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His Regret Came Too Late, I Don't Want It Anymore
His Regret Came Too Late, I Don't Want It Anymore
Author: Ibuprofen

第一章

Author: Ibuprofen
"Blood pressure 196 over 128! Patient's vision is blurring, start the magnesium sulfate drip! Ms. Mitchell, can you hear me? Squeeze my hand!"

The ambulance siren screamed, the overhead lights flashing on and off, the heart monitor beeping without pause.

I lay curled on the freezing stretcher, drenched in cold sweat, teeth chattering, my lower abdomen bearing down with contractions that sent tearing pain crawling up my spine.

"I... can hear you."

It took everything I had to force out those few words.

"Severe preeclampsia with signs of placental abruption. She could seize or hemorrhage at any moment!"

The doctor pushed the blood pressure medication, his voice tight with urgency. "The babies are only twenty-eight weeks and four days. Severe fetal distress. We need an emergency C-section right now. The babies will go straight to the NICU afterward. Where is her family? Who's going to sign the consent forms?"

"There's no family."

The doctor's eyes went red. "Her husband? There are three lives on the line. Someone has to sign!"

The phone in my sweat-slick palm buzzed. Adrian's name flashed across the screen.

It took me two tries to answer. Before anyone spoke, the sounds of clinking glasses, raucous laughter, and jazz music poured through the speaker.

"Serena, how long are you going to keep this up?"

Adrian's voice was sharp with impatience. "You locked the bedroom door? Seriously? Vivi spent over ten hours on a plane, and she barely has an appetite. Everyone's waiting for you to make that sweet pudding she likes. She only likes the way you make it, and you pick now to throw a tantrum and ruin the evening?"

My belly clenched violently. Pain blacked out my vision, and cold sweat mixed with tears streamed into my mouth.

"Adrian... I'm dying..."

"Not this again."

He scoffed, "I saw that critical condition notice this morning. You Googled a few medical terms to scare me. Very creative.

"You've always been strong as a horse. It's just a pregnancy. Every woman goes through it."

He paused, his voice turning even colder. "Don't try to hold me hostage with some one-in-a-million complication. Go downstairs and make the dessert. I already had someone send over that stretch mark oil. Quit while you're ahead."

The ambulance swerved hard. The stretcher lurched, and my head slammed against the wall of the cabin.

"Adrian... I'm in an ambulance. They're about to cut me open..."

The line went quiet for two seconds.

Derek's smug laughter cut through. "Adrian, don't fall for it. She's just jealous that Vivian's back, so she's pulling a sympathy stunt!

"She could haul two bags of flour up five flights of stairs by herself back in high school. Built like a pack animal. As if she'd ever actually keel over."

"Serena, did you hear that?"

Adrian lowered his voice. "Even your own brother sees right through you. Come downstairs now, and I'll pretend none of this happened. It's Vivi's first day back. I don't want her feeling uncomfortable."

My knuckles whitened around the phone, then my grip slowly loosened.

During the worst of my morning sickness in the first trimester, I had vomited until my esophagus was raw and my bile was streaked with blood. Back then, Adrian's eyes would redden with worry. At two in the morning, he would get up to make me oatmeal, simmering it again and again until it was soft and smooth. He strained out every tough stem and crumb.

Later, my legs swelled so badly they wouldn't fit into men's slippers, and I still had to inject blood thinners into my belly twice a day, leaving a constellation of bruises around the needle marks.

He only stood in the doorway, frowning as he said, "Country girls are tough. Grit your teeth and it'll pass. Stop being so dramatic."

The tenderness hadn't disappeared. It had simply been taken from me and given to someone else.

"Serena? Say something, stop playing dead!"

The fire that had burned in my chest for ten years slowly went out.

"Adrian."

"What?"

"Have fun tonight."

I hung up and powered off the phone, right in front of the doctor.

The anesthesiologist held my trembling wrist. "Don't think about that now, Ms. Mitchell. Save your strength. You need to pull through this for your babies."

The operating room doors swung open. Surgical lights bleached everything white. Footsteps, the clatter of instruments, and the constant callout of vital signs all flooded into my ears.

"Diastolic over 130, prepare for general anesthesia and intubation!"

"Neonatal resuscitation team, stand by!"

The doctor handed me the critical condition notice and the surgical consent form. "Both babies are extremely low birth weight with immature lungs. You're also at risk for massive hemorrhage and brain herniation. Are you sure you don't need a family member to co-sign?"

I took the pen and wrote my own name in the family signature line:

Serena Mitchell.

The anesthesia entered my veins. Just before consciousness slipped away, my phone lit up.

Adrian had posted a photo collage on Facebook.

In the center photo, he held up a crystal champagne flute, gazing tenderly at Vivian beside him. Behind them stood the twin crib I had assembled the night before, hunched over my aching belly until three in the morning.

The caption read: "Old friends reunited. Ten years feels like a dream. Tonight, we drink till we drop."

A single tear finally slid from the corner of my eye.

Inside me, the babies who had been kicking so fiercely went terrifyingly still.
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  • His Regret Came Too Late, I Don't Want It Anymore   第10章

    One year later, on an early spring afternoon, the cherry blossoms along the neighborhood boulevard were in full bloom."Mama, up!"My fourteen-month-old daughter, her hair in two tiny pigtails, toddled over on chubby little legs and threw herself into my arms.On the edge of the lawn, my son steadied himself against the stroller, reaching for falling petals.After a year of care and therapy, both preemies had caught up developmentally with children their age."Ms. Mitchell, here's the schedule for next week's spring brand launch."My assistant handed me the tablet.Over the past year, I had used the capital recovered from the marital asset settlement to launch a mother-and-baby wellness brand. I now had my own office building and a team of several hundred.I circled a few items. "Soften the opening lights. Mothers bringing their babies won't want harsh glare.""Of course, Ms. Mitchell."I took my daughter's hand, pushed my son's stroller, and headed home.As we passed the large camphor

  • His Regret Came Too Late, I Don't Want It Anymore   第9章

    The day I was discharged, the sun was bright.Nina drove us home. Both babies had hit their benchmarks.All of Adrian's belongings were gone. His suits, his medical textbooks, and the dress shoes from the entryway had been shipped to the studio apartment he was renting on the outskirts of the city.I placed the babies in the twin crib in the nursery.The two little ones lay with their eyes closed, their lips making soft smacking sounds. Sunlight fell across the clouds and rainbows on the wall. The room was quiet and warm.The first night, the real test came.At two in the morning, my daughter started screaming with colic. The noise woke my son, and he started crying too.My body was still weak, the incision pulling painfully with every move. I held my daughter in one arm and reached for the formula mixer with the other. Warm water spilled across the floor and the formula canister tipped over.Both babies were screaming, their faces flushed red.Exhaustion crashed over me, and I called

  • His Regret Came Too Late, I Don't Want It Anymore   第8章

    The afternoon before my discharge, three soft knocks sounded on the door.Adrian stood outside, not crossing the threshold.He wore a sweatshirt washed so many times it had gone pale. His frame had wasted down to nothing. He bent, set a manila envelope on the floor just outside the door, and stepped back three paces."These are photos of the nursery now."He said quietly, "I rebuilt the walls myself and put on four coats of light blue paint. I traced the clouds and rainbows from your original design and painted them back."He paused. "That little yellow star by the headboard had a crease at the edge. I smoothed it out with tape."Nina brought the envelope to me.In the photos, the room had been restored to how it once looked, with the clouds and rainbows carefully repainted. Inside the envelope was the design sketch, painstakingly pieced back together.Below the sketch, he had written: "I painted every wall and tightened every screw myself, and only then did I understand how much pain

  • His Regret Came Too Late, I Don't Want It Anymore   第7章

    On the fifth day after surgery, the NICU director stepped out of the unit, pulled down his mask, and smiled. "Both babies pulled through! The boy's brain bleed is resolving well, and the girl is off the ventilator. Two more weeks of observation, and they can leave the NICU."Sitting in my wheelchair, I gripped the armrests. Tears spilled down my face.These were the tears of someone who had survived.On the way back to my room, I spotted Adrian curled up behind the fire exit door.He wore a wrinkled jacket, so gaunt he was barely recognizable. He held a paper bag that he didn't dare bring any closer, handing it to a nurse from a few yards away."These are pure cotton preemie onesies, no optical brighteners, already sterilized. One in light blue, one in cream. Could you give them to her..."The nurse looked at me uncertainly.I remembered how at twenty weeks, I had dragged Adrian to a baby store to look at newborn onesies.He had said to buy both the light blue and the cream. Twins shou

  • His Regret Came Too Late, I Don't Want It Anymore   第6章

    Adrian camped outside the NICU for three days and three nights without food or water.Every time the door opened, he lunged toward the doctor and begged, "Use the best medication you have. Put everything on my account. Please, save my children!"The looks the doctors and nurses gave him went from cold to contemptuous.On the third afternoon, shouting erupted down the hallway.Derek and my mother had tracked him down.They weren't there out of concern for me or the babies. Derek couldn't pay his study abroad agency fee, his luxury apartment had been reclaimed by the landlord, and every supplementary credit card my mother held was frozen."Adrian, you pathetic loser!"Derek grabbed him by the collar. "You said you could handle my sister? She froze my card, she's taking back my mother's house, and you're coughing up the hundred and thirty grand for my agency fee today!"My mother sat down on the floor and wailed, "My own son-in-law, leaving his mother-in-law to die! My daughter just had y

  • His Regret Came Too Late, I Don't Want It Anymore   第5章

    By the time Adrian reached the hospital ward, it was pouring outside.His suit was caked with mud and frosting, but in his hand he clutched a chipped old thermos.Eight years ago, we had lived in a cramped basement apartment. To save money, I ate only one meal a day and ended up with stomach ulcers. After his night shifts, Adrian would run three blocks to buy me hot milk and carry it back in that thermos.The sticky note on it used to read: "Serena, learn to take care of yourself first, and then take care of me."The thermos had sat in a storage closet for five years. Now he was pressing it to his chest again.The door to my room opened.I was propped up against the headboard, gazing calmly out the window.Adrian saw my deflated belly, the IV needle in my arm, and the bag of dark red drainage fluid beneath the bed. He dropped to his knees at the foot of my bed."Rena..."He reached for me. I pulled away."I'm sorry. I didn't know it was this serious. I thought you were just jealous, tr

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