Todos los capítulos de I Won’t Continue down This Journey: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 9

On the day of my prenatal appointment, I signed the consent form to terminate my pregnancy right in front of Scott Clement.He did not notice. He was too busy discussing baby names with my student, Vanessa Basch.The nurse called my name three times, but neither of them heard her.I walked over to Scott. Only then did he look up. His tone was as casual as if he were asking what I wanted for lunch.“Vanessa thinks both of these names are good. Pick whichever one you like.”I suddenly smiled.I had carried this baby for twenty-three weeks, yet my husband and my student had chosen the names. All I had to do was pick one.Right, it was totally normal.After all, for the past six months, they had decided what music to play for the baby, what color to paint the nursery, and even which brand of formula to buy.I opened the Notes app on his phone and added a line beneath the two names.[There’s no need to choose anymore.]Scott frowned, but before he could ask what I meant, Vanessa’

Scott and I met when we were both doctoral students in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Cloudmont.He specialized in computational modeling, while my field was cancer immunology.He knew nothing about wet-lab research, and I could not code, yet we somehow ended up as partners on an interdisciplinary project led by our advisors.Scott was so broke back then that he could not afford a decent laptop. Every day, he carried around an old machine that took ten minutes just to boot up so he could run his analyses.The first time I saw him, he was crouched in the hallway of the research building, trying to fix it.His screen had gone blue. The look on his face was grim.I lent him my spare laptop. He used it for three whole months.When he returned it, I found a handwritten note and a strawberry-flavored candy tucked inside the laptop bag.The note contained only one line.[Natasha, when I get rich, I’ll treat you to the most expensive meal in the world.]Later, he di

His head snapped up.“What did you say?” I pulled the divorce agreement from the coffee table drawer.I had already signed my name at the bottom.The house was my separate property from before the marriage. The company shares would be handled according to our prenup. The rest of our marital assets could be divided through our attorneys.I was not asking for anything more than I was entitled to.I did not want anything more.Scott stared at the agreement. His shock eventually gave way to anger.“Are you divorcing me to punish me over the baby?”“No.”“Then, this is about Vanessa?”“No, it isn’t.”I looked at the man I had loved for ten years, surprised by how calm I sounded.“Because I don’t love you anymore.”The words seemed to knock the breath out of him.A few seconds later, he forced a strained smile. “Natasha, do you even hear what you’re saying?”“I do.”“You gave up a job in another country to marry me. You sold the house your parents left you to keep the com

I copied all the files onto an external hard drive, then contacted Evan.When he answered and heard my voice, he was silent for more than ten seconds.“Dr. Natasha, you finally called me.”I asked how much evidence he still had.“A lot. Vanessa changed the data at least four times after she took over the project. Every time, Dr. Scott told us to go along with it.”“Did anyone object?”“Anyone who did was transferred out.”I closed my eyes for a moment.“Why didn’t you report it before?”Evan gave a bitter laugh.“Legal told us that anyone who leaked confidential project information would be sued for everything they had. You founded the project. I thought you were the one person who could do something about it.“Then, Dr. Scott told us you weren’t doing well because of the pregnancy and that we shouldn’t bother you with anything related to the company.”So, Scott had not just convinced me that I was unwell. He had been telling everyone else the same thing.I hung up and s

The other end of the line went quiet.A few seconds later, Vanessa snorted.“Dr. Natasha, if you can’t stand losing, just say so. Dr. Scott chose me to take over from you because I earned it, not because I stole anything from you. “After you got pregnant, you became paranoid about everything. You kept rechecking perfectly normal data over and over.“Dr. Scott was right. In the state you were in, you had no business doing research.”I listened without getting angry.“Vanessa.”“What?”“On day six of Group Seven, why did you use an image from Group Five for the raw fluorescence data?”Her breath caught.I continued, “Why did you remove the highest inflammatory marker value from Sample Three? “When Mouse Two died unexpectedly, you recorded it as a procedural error, but the necropsy report says it died from a severe cytokine storm. Do you even know what you’re doing?”She was silent for quite a while.When she finally spoke again, her voice was trembling.“Dr. Scott approve