Goodbye,My Once Beloved

At eighteen, I was desperate to get into the renowned K University's amphitheater classrooms.

By thirty, I found myself and my boyfriend of ten years in a tiny, barely tensquaremeter rental, sitting through my confinement after childbirth.

In the same budget private hospital, I lost two children due to poorquality condoms!

——

Another sunny day, I sat across from the familiar doctor, belly still not showing.

"This is your third baby. Young lady, your uterine wall is very thin. It will only get harder and harder to get pregnant in the future!"

The nearly fiftyyearold doctor adjusted his glasses, looking at my report with a wellintentioned, bitter earnestness.

I turned to glance at the small BMW Mini parked below the hospital, hardened my heart, and nodded vigorously.

I went on the operating table alone and lay in the ward alone.

"The child has already been aborted!"

I sent a brief message to Jack Smith, then coldly blocked all his contacts.

From that point on, I knew that my tenyear long romantic run with Jack had finally ended.

The BMW was an engagement gift from David Wilson, who hated to see me squeeze onto the bus every day. With a playful laugh, after several polite refusals, I happily accepted.

David was my fiancé, averagelooking, about 5.7 feet tall, just about my height.

Honestly, both in looks and demeanor, he was leagues behind my exboyfriend, Jack.

However, counting David's local status in K City, his welloff parents both university professors, and his modest success from entrepreneurship, Jack could never catch up to David in this lifetime!

I was never a gold digger. When I was young and beautiful, I chose to believe in love.

I had been pregnant three times for Jack, and I had three abortions. For a decade of love, no matter how naive we were in our youth, I felt I had paid enough!

Memories surged, piercing my heart like a thorn, impossible to pull out or swallow.

Jack was my boyfriend of ten years, four years in college, three years in grad school, three years postgraduation.

I spent the best years of a girl's life with Jack.

During these ten years, I wore the most expensive clothes from eshop that would not exceed two hundred dollars, and always dared only to eat the fiftycent pudding sticks.

Living like this day after day for ten years, the biggest skill I learned was how to save money.

Bread sold at halfprice after six in the evening at the supermarket, a store at the end of the market that sold damaged cosmetics at just 20% of the price—these trivial details were carved into every corner of my brain over ten years.

But back then, I was just in my early twenties, who would care about all that?

''As long as Jack treats me well, that's enough.''

I often used this phrase to interrupt my mother's nagging on the phone.

Yes, I was content as long as Jack treated me well.

How well? At one in the morning, Jack would cross several streets to buy my favorite mung bean rice balls. No matter how tired, whenever I threw a tantrum, Jack would soothe me for hours despite his dark circles.

I was always a princess in front of Jack, all the favoritism I never got as a child, he gave to me.

Wasn't that enough? Wasn't such love worth more than the bread of life?

It wasn't worth it!

Back then, I didn't realize how powerful the daily grind of life could be!

And this socalled ''being good to me'' could be so miserably small.

Love is so fragile. How can it withstand trials?

Jack and I both came from rural areas in other provinces. He had a younger brother, and I also had a younger brother. We both had parents who favored sons over daughters, the difference being, he was the eldest son, enjoying the rare care from his family, while I was a girl, destined to marry and never receiving any special affection at any stage of growth.

As a child, I could only play with toys my brother didn't want, and only ate the snacks he couldn't finish. So, I knew from a young age the importance of studying hard, never daring to miss any chance to change my fate.

Jack and I were the same. We both squeezed through the millions of candidates in the college entrance exam, struggling into a prestigious university in K City, as they say now, we were typical "poor kids."

In our backward rural hometown, we were seen as the most promising children in the neighborhood.

However, it seemed this did not change our fate much!

In K City, a place where every inch of land is worth its weight in gold, even with the title of graduate students from a prestigious university, Jack and I could only afford to live in this tiny old room.

How small was our rental?

The house was less than ten square meters, with a shared bathroom and kitchen.

When I first moved in, I went to take a shower and saw through the glass door a man in his forties from next door, his greasy, corpulent body blocking the door, which scared me from ever using that bathroom again.

Our rental was near the city center of K City, close to where Jack and I worked. The rent was expensive, but the room was pitifully small. Apart from a bed, a desk, and two pots, nothing else fit.

Whenever Jack and I were intimate, we had to be extremely careful with our movements. Any slight indulgence would either result in complaints from the neighbors or the sound of those two pots falling off the desk next to the bed.

Such days naturally bred some resentment.

Actually, both Jack's and my jobs weren't bad, our combined salary definitely reached nearly thirty thousand a month.

We scrimped and saved, penny by penny, all to have a home of our own in K City.

''Baby, let's have a child!''

On an ordinary night under dim light, Jack lay beside me, turned towards me, and whispered into my ear.

''What are you thinking? I've already lost two children!''

Remembering what the doctor said last time, I sat up annoyed, shaking off Jack's hand and turning away with a frown.

Jack stayed silent, the air still filled with the scent of hormones.

''My mom has already pushed us to get married and she really wants to have a grandchild. You have already had two abortions, otherwise, you give birth to this child this time!''

Jack moved behind me, his flushed face as if he was proposing, his tone pleasing, even cautiously probing.

And all of this, I couldn't feel a shred of romance.

I looked around the shabby rental, the anger choking up to my throat was suppressed by another inexplicable sadness.

I sighed deeply, feeling heavier than if a thousand kilos were pressing on my chest.

"How can I give birth to a child? Can you afford it?"

I turned away from Jack, silently for a long time, calmly yet helplessly stating the facts, without a trace of blame, yet enough to give us a cold war all night.

He couldn't afford it, yet I was pregnant again!

During lunch break, while colleagues went out to eat, I hid in the last stall of the office bathroom, carefully placing the test strip in the urine cup.

Watching the urine soak the test strip and slowly climb up was more nervewracking than waiting for the college entrance exam results.

When the glaring two red lines appeared, I felt like I had been struck by lightning, violently throwing the urine cup into the trash. The arrival of this child, like a loud slap, pained me deeply.

The tears I had been holding back all day were almost bursting out.

After calming down for a long time, I gently picked up the urine cup from the trash, wrapped the test strip with two lines in layers of toilet paper, and then stuffed it into a fake Gucci bag to take away.

I had no choice. I had waited three years for a promotion opportunity. If my manager found out I was pregnant, not to mention a promotion, I might not even keep my job.

''I'm pregnant again!''

Sitting at my desk, I quickly sent a message to Jack, then swiftly turned off my phone's screen light, guiltily stuffing the phone back into my bag.

Ten minutes later, I took out my phone, Jack hadn't replied.

Was he busy? Was he in a meeting?

I still habitually made excuses for him, never wanting to admit, maybe we didn't love each other anymore.

If it were a few years ago, how could Jack be like this, no matter how busy, he wouldn't take more than ten minutes to reply to my messages. Ten years had passed, the passion between us had long been exhausted, leaving either kinship or something else, I didn't know.

After much thought, I still sent a message to my mom, thousands of miles away.

''I plan to marry Jack!''

The moment I pressed the send button, my hands were trembling.

Yes, this decision was hasty and ludicrous, but other than getting married, I couldn't think of any other way to give a perfect ending to these ten years of effort.

I didn't want to abort this child again. I wanted stability, even if it was impoverished stability. I desperately wanted it.

"Without a betrothal gift of 200,000 dollars, forget it!"

My mom's reply came almost instantly.

I held the phone, tiredly resting my forearm, tears buried in the 300 dollars women's suit from eshop I was wearing.

'Angel, you have to understand mom. Jack's family is poor, relying on you two to struggle, you won't have good days!"

My mother's message popped up again.

My heart felt like it was soaked in bilefilled vinegar, both bitter and sour.

''Baby, I'm sorry. This is all my fault. let's go to the hospital together tomorrow!''

Jack finally replied to my message two hours later, but his words lacked the resolve of that night.

I sneered, typed a response, and then deleted it, eventually stuffing the phone back into my bag.

I Understood Jack's pressure. Given our current life, we indeed did not have the capacity to bear the arrival of this child. This pressure weighed on him and on me.

But at that moment, I suddenly mustered a kind of reckless courage.

"I want to get married and give birth to the baby!"

I quickly typed a line of text, pressing send before I could regret it.

Another long wait, until the end of the workday, Jack still hadn't replied.

Dragging my already exhausted body, looking at my reflection in the subway station glass, I felt my supposedly selfrighteous courage was so laughable.

The subway was crowded. I felt like a sandwich cookie being compressed to its smallest.

I felt my stomach churning, a sharp pain in my lower abdomen.

''Fine, if it can crush this child out, so be it!''

The tears I had held back all day finally broke through at that moment. I bowed my head and cried silently, the crowd too dense, no one saw me.

I had already thought it through. I would abort this child and pretend to live as if nothing happened.

Or, I would follow my mom's advice, break up with Jack, go back to my hometown for a blind date and find a reliable man to settle down with. After all, no matter how I lived, as long as it wasn't like this, I just wanted a way out of this life!

When I reached the door of our rental, I indulgently bought a HaagenDaze, the sweet taste of cream melting in my mouth, and my troubled heart gradually stabilized.

I wiped away my tears, casually straightened my hair.

"Let's break up!"

"Have you ever thought that maybe we are not suitable!"

I practiced these inevitably awkward topics as I walked to the rental.

I couldn't tell if I was just angry or really ready to leave.

However, all the hesitations weighed down as I opened the rental door, rationality once again suppressed by emotion.

As the door opened, a delicious smell of stewed meat wafted towards me.

Jack was wearing an apron, stewing ribs in our small pot on a tiny electric stove.

''Angel, sit down. I made meat soup for you.''

I ignored him, threw the empty HaagenDaze wrapper on the floor, then sat down on the bed, feeling a mix of emotions, still upset he hadn't replied.

"Angel, I went around several streets to buy the meat. It is perfectly marbled. You eat more later."

Jack clearly noticed my displeasure, yet habitually played dumb.

''Why didn't you reply to my messages?''

I looked coldly at Jack, my tone not gentle.

The ashtray was filled with countless cigarette butts. I knew, Jack couldn't have missed my messages.

'Angel, I was on the phone with my mom for an hour. She and my dad sold the cattle back home, scraped together a few tens of thousands for us. Along with what we've saved, it's just enough to buy a small apartment. let's get married!"

Jack's eyes were so sincere. I almost mustered the courage to bet my whole life on it.

"My mom..."

I started to say but stopped myself, unable to bear telling Jack that my mom wanted 200,000 dollars for the dowry.

"What's wrong, Angel?"

Jack wiped the tears from my face with his fingers, his eyes full of concern.

I said nothing more, just turned into his embrace. At that moment, it felt like I could really escape the troubles.

"Did you buy this ice cream?"

Sure enough, sweetness lasted only a second!

Jack's eyes fell on the ''HaagenDaze'' wrapper on the floor.

''This ice cream is so expensive!''

The atmosphere turned a bit awkward, and before I could speak, Jack released me from his embrace to pick up the ice cream wrapper from the ground.

''I just wanted to taste it.''

I tried to explain patiently, my voice tinged with an absurd sense of guilt.

''Angel, can you not be so vain? What's so good about this? I really don't get it. You're the one who wants to get married. Don't you know our situation? We need to save every penny we can!''

''I just wanted to try the flavor.''

I sat on the bed, tears inappropriately welling up in my eyes again.

''Do you really need to eat this one bite? It's so expensive!''

Jack's sigh was so loud that it disturbed the calm in my heart.

"How does eating an ice cream make me vain? I bought it with my own money. What's wrong with that? Don't I even deserve to eat ice cream now?"

I angrily grabbed the ice cream wrapper, threw it into the trash, and stomped on it several times.

The room fell silent again. Jack and I sat at opposite ends, neither of us speaking.

"Have you got a meal yet?"

Just then, David sent me a Twitter message with a picture of seafood, featuring shrimp and shellfish, from a restaurant near my company—a place Jack and I had passed several times but never entered.

"I have eaten."

I replied to him, adding a cat emoji.

David was a client at our company, and I was in charge of his project.

We first met two months ago when I wore standard professional attire and gave him a warm smile. I noticed then how his gaze lingered on my face.

David was pursuing me, with casual messages and gifts on holidays clearly indicating his intentions.

I had gently told him I had a boyfriend, but he only joked, saying as long as I wasn't married, he still had a chance.

I maintained a polite distance with David, keeping the ambiguity just right. He didn't know about my pregnancy or upcoming marriage!

I never thought about betraying Jack. After ten years together, I couldn't just let go.

"Angel, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Just don't buy such expensive ice cream in the future, okay? Let's go look at houses tomorrow!"

Jack's voice interrupted my thoughts, and I quickly put away my phone.

He didn't see the panic that flickered through my eyes. We embraced, a gesture of making up, as simple and straightforward as a routine.

Yes, I was ultimately going to marry Jack. I never doubted that.

Over the next week, Jack and I visited countless real estate agents and brokers in City K.

After much comparison and consideration, we decided to buy a 60squaremeter secondhand apartment near my company. The original owner was eager to go abroad and offered a low price. The money Jack and I had saved over the years, plus a few tens of thousands from his parents, was just enough.

The apartment, compared to that tensquaremeter rental, was like a mansion to us. We were both very satisfied.

After agreeing on a time to pay the deposit, we even indulged in a celebratory meal of crayfish for the first time.

Somehow, sitting at that roadside crayfish stall with cars speeding past, my mind kept going back to David's seafood photo—the broth creamy white, the shrimp a tender red. It must be delicious!

The wedding, I told neither my mother nor anyone at the company. We planned to simply get a marriage license and take a few days off to travel nearby.

This would save money on a banquet and avoid any hassle.

Let's take it one step at a time. I really wanted a home of my own.

But where was there a wall that didn't let the wind through?

A real estate agency offered a free thermos for sharing their post.

Yes, for that thermos, I blocked my mom, colleagues, everyone I could think of, except I forgot my brother's classmate!

''Sister, I heard you're buying a house?''

Over the phone, I could almost see my younger brother's smug face.

''Yes, I'm planning to marry Jack.''

'Sister, are you crazy? Paying for a house yourself, Mom was not stopping you from getting married, but Jack really can't take care of you. He can't even provide a 200,000 dollars dowry. Can you be happy with him?''

I had anticipated my brother's words. My tender heart felt stabbed again.

Only my silent sighs were left on the phone, no more words.

It was false to say I wasn't hesitant. I touched my belly, and after calming down, I felt only worry.

However, reality proved that all worries would be validated by a worse truth.

The day before we were to pay the deposit coincidentally was my prenatal checkup.

Jack received a sudden notice to work overtime, so I had to go to the hospital alone.

I added a few hundred extra, got a specialist number from a scalper, and after rushing to catch the subway and bus, I even took a whole day off from work and sat alone in the obstetrics ward, covered in dust and dirt.

Yet, in the hospital corridor, I saw Jack bustling around with another woman!

''Doctor, the surgery should be fine now, right?''

Sitting in the waiting area, I heard Jack's voice from the specialist's office.

I froze for a second, quickly looked up at the partially closed door.

''Doctor, when can we do the surgery? Money is no object for the medical expenses!''

As I approached the office, I heard that alltoofamiliar tone of voice.

It couldn't be! I must have heard wrong. Jack told me he was working overtime today!

My heart raced to my throat, my steps quickening.

Had Jack betrayed me? I dared not think further.

When I saw Jack's figure through the crack in the door, I could find no more excuses for him.

'The pregnancy is too far along and surgery is very risky. We are a reputable hospital! We can't just do anything."

The doctor, wearing a cap and mask, looked coldly at Jack, his face full of disdain for a scoundrel.

"Yes! Yes!"

Jack apologized profusely, nearly bowing at a ninetydegree angle.

And there I stood at the doorway, my mind blank.

It was clear now. Jack had gotten this woman pregnant and was bringing her here for an abortion!

''Money is not an issue!''

It was laughable. In the ten years I was with Jack, the first time I heard him speak so grandly was in a maternity clinic, helping another woman get an abortion!

The woman sitting next to Jack was sobbing softly, her belly swollen like a blownup balloon.

''Angel, what are you doing here?''