1 I am the wife Caleb Vance stole from his best friend through sheer, ruthless manipulation. Because he started as the "other man," he is paranoid about every single male who comes anywhere near me. Even when I feed the stray dogs in our neighborhood, he has to confirm that both the dog and its owner are female before he can relax. Until recently, when a new, young intern at my office brought me coffee for a few days. Caleb claimed it was fine, but that night, he scrolled through my phone until 3:00 AM, getting so worked up he broke out in full-body hives. On the way to the hospital, his face flushed bright red with fever, he shoved a photo of the intern right in my face. "Look at these pecs! They are obviously Photoshopped!" "And look at his height, he’s definitely wearing shoe lifts. There is no way he is six feet tall!" Seeing the nurses around us trying to hold back their laughter, I embarrassedly clamped a hand over his mouth and hauled him into the ER. While picking up his prescription, the doctor casually mentioned: "For birth control, we still recommend the woman takes the pill or you use condoms. After all, this new male contraceptive pill just hit the market. The side effects are severe. Hives are actually on the milder end of the spectrum." "Furthermore, he's taken it three times in just one week. Even if he doesn't want you to suffer the side effects of birth control, he can't be this reckless with his own health." I froze for a second. But I've been pregnant for three months. … I watched Caleb sleeping soundly and picked up his phone. His passcode was entirely my birthday. His Instagram feed was filled exclusively with photos of me. His search history was all about me: "How to get my wife's attention?" "My wife thinks I'm too clingy, is she seeing someone else?" "What to do when my wife misses her late mother?" Even his Notes app was packed with information about me: "March 20th: My sweet girl had a nightmare and missed her mom." "March 21st: My sweet girl's morning sickness is awful lately. She throws up everything she eats." "April 1st: Went out of my way to find my sweet girl's old nanny to learn how to make my mother-in-law's signature beef and tomato stew. My sweet girl ate it very happily." Reading these, my eyes stung with tears. I tried to comfort myself, thinking that maybe I was just being overly sensitive due to the pregnancy. Until, the GPS app on his phone suddenly popped up with a notification: "Based on your usual routine, your route home has been automatically calculated. Estimated time: 30 minutes." The destination of the route was Building 7, The Pinnacle Apartments. But I live in Building 3. My hand uncontrollably tapped into the app. The location history showed that for the past three months, every single day at noon, he would navigate exactly to this address and stay for about two hours. I suddenly remembered that because my morning sickness was so severe, I had lost eight pounds in just three months. The only thing I could stomach was the food Caleb cooked. But his company was so far away. Every day, he not only had to take care of me but also deal with the old foxes on his board of directors. Working overtime until dawn was his norm. My heart ached for him. I wanted him to get proper rest at the office during his lunch break. But he thought I didn't need him anymore. We had a massive argument. No matter what I said, he kept a cold face and insisted on making lunch for me. It wasn't until I pretended my morning sickness had improved and promised I would take good care of myself that he finally agreed to rest at the office. But in reality, every single day, he was in another building less than a thousand feet from our home, keeping someone else company. I gripped the phone, my entire body shaking. Suddenly, a text message popped up: "Cal, you left a pair of boxers at my place yesterday. She didn't find out, did she? I left those for you on purpose... unwashed." "Those are my absolute favorite boxers. Make sure you bring them to me on my birthday." I stared dead at that profile picture. With trembling hands, I clicked into it. It was Chloe! The illegitimate daughter who infuriated my mother to death and monopolized my father. Since we were kids, she had to fight me for everything: clothes, jewelry, my father's love... And even my husbands. My ex-husband and I divorced precisely because I caught him and her in bed together. The day of my divorce, I was in absolute despair. Caleb held me, promising me word by word: "My sweet girl, I will only love you for the rest of my life. No matter how much she tries to show off, I could never look at her twice. Trust me." And he had actually done it. When Chloe tried to seduce him and sent him nudes... He called the police directly, getting Chloe detained for seven days. He even reported the incident to her university, getting her expelled and ruining her future. I thought that escaping that swamp and meeting Caleb was the greatest luck of my life. But why did it have to be her? Why is it her again! Almost masochistically, I opened their chat history. I watched Caleb call her "his sweet girl." I watched how, when Chloe threatened to expose everything to me, Caleb ruthlessly blocked her, disciplined her, and took that discipline all the way to the bed. I watched how, when I was hospitalized and crying from fear over poor prenatal test results, they were sleeping in the very room I had decorated with my own hands, and she was wearing my pajamas... My whole body trembled, a wave of nausea rising straight to my throat. Behind me, the bed shifted slightly. "Wife?" 2 Seeing my reddened eyes, Caleb reached out to hug me. Smelling the faint, distinct scent of sex and sweat on him... I shoved him away violently and rushed into the bathroom, dry heaving. "My sweet girl!" Caleb immediately followed me in. The moment his hand touched my back, I sprang away as if burned, grabbing a glass jar nearby and hurling it at him. "Get away from me!" The heavy glass ashtray struck his temple. Blood began to trickle down his brow bone. Caleb didn't seem to care at all. He just looked at me with deep concern, panic practically spilling out of his eyes. "Is the baby acting up again?" "Or are you feeling sick somewhere else?" I sat on the floor, watching him frantically rush out of the bathroom. He poured water, grabbed my medicine. Blood dripped onto the collar of his crisp white shirt, blooming into a small red stain. He was completely oblivious, just holding out the medicine with a cautious, fragile look in his eyes. "Open your mouth, sweet girl." "Why?" I looked into Caleb's eyes, so full of love. Tears poured out uncontrollably. Just a few days ago, we were still discussing baby names together. We were still dreaming about our future life as a family of three. We talked about taking her to the beach, to the mountains, to every place we had ever visited since we fell in love, once she was a little older. Just moments ago, he was still acting jealous because I stood a little too close to someone else. "Why did you betray me!" I looked at him, tears blurring my vision. Caleb froze. The hand gripping the medicine clenched tightly. "You know everything." I waited for him to explain. I told myself that no matter what he said, I would believe him. As long as he said it, I could forgive him. "I'm sorry." He took a step forward, his voice trembling. "I know you're upset that I fired the intern behind your back. But I just couldn't accept another man being around you every day, seeing your smile." He crouched down, looking up at me with an agonizingly humble expression. "You don't know how much effort it took for me to steal you away from Ethan, just to be able to stand beside you in the light. What right did that intern have to just have all that without doing anything?" "I know I'm sick. I know I'm not normal. But I absolutely do not regret it." "My sweet girl, hit me, curse me, punish me however you want. Just don't hurt yourself, and please don't leave me. I will die." He looked up at me, his eyes rimmed with red, looking like an abandoned dog. I looked at him, knowing that right now I should turn and walk away without a second's hesitation. But I couldn't bear to. I couldn't bear to lose his tenderness. I couldn't bear to lose these happy days. So, as long as I didn't see it with my own eyes, I could pretend nothing had happened. As long as I didn't see it with my own eyes. I looked at Caleb and forced a smile. "I want some of that beef and tomato stew." Caleb's eyes lit up instantly. He turned to head to the kitchen. But soon, his phone rang. He glanced at it, his face filling with apology. "I'm so sorry, my sweet girl. There's an emergency at the company. I'll make it for you as soon as I get back." Before I could say a word, he was gone. I drove my car, following closely behind him. Building 7, The Pinnacle Apartments. I stood in the shade of a tree, watching Chloe link her arm through his, intimately walking through that door. The moment the door closed, I pulled out my phone and dialed his number. Through the floor-to-ceiling window of the living room, I saw him stand up immediately, making a gesture as if he were about to leave. Then, Chloe went up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. The sickening sound of wet kisses and his heavy breathing came through the receiver. I gripped my phone, my knuckles turning white. "Caleb. My stomach hurts." Hearing this, Caleb violently shoved Chloe away, grabbed his jacket, and headed for the door. "My sweet girl, don't be scared. I'm coming back right now." Suddenly, a muffled groan came through the phone. Chloe crouched down. Immediately after, the call was disconnected. Ten seconds later, a message popped up: "My sweet girl, an emergency board meeting just got called. I absolutely have to attend. I've already contacted your doctor, he's on his way to our house right now. Don't be scared." I looked up. Through that window, I watched him carry Chloe toward the bedroom. My heart died completely. I pulled out my phone and dialed the hospital's number. "Hello. I need to schedule an abortion." 3 I was about to drive away when I saw someone standing in front of my car. It was my father. We stared at each other for a long moment, and then I followed him into the house where I had lived for eighteen years. The living room was still the same living room, but everything else was different. The photo of my mother and me that used to hang on the wall had been entirely replaced by photos of Chloe and her mother. My mother's favorite begonias had been replaced by sickeningly sweet roses. I stood in the center of the living room, feeling like I was standing in a completely foreign place. My father pointed to the sofa. The moment I sat down, he cut straight to the chase. "Leave Caleb." "I refuse. Caleb is the one who can't leave me." Once, when I discovered he had Chloe's contact info on his phone, feeling betrayed, I packed my bags to leave. He blocked the door. Without a word, he grabbed the fruit knife off the coffee table and plunged it into his own abdomen. Blood poured out, but he didn't take a single step back. He just stared at me. "If you want to leave, it'll be over my dead body." My father didn't speak. He just looked at me with pity. Then, he pointed to the adjacent wall. It was a photo wall. Entirely covered in photos of Chloe and Caleb. Snuggling on a gondola in Venice. Holding hands under the cherry blossoms at Mount Fuji. Kissing passionately beneath the Eiffel Tower. "He didn't go on a business trip last week. He took Chloe traveling all over the world." He stood up, walked to the photo wall, and pointed at the massive wedding portrait in the very center. "They got their marriage license abroad. They had a wedding, and invited everyone." "Including his parents." "To get his parents to accept Chloe and attend their wedding, he knelt outside their door for seven days." "I seem to recall that no one attended your wedding with Caleb, right?" I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. Caleb's parents despised me. They thought I had seduced their son, making him bear the label of a homewrecker and ruining his reputation and future prospects. So, they didn't show up on our wedding day, and they refused to let us visit them. But in the photo, they were smiling with absolute benevolence, happily accepting the ceremonial tea from Chloe. "I heard you got into a car accident a few days ago?" "Because you didn't want Caleb to worry, you handled it all by yourself and didn't tell him." My father scoffed. "Do you know where he was right then?" "He was standing not far away from you, helping Chloe pick out a diamond ring." My brain started buzzing with a loud, ringing sound. "He watched the whole thing. He watched that driver harass you. He watched that man shove you to the ground. He watched you hide in your car and cry. He watched them pound on your window and curse at you. He watched you force yourself to call the police." "And he didn't move a muscle. Because Chloe was thirsty, and he was in a hurry to buy her boba tea." "I don't believe you!" I stood up, trembling all over. I refused to believe that the man who would agonize for half a day over a minor scrape on my knee would watch me being bullied and do absolutely nothing. "These are all lies! These are stories you made up just to get me to leave Caleb!" My father stared at me in silence. That look terrified me. After a long time, he spoke. "Chloe is pregnant." "The baby's name is Julian." Julian. Wishing him a peaceful, secure life. Something snapped in my brain. That name... Caleb and I had spent an entire month flipping through dictionaries to come up with it. That was the name for our child. Only my child's name! "Men understand men best." My father's voice echoed again. "What he has left for you now is just obligation. If you keep going like this, you'll end up exactly like your mother." My mother. When she found out my father had a mistress, she stubbornly refused to get a divorce. My father blatantly brought the mistress into the house and was intimate with her right in front of my mother. Eventually, unable to bear the humiliation, my mother took her own life. Will my fate be the same as my mother's? Spiraling into an endless cycle of breakdowns, madness, and mutual torture? I didn't know. I just suddenly felt incredibly exhausted. I stopped paying attention to the words the man in front of me was saying. I pushed open the door and walked out. The sun outside beat down on me, but I couldn't feel a single trace of warmth.
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