Chapter 5

Leander slowly stopped asking questions that were about me. He started paying attention to her days instead, even taking the lead to joke that he should buy milk tea for the “angel in white” to make up for those careless patients.

By the time I sensed something was wrong, Leander was standing on the balcony smoking.

My stomach was hit by strong waves of pain. Clenching my teeth, I put out his cigarette.

I asked him if he could stop smoking for the baby’s well-being, for me.

That was the first moment he showed annoyance toward me.

He said I was interfering.

Those five easy words crushed all my pride.

Like a madwoman, I smashed his phone. The screen broke, frozen on the last message Georgina had sent.

[A new movie just came out. Want to watch it with a nurse in white? I’ve gotten better at giving shots, this time I surely won’t make you cry!]

With burning eyes, I yelled and questioned him.

“If Georgina were the one asking you to stop smoking, would you agree?”

“If the one carrying the baby were Georgina and not me, would you have quit long ago?”

His eyes turned red instantly. With the same strength, he smashed other items around the house.

“Unreasonable. You’re just crazy!”

“I contacted Georgina only to look after your condition!”

“I already said all that should be said. Think whatever you like!”

That night, Leander didn’t return home.

I went to the hospital to search for him.

The nurses said Georgina, who was on shift, didn't show up either.

Using the excuse that I was Georgina’s older sister, I asked for her home address.

When I knocked on the door, Leander, naked except for a bath towel, opened it for me.

The bright red lipstick marks on his neck became the final snowflake that crushed me.

Outside, the temperature was ten degrees below zero. I wore a thin maternity dress, yet it felt as if I couldn’t sense the cold at all.

In the hallway, I screamed and vented, yelling like someone who had lost reason.

I lifted my hands, dry and cracked from the cold, and slapped him again and again.

By the end, my palms were covered with blood, and so was his face too.

No one could tell whose blood it was.

Such a shameful moment only got a light, careless line from him.

“Are you finished causing trouble?”

“If you’re done, go back home.”

“The baby is still young. You can’t be this emotional.”

How laughable.

The person who pushed me into madness said I was unstable.

The man who cheated while I was pregnant blamed me for not thinking about the child.

I had thought about leaving him, but I could not force myself to do it.

I loved him. I had loved him for a very, very long time.

I believed that once the baby was born, we could go back to how we used to be.

But bad things always come first.

Eight months later, I coughed up blood.

After examination at the hospital, they told me I had lung cancer, already in the middle to late stage.

If I kept the baby, my life couldn’t be saved.

In panic, I called Leander, not knowing what else to do.

But on the other side, after he heard the test result, he only replied, “Are you finished pretending?”

“For half a year already, I have been staying at home. What more do you want?”

“Georgina told me she saw you at the hospital; every pregnancy check you had was fine.”

“Corinne, I don’t want to completely fall out with you. I will say this one last time: what I have with Georgina will only continue until the baby arrives. Don’t push me to break my word.”

Before I could answer, he coldly ended the call.

Georgina sent me a picture of the two of them lying naked together in bed.

Along with one line, “He said the person he loves is me. With you, it is only duty. Sister, are you truly willing to spend your entire life with a man who doesn’t love you?”

Willing?

Of course, I wasn’t willing.

So I decided to keep the baby.

I even foolishly believed that since we once loved each other, we might fall in love again someday.