Chapter 4

At my words, everyone froze.

Ryan was the first to react, his voice laced with menace.

"Aria, don't be ungrateful!"

"Now that you're pregnant, who else would want you besides me? Just give birth, and you'll have a life of comfort!"

"Exactly!" Brenda immediately chimed in. "Abortion harms the body; you won't be able to conceive later! Ryan's willing to keep your tainted body, you should be utterly grateful!"

Marcus fretted, rubbing his hands together, "Aria, don't do anything rash! How about this, I'll add another two hundred thousand for your pregnancy expenses!"

I looked at this bunch of ridiculous clowns, and any lingering doubt in my heart vanished completely.

They saw me as a breeding machine, life as a commodity, and their shamelessness as justified.

I suddenly laughed.

"Why are you all so tense?"

"I just meant, the doctor said this pregnancy is fragile, and I need to be extra careful, or it'll be hard to keep this baby."

Ryan exhaled, visibly relaxing.

But then his expression changed again, and he grabbed my arm nervously, "Why didn't you say something sooner?!"

Brenda was even more panicked than him. She grabbed my arm and dragged me into the house.

"Then hurry up and lie down! Chloe! Go get Mom's best blanket and make up the bed for your sister-in-law!"

Only Marcus was pacing anxiously, tears practically welling up in his eyes.

His face turned purple, a comical mix of desperation and inability to speak, utterly ridiculous.

"Oh, my precious future son..."

I coldly watched this family.

Only a while ago, they had been completely indifferent to me.

No one even accompanied me to my prenatal appointments.

Even when I told them a week in advance, on the day of my appointment, they all conveniently had 'something urgent' come up.

That day, I was terribly nervous and called Ryan, but he said he had to go play poker with his dad.

Calls from me kept coming, relentless. He finally answered with an exasperated sigh, "It's just a check-up, not like you're giving birth. Do I really need to be there?"

Hearing his cold words, my chest tightened with a crushing pain.

But I still suppressed my surging emotions and softly said, "Ryan, he's your child too, after all..."

"What do you mean? Can you stop guilt-tripping me with the baby every five minutes?"

"Don't act like you're the only woman on earth who can have a baby!"

With that, he slammed the phone down.

At that moment, my heart ached with suffocating pain.

Clutching my belly, as I leaned against a chair in the hospital corridor, my ears were filled with other husbands' loving inquiries, but I, alone, had to buy my own bottle of water.

The baby's kicks felt like sharp jabs to my heart.

If the nurse hadn't helped me, I nearly collapsed in the hospital corridor then and there.

When I finally made it home from the hospital, he had just stumbled home, reeking of alcohol.

Even so, I patiently told him, "You should drink less. The strong smell of alcohol isn't good for the baby."

Who knew he'd roll his eyes at me, "Can't you even stand the smell of alcohol just because you're pregnant?"

"Once the baby's born, I'll even teach him to drink! He'll learn his father's tolerance!"

"What kind of man can't hold his liquor? Women are all so dramatic."

I bit back my tears and said nothing.

Brenda came out of the room, scoffing, "My son works hard all day, and you think you can boss him around?"

"It's your duty to care for your husband, don't use your pregnancy as an excuse to act like a queen!"

But now.

I coldly watched this eager family.

I had kept putting up with it because I used to consider them family.

But now they only saw me as a mere breeding vessel.

There was no longer any need for me to entangle myself with them.