I Aborted Our Baby The Day He Celebrated His Mistress Birthday Chapter 04

I Aborted Our Baby The Day He Celebrated His Mistress Birthday Chapter 04

Two years ago, Harper called in sick, so I grabbed her plans and headed to the site myself.

It was pouring. The site was nearly empty. I trudged through the mud, eyes on the plans.

I trusted Harper’s work. Didn’t even think to double-check the route.

I didn’t realize I’d crossed into the restricted zone until the ground gave way. A deafening rumble, and everything came down on top of me.

A concrete slab took the worst of it — wedged at an angle above me, holding back the mud. That slab was the only reason I survived.

I couldn’t see. All I had was the sound of my own breathing — ragged, too fast — and a heartbeat so loud it drowned out everything else. Pain was everywhere. I couldn’t tell where any of it started.

My right arm wasn’t responding. Broken, probably.

I couldn’t move anything except my left hand. I dragged it through the dirt, inch by inch, until my fingers found my phone. The space was so tight I could barely bend my wrist.

I unlocked it by muscle memory, found Julian’s pinned chat by touch, and started typing blind.

I could feel myself slipping.

I bit down on my tongue to stay conscious — tasted blood, tasted salt. His name was the only thing keeping me anchored. I whispered it like a prayer and kept hitting send, over and over.

“Julian… I’m so scared, please find me…” “I don’t want to die…”

Every second was a different kind of hell. I passed out, came to, cried until I passed out again. At some point, my phone died. I don’t even know when.

The whole time, I believed Julian had read them. I kept telling myself he was coming — that any second, I’d hear voices, the scrape of shovels, my name.

Even as my body started shutting down, his name was still on my lips. I never stopped believing he’d come.

Three days later, the rescue team dug me out. I barely had a pulse.

The paramedics called my emergency contact right there, with everyone listening. Julian’s number. He finally picked up just before it went to voicemail.

A girl’s voice answered, irritated. “Why do you keep calling? He’s sleeping!”

They called back. “Hi, we’re calling about Eleanor—”

The line went dead. This time, my number was blocked.

I was dying on the table, and no one had the authority to sign off on surgery. The surgeon made the call himself — overrode protocol and operated without consent. He said later that just a little longer and there would’ve been nothing left to save.

I spent weeks in the ICU.

The entire time, Julian never once checked on me. Harper kept him busy enough that he never wondered.

My right arm had been shattered. They put it back together with pins and plates, but the nerve damage was done. It took months of rehab before I could hold a pencil again, and even then, barely.

My hand still shakes sometimes.

Our marriage almost didn’t survive it. I tore the apartment apart — smashed dishes, shattered mirrors, came close to setting the whole place on fire.

Julian’s face was stinging red from my hand. My nails had dug into his arms until they bled.

I screamed until my throat gave out. “Why? Why would you do this to me?”

“You set up an auto-reply for me? For ME? Julian, is that how little I mean to you?!”

He didn’t even flinch. “I just didn’t feel like replying.”

“You text too much. How many pictures of cats and clouds does one person need? I’m just not interested.”

That was the moment something in me went dark.

After that, the distance between us only grew — and neither of us tried to close it.

Until I broke. I finally admitted what I’d been running from — I couldn’t keep settling. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life pretending this was enough.

If I had one regret, it was this — giving Julian one chance after another.

I should have left him two years ago.