Chapter 2

My sister looked at me with worry. “Where’s your wife? Why didn’t she come? Bro, there isn’t enough money in your insurance account. I covered part of it, but it still wasn’t enough.”

Zoe was probably with Ethan right now.

They were childhood friends.

I met Zoe when Ethan rejected her confession.

I thought my sincerity could shield her from wind and rain, that it could make her look at me once.

I never thought I would always come up short compared to him.

I called Zoe again, and once again, she hung up right away.

In the end, I had no choice but to use our joint account to pay the medical bills.

When we got married, I gave that card to Zoe.

It held everything I owned. I wanted to use all my assets to tell her I would never change, so she could let her guard down.

That card was also the source of her confidence.

Right after the payment went through, Zoe, who had been ignoring me, called me back immediately.

“Where are you? Why did you suddenly spend so much money? I already told you, if you need money from the card later, you have to tell me in advance!”

Just as I was about to answer, I heard a child whining and crying on the other end of the line.

“Zoe, the kid’s crying again.”

It was Ethan’s voice.

“Your kid is so clingy to his mom. He can’t even be apart from her for a second.”

“It’s rare to see a new mom doing this well. Your wife hasn’t slept for a whole day and night. You really need to take good care of her.”

The bystanders’ words kept stabbing into my heart.

What hurt me even more was that Zoe didn’t even argue.

I was gripping my phone so hard I almost crushed it, and I didn’t even notice when the needle slipped out.

We had once had an unexpected child too.

I begged and begged, hoping that since the time had come, we could have the baby.

But Zoe fought me hard. She didn’t want children. She wanted to stay childfree.

No matter how much I hated to lose that little life, I still ended up agreeing to her decision to give up the baby, as long as she stayed by my side.

Now she was willing to do this much for someone else’s child.

So she didn’t hate children. She just didn’t love a child that carried my genes.

I numbly watched the doctor reinsert the needle for me.

My head throbbed dully.

My sister was about to have finals and couldn’t take too much time off.

She mentioned Zoe again. “Bro, tell me where your wife is already. I’ll go find her and bring her here to take care of you. You can’t even move properly right now. What are you supposed to do?”

“She...”

My throat was so dry I couldn’t even get a single word out.

Only after I found a caregiver did my sister finally leave in peace.

A few days later, my phone suddenly filled with unread messages.

It turned out my act of bravery had been posted online.

Friends and even former clients all sent messages to check on me.

But there wasn’t a single message from Zoe.

She was busy taking care of Ethan’s child. Of course she had no time to care about me.

I gave a bitter smile.

My hand, however, unconsciously swiped to her profile picture and opened her Moments.

She had posted a new update not long ago: [The most amazing man is the one who knows how to take care of a child!]

Our mutual friends all agreed in the comments and praised me heavily.

But Zoe only replied to the comments that didn’t mention me by name.

My heart sank little by little.

The next morning, I woke up and saw Zoe.

She had come looking exhausted, dark circles visible under her eyes. She was wearing a man’s jacket, and I could smell milk on her from far away.

Zoe had always been so polished that even taking out the trash required her to dress up carefully. When had she ever looked this down-and-out?

When she saw I was awake, she immediately sent the caregiver away and held my hand tightly. “Ryan, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were in such a serious car accident. If my friend hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known about this at all.”