Chapter 4

The night John posted that statement, the group chat blew up with people telling me not to throw a fit.

[Pregnant women are always moody. Clara was wronged, and John was just being responsible.]

I didn't reply to a single message.

---

At three in the morning, a sudden sharp pain in my abdomen jolted me awake.

The bedsheets were soaked. I reached down and pulled away a hand covered in blood.

John finally picked up on my third call, his voice hushed. "Sharon, don't throw a tantrum right now. I really can't leave."

I curled into a ball, trembling from the agonizing cramps.

"I'm bleeding, John. A lot of blood. Please come to the hospital. Please?"

Silence hung on the line for a brief second.

Then Clara’s hysterical sobbing cut through. "John, I don't want to live anymore..."

John's footsteps came to a sudden halt.

"Call a nurse first," he said to me. "Dr. Gates will send someone right away.

"Clara has locked herself in the bathroom," he continued hastily. "She has a blade."

I grit my teeth, gasping through the pain. "John, this is your child!"

The line fell dead quiet for two seconds.

"A child... we can always have another one later," he finally said. "But if something happens to Clara right now, that's a human life!"

---

After the call disconnected, I sent him a single voice note. “John, it hurts so much.”

The status marked it as ‘Played.’

Ten minutes passed. He never replied.

A nurse rushed inside. "Where is your family?"

I stared blankly at the ceiling. "I don't have anyone."

Dr. Gates kept asking me how severe the pain was, how long I had been bleeding, and whether my family was present.

I only answered the last question, "I don't have any family."

In the end, Dr. Gates pulled down her mask and shook her head with a heavy sigh.

"Miss James, you're still young. You'll have other children in the future."

She gave me a sympathetic look.

"The miscarriage was incomplete. We need to perform a procedure to clear the tissue immediately."

I had thought that if this baby survived, maybe I could convince myself to go through with the wedding.

Now, even my final reason to stay was gone.

At noon, John finally showed up.

There was a small Band-Aid stuck to the back of his hand.

That "human life" of Clara's had ultimately translated to nothing more than a tiny Band-Aid on his knuckle.

He walked to the bedside. "What did Dr. Gates say?"

I stared out the window. "The baby is gone."

John froze, completely stiff.

Yet his very first response was, "Why didn't you call me again?"

"I did call," I said softly. "You didn't come."

John's eyes turned bloodshot. "I thought you could hold out!"

I nodded. "Yeah. I held out. But the baby didn't."

He reached out to touch me, but I pulled away instantly.

"I told you there was a lot of blood. I told you I might lose the baby." I looked at him, my voice completely devoid of warmth. "You just assumed I could keep waiting."

John's voice went raspy. "Clara wasn't fake-acting last night. She really had a wound on her wrist."

"Was it deep?"

He tensed up.

I looked down at the tiny Band-Aid on his hand.

"That's all you have on your hand. What about her? How deep was her wound?"

John remained completely silent.

"We can have another child in the future," he whispered after a long pause.

I looked right into his eyes. "We don't have a future."

John's face paled instantly. "Sharon, stop talking out of anger right now! The wedding cannot be canceled."

I opened my eyes and looked at him. "John... even now, do you really think I'm still going to marry you?"

The nurse walked in to change my IV. "The patient just came out of surgery and needs rest. Family members, please step outside."

Family.

That word made me feel sick to my stomach.

After the door closed, I borrowed a phone to call my best friend, Sarah Davis.

"Sarah, I want to leave this place."

She paused for three seconds. "Wait for me."

Right after hanging up, I canceled the wedding arrangements, contacted a lawyer to dissolve our engagement, and forfeited all claims to the shared apartment and John's money.

When the nurse returned my phone, I opened our shared health application first.

Disable Data Sharing.

Delete Emergency Contact.

Unpair Couples' Watch.

System prompts popped up one after another.

[Health data sharing with John has been disabled.]

[Emergency contact removed: John.]

[Couples' smartwatch unpaired successfully.]

I double-checked every setting.

No notifications would pop up on his end.

Unless he checked the settings himself, he would see nothing.

---

Toward the evening, John went out to buy some porridge.

Before leaving, he murmured softly, "Wait for me to come back."

I gave no response.

During my evening checkup, my blood pressure and bleeding finally stabilized.

After reviewing the lab results, Dr. Gates agreed to approve my transfer to another hospital.

Shortly after John left, Sarah walked in carrying the transfer approval form.

Dr. Gates gave her a strict warning, "She can be transferred, but don't let her walk on her own feet. Monitor her bleeding constantly once you get to the new clinic, and take her to the ER immediately if anything happens."

Sarah nodded solemnly. "The car and the private nurse are waiting downstairs."

I packed my diagnosis papers, the pre-wedding health forms, and the unpaired smartwatch into a brown envelope.

On the cover, I wrote a single line.

[John, my heart and my future, are no longer yours to control.]

I pressed the envelope right under the water glass on the nightstand.

Leaning against the wall for support, I dragged myself to the door. My legs felt so weak I could barely stand.

A nurse pushed a wheelchair up to me. "Miss James, the transfer ambulance is downstairs."

---

Miles away, an inexplicable sense of dread suddenly seized John's chest.

He sent me several text messages, but none went through.

When he finally rushed back into the quiet hospital room, his footsteps came to a dead stop.