The day I gave birth, a message came through from an unknown number.
【It's been a year. Cooled off yet?】
I went blank for a second.
Then I saw the last four digits—and remembered. My ex-boyfriend. A year and a half since I walked away.
【Every successful man has a few women trailing behind him. How are you the one who can't handle it?】
【You ran off pregnant with MY child, and neither I nor my parents blamed you for it.】
【Quit the act. Come home.】
The messages kept popping up, one after another, dragging dead memories back to the surface with them.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and handed the phone to my husband beside me.
“Can you get me a new SIM card? I don't want this number anymore.”
Unbelievable.
Someone actually mistook a breakup for a lovers' spat.
……
One year.
If not for those messages, I might not have thought of Owen Finch at all.
I could barely even remember why we broke up.
Was it the endless business dinners, the revolving door of women hanging off his arm?
Was it every appointment he missed while I was pregnant and planning the wedding? Or was it catching him in bed with someone else, right there in our newlywed condo?
The memories that should have torn me apart barely stung anymore.
“Get some rest. I'll have someone take the baby out for a walk.”
“Oh, the postpartum recovery therapist is coming this afternoon. Don't forget to let her in.”
“I'm heading to the office. I already had someone take care of the new number.”
My husband's voice was warm and steady beside me.
He was four years older than me, and by Owen's own definition, equally "successful."
But he was nothing like Owen.
I left Owen right before the wedding.
I was four months pregnant at the time, juggling pregnancy and wedding prep all at once.
Through all of it—the checkups, the preparations, every last thing—Owen never showed up. Not once.
He was either on a business trip or on his way to one.
I was running myself ragged, and every now and then the stress would boil over and I'd lose it.
Owen would go through the motions of calming me down. “Babe, I know this is hard on you. Once I wrap up this case, I'll be right there. I promise.”
“Don't be mad. I'm doing all this for us, aren't I?”
And he really was busy back then.
The firm had several major cases on his desk, and he was drowning in work.
I checked his phone from time to time, and he really had cut things off with those women from the client dinners, just like he'd promised.
So I believed him. Again.
Three days before the wedding, a package of mine got delivered to the newlywed condo by mistake.
I was going to ask Owen to pick it up, but he was busy, so I went myself.
The moment I turned the key, I heard laughter from the bedroom. A man and a woman.
“Stop it, that tickles!”
“Imagine if Margaret found out the new secretary you hired is me, and we're doing this on her wedding bed. Think she'd lose her mind?”
“Owen, you really are a piece of work.”
The woman covered her mouth, giggling—the kind of laugh that was half moan.
“She's not going to find out.”
“I checked her location. She's at home.”
“Hurry up and quit stalling. We've got a flight to catch for that case later.”
Her location……
My fingers closed around the phone so hard the edges bit into my palm.
When I first found out I was pregnant, I'd wanted to end it—because of Owen's cheating.
He'd gotten on his knees and sworn he would change. He even turned on location sharing between our phones.
I thought it was a gesture of trust. Turns out it was his way of keeping tabs on me.
Every drop of blood in my body slammed into reverse.
I kicked the bedroom door open.
Crimson sheets. Bare white skin, blinding against the red.
