn’t you once say you’d never do anything for a woman in your life? What a slap in the face! Only our Princess Jenny could change that!”

***

Every comment was like a dagger. It was a highlight of how cheap and pathetic I, as his wife, must have seemed.

They were right. Although we had been together for five years and I was eight months pregnant, we had not obtained a marriage certificate. It was indeed cheap. No wonder, Theo never appreciated me.

I let out a bitter laugh, turned off the phone and headed to the bedroom to sleep.

In the past, I had always kept my phone on because I was afraid. Theo would call me in the middle of the night, asking me to pick him up at the hotel.

For once, I slept throughout the night, undisturbed and woke up the next day.

I slept until noon and when I woke up, my phone filled with his messages.