I was three months pregnant when my husband told me his startup had failed and he didn’t want to drag a child into the mess.
I believed him and terminated the pregnancy.
But later, at the hospital’s obstetrics department, I saw him gently holding his first love in his arms and whispering, “I convinced Emma to get rid of the baby. And now she’s working as some kind of adult content reviewer. Honestly, it makes me sick just thinking about it.”
“Don’t worry about anything, okay?” he said sweetly. “Just focus on having our baby.”
So, he could be a good father, just not to my child.
The woman he wanted to be the mother of his child was never me.
I took that job as a censorship officer to help him pay off his debts.
I wiped away my tears and handed him the divorce papers. Then he tore them to shreds and got down on his knees, begging me to forgive him.
***
I dragged myself back to our tiny rental apartment, where the smell of smoke and alcohol hit me like a wave, making me nauseous all over again.
“Emma, how many videos did you watch today?” a guy with glasses
called out, smirking. “If there were any good ones, you should’ve brought them back for us to enjoy, too.”
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I instantly recognized him–he was the one who’d harassed me in that hotel.
My husband, Schastian Souza, slouched on the couch, lazily blowing out a puff of smoke. Without even looking, he tells me. “My regulars are starving. Go whip something up for them.”
1 fled into the kitchen, staring blankly at the filthy, greasy mess of piled- up cookware.
Their voices continued from the living room, no attempt at lowering them. no shame at all.
“Bet Emma’s got some wild moves in bed, huh?”
“Of course! She watches porn for a living–Sebastian’s one lucky bastard!”
Their laughter stung in my cars, making my chest tighten with panic. My stomach churned. I barely made it to the sink before vomiting, bile burning in my throat
Sebastian heard me and came rushing in. After a brief pause, he picked me up in his arms and carried me downstairs, hailing a cab straight to the hospital
After the exam, the doctor handed me an ultrasound.
“You’re already three months along. Why are you only coming in now?”
I stared, stunned, at the grainy image of the tiny life inside me
Since taking that job, my periods have become irregular
I thought it was just from all the extreme content I had to watch… Never once did I think I was pregnant.
Sebastian took the ultrasound from me and looked down at my belly, his
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expression dark. It was a long time before he finally spoke. “This baby has to go.”
Just as I was about to ask why, that horrible video of me and the man in glasses flashed in my mind.
“Could it be… That the baby I’d longed for these past three years wasn’t even Sebastian’s?”
“Emma, listen to me,” he said, his voice soft but firm. “I’m broke. This isn’t the right time to have a child.
“When things get better… I promise…”
I noticed the faint mark on his wrist where he’d recently taken off his
Rolex.
I lowered my head, drained of all strength.
“I understand. I’ll schedule the procedure. This baby… never should’ve come.”
Surprise flickered across his face, but he didn’t say a word.
On the day of the surgery, Sebastian had promised he’d be there, but he bailed last minute, claiming work.
Lying on the cold operating table, I winced as the doctor irritated, and inserted the instruments without warning.
“You kids these days… Chasing momentary pleasure and leaving us to deal with the mess.”
A crushing sense of helplessness washed over me. My body trembled uncontrollably.
“Placenta’s stuck–she’s hemorrhaging! Emergency team, now!”
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I couldn’t tell what was being pulled from me–my child, blood.
Or is
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The doctor asked me to call my spouse, but Sébastian’s line was busy the
whole time.
“I’ll sign it myself,” I said.
To stay conscious, I refused anesthesia. I endured the brutal manual extraction and uterine cleaning fully awake. It felt like dying.
When I got home with the prescription, night had already fallen.
Sebastian was already back, acting like a loving husband. He’d made me a bowl of tonic soup and fed it to me spoon by spoon.
My parents passed away when I was young, so I’ve been living with the Souza family ever since.
I still remember when I got my first period during puberty–I was too shy to tell anyone and curled up in pain on the bed.
It was Sebastian who noticed something was wrong, and then quietly made a tonic to ease my
- ps.
He kept up that habit through college until Courtney Sullivan–his first his life. Then it all stopped.
love–came back in
Now, drinking that
same
Swe
up again, it tasted bitter as hell.
A few days later, I returned to work.
The first video I had to review was shockingly familiar, Sebastian and Courtney tangled up in bed at a hotel.
The upload date? The exact day I was in surgery.
So, it wasn’t work he was busy with. It was something far more important
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-something more important than my life.
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I took the day off, wandering like a ghost. At some point, I found myself in front of the Souza’s residence.
Sebastian’s mother, Casey Delaney, opened the door and caught me just as I nearly collapsed.
Looking into her kind face, I finally broke down in tears.
“I want a divorce,” I choked out. “Please… Let me divorce Sebastian.”
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