Clara watched him, and despite the horror of her current reality, the corners of her mouth tilted slightly into a faint smile.

How could she ever forget?

Those were the most grueling, impoverished years of her life, yet they were undeniably the most honest and joyful.

Back then, they endured the daily commute together, packed like sardines inside the suffocating cars of the morning subway.

The trains were always dangerously overcrowded, bodies pressed so tightly against bodies that drawing a breath was a challenge.

Ethan would always lock his fingers securely around hers, terrified that a sudden surge of the crowd would tear them apart.

She vividly remembered one particular morning rush hour when the tension in the car snapped.

Two men began screaming over an accidental step on a shoe, their tempers flaring until they launched into a violent fistfight right in the center of the car.

Clara had been standing directly in the path of the brawl, and before she could even register the danger, Ethan had thrown his entire body over hers, shielding her head with his chest.

Clara had distinctly heard the sickening thud of a heavy blow slamming directly into his spine, the force of the impact making his frame shudder. Yet he had merely braced his weight, remaining a immovable wall above her until the train finally screeched to a halt at the next station and he could pull her out onto the platform.

When they returned to their tiny room that evening, she unbuttoned his shirt to find his back covered in a massive, deep purple bruise.

Tears had flooded her eyes, but he had simply smiled through the pain, whispering, "I'm just thankful it hit me instead of you. If I ever failed to protect you, Clarie, I would regret it for the rest of my days."

Chapter 17

Back then, they lived in a cramped space that cost a mere five hundred dollars a month.

The room spanned barely over a hundred square feet, containing nothing but a single bed, a wardrobe, a desk, and a bathroom so narrow it was a struggle just to turn around.

There was no air conditioning in the apartment, and if they so much as switched on a basic electric fan, the fragile, outdated circuit breakers would instantly snap, cutting off the power.

During the scorching height of summer, their only recourse was to take a cold shower every thirty minutes just to artificially lower their body temperatures.

Though life was incredibly harsh, they were genuinely happy.

That tiny hundred-square-foot room could not contain their desperate hunger for a future; holding tight to their shared dreams and leaning heavily on each other, they fiercely believed that a beautiful life awaited them at the end of the road.

Yet time altered everything, and today they resided in a luxury penthouse apartment valued at millions of dollars, seemingly possessing every single thing they had once fantasized about, but the reality was a hollow farce of a marriage, where every day spent under the same roof felt like an eternity of torment.

The deep affection and sacred devotion they once shared had long since been systematically eroded by the tedious friction of daily life and the lure of outside temptations, leaving behind nothing but an echoing void of regret and profound sorrow.

Two weeks unspooled in a quiet blur of apparent normalcy while dangerous undercurrents vibrated beneath the surface.

Ethan escorted Clara to the hospital, where the clinical white walls, the sharp stench of antiseptic, and the chaotic hum of busy medical staff cast a heavy, suffocating solemnity over the atmosphere.

They sat in absolute silence within the waiting lounge, suspended in anticipation for the results of her blood panel.

Ethan’s expression carried a visible tightness of anxiety and hope; his eyes constantly darted back to Clara, reflecting a volatile cocktail of deep remorse for his past sins and an intense longing for a fresh, untainted life.

Finally, the laboratory results were delivered.

The absolute second the physician confirmed that Clara was pregnant, a powerful current seemed to bolt through Ethan's entire frame, sending him into a wave of unhinged, ecstatic emotion.

"Clara! Even God is taking my side!"

Ethan’s voice vibrated with a weeping intensity, a sudden film of moisture glassing his eyes.

Tears pooled against his lower lids before a single drop broke free, rolling slowly down the contour of his flushed cheek and shattering against the clinical tiles of the floor.

"We were always divinely destined to carry a child together."

He murmured the words like a madman reciting a prayer, acting entirely as though the arrival of this baby was a holy pardon granted to patch up their mangled, bleeding relationship.

Meanwhile, within the endless, clinical corridors of the medical center, a massive human tide ebbed and flowed without a break.

Stray individuals hurried past to locate their clinics while others walked with slow, measured steps alongside ailing family members.

A significant number of people slowed their pace as they bypassed Ethan and Clara, casting curious, lingering glances at the emotional display.

To the surrounding crowd, Ethan appeared to be nothing less than an ecstatic, profoundly moved expectant father, his features vibrating with a raw, undeniable joy as his fingers trembled with the sheer weight of anticipation for the new life.

But Clara merely stood perfectly still within the center of his storm, her face a mask of absolute detachment.

Her eyes were hollow and freezing, the reality of the pregnancy failing to strike a single cord of joy in her chest.

Deep within her mind, she knew the foundations had been hacked too deeply; even the arrival of a fresh life could never erase the toxic stains of his betrayal or breathe life into the corpse of her affection.

She stood entirely like a detached spectator, watching the theatrical display with cold indifference.

Following the confirmation of her pregnancy, Ethan seemed to fundamentally alter his character overnight, showering Clara with an obsessive, suffocating level of care, as if the smooth warmth of their early years had magically restored itself.

He honorably fulfilled his baseline promise, severing every line of communication with Sasha until she was completely locked out of his life.

Yet Sasha possessed absolutely no intention of fading quietly into the background.

Unable to breach Ethan's defenses, she went through backend channels to harvest Clara's private contact information, boldly submitting a digital network invitation to connect.

The absolute moment Clara accepted the request, Sasha launched a devastating barrage of files directly into her queue.

There were digital screen captures of her graphic, highly explicit text exchanges with Ethan, every crude line of dialogue carving into Clara's vision;

there were high-resolution images detailing the extravagant luxuries Ethan had showered upon her, from designer bags to fine jewelry, each an explicit monument to how deeply he had spoiled his mistress.

To conclude the assault, Sasha typed a single, venomous curse: "I hope you die on the delivery table alongside your parasite!"

The raw, unadulterated malice bleeding from the text was potent enough to make a normal person shiver with terror.

Tragically for her, she would never have the pleasure of seeing that curse manifest.

Because Clara possessed absolutely no intention of carrying the pregnancy to term.

Chapter 18

Having crawled through an ocean of betrayal and profound physical violation, Clara’s soul was entirely consumed by a cold detachment toward this marriage, toward Ethan, and even toward the unexpected life resting inside her womb.

Consequently, seizing a window when Ethan finally lowered his paranoid surveillance, she quietly slipped out to a medical clinic to schedule an abortion.

Sitting within the clinical room, the physician stared across the desk with a heavy, unyielding solemnity to verify her intent.

The doctor was intimately acquainted with Clara's delicate history; her uterine lining was naturally thin and highly compromised, making conception a near-impossible miracle, and the trauma of her recent induced labor had already inflicted severe structural damage upon her body.

The physician delivered the warning with rigid gravity: "If you move forward with a termination under these exact conditions, you face a permanent risk of irreversible sterility. Understand this clearly: once you sign the consent forms, if a day arrives in your future where you desperately want a child, the door will be permanently locked."

The doctor's voice was heavy with underlying concern, desperately pleading for her to step back and re-evaluate the cost.

Yet Clara merely paused for a single fraction of a heartbeat before offering the physician a small, unbreakable nod. "Thank you for the warning, doctor. I am absolutely certain. I do not want it."

In this exact second, her mind was a sheet of smooth ice; to her, bringing a child into existence solely to watch him drown within the wreckage of a toxic, broken household, or dragging out the corpse of a dead marriage for the sake of an innocent life, was far more monstrous than choosing termination.

She was entirely prepared to bear the weight of permanent sterility if it purchased her freedom.