End of My Dream

I saw an advertisement on a secondhand marketplace app that someone was giving away an unused stroller for free, pickup only. The address was in a wealthy neighborhood across town. I secured my daughter against my chest in a baby carrier, spent two hours changing buses, then walked for another half an hour under the scorching sun before finally reaching the small mansion. I was drenched in sweat, and my daughter was so hot she started wailing. The seller was a woman about my age, with the refined air of someone who had been pampered her whole life. She studied my miserable state, her voice laced with both disdain and pity. "You came all the way from Eastside? And you're planning to push the stroller all the way back like this? My driver's going to take my husband to the office. He can drop you off on the way. Consider it one last good deed on my part." I thanked her profusely. I had just opened the car door when the man in the back seat stepped out to avoid any awkwardness. "I'll sit up front." I felt a little embarrassed, but the instant I saw his face, I froze. It was my husband, Calvin Gomez, the man who left early and came home late every day and had not come home for the holidays in three straight years because he claimed he was working for triple pay. Chapter 1 The moment our eyes met, there was a hint of surprise on Calvin Gomez's face. Then, he composed himself. His eyes moved over our daughter's tear-streaked face, and he frowned. "You wouldn't even call a cab because you're trying to save money?" He nodded at his personal assistant, Liam Brown. "Call her a cab. I just remembered I have a project to check and endorse. It isn't too far out of the way." I was in shock, but Liam forced me into the cab that had just arrived before I could question him. The doors locked, and I received a text from Calvin on my phone: [Go home for now. I'll explain later at night.] The message before that was one he had sent yesterday. [Honey, working overtime is so awful. I'm so tired, but I feel motivated again when I think of you and our daughter.] With shaking hands, I replied, [Calvin, how can you do this to us?] As soon as I sent it, a red error icon appeared. He had blocked me. I still refused to give up and called him, but every call went straight to voicemail. I was in disbelief as tears rolled down my cheeks. Suddenly, my screen lit up. It was Mia Kendrick, a well-known parenting influencer in the city. She had just updated her Facebook status. The photo showed me beside the stroller earlier, thanking her. In her post, she said, [I was bored and was clearing out some old things. I never thought I'd end up helping a mother who's facing such hardship in life.] [I didn't know people still lived like this nowadays. I'm grateful to my husband for giving me such a comfortable life. Comparison really is the thief of joy... From now on, I'll do everything I can to help more struggling mothers.] The comments all praised her for being beautiful and kind. A few people even attacked me for being poor and still having a child. They said any child born into my family had the worst luck. I was so furious I could barely breathe, and my hands shook as I scrolled through her profile. During the holidays, Calvin had claimed he was working overtime for triple pay, but he had flown to Sunshore with Mia and her son for a vacation. I wanted to reduce his burden, so I dragged myself out while pregnant to work in food delivery while everyone else was enjoying precious time with their families. But another rider's e-bike knocked me down, and I nearly miscarried. I was afraid Calvin would worry, so I said nothing and went to the hospital for a checkup on my own. When gold prices were soaring, Mia posted a photo of gold jewelry spread across her bed. The caption read, [Men who appreciate their wives succeed. I thought gold looked a little tacky, but Cal said I deserved everything other women had too. I never expected its value to climb this much!] Before our wedding, I calculated the price in my head every time the saleswoman brought over a new piece when Calvin took me to the jewelry store. To buy one gold bracelet, Calvin would need to save ten months of wages without spending a cent. Even a pair of gold earrings could keep our little family going for two months. When I saw the stress on Calvin's face, I asked only for a two-gram gold ring. I was so afraid of losing it that I never wore it once. Scrolling down, I saw a photo of a woman feeding a child with her back to the camera. Even the caption could not hide Mia's happiness as she bragged. [I don't know where Cal heard that breastfeeding is not only painful but bad for a woman's body, so he hired a wet nurse for the baby.] The metallic taste of blood in my mouth made me realize I had bitten through my lip in anger. After I gave birth to our daughter Annie Gomez, I could not produce milk. But Calvin and I could not afford expensive formulas on our meager wages, so I had to buy a breast pump and use it. Every time, the pain was so intense that I broke out in a cold sweat. Calvin hugged me tight when he saw me hurting and swore through tears that once he made more money, he would make it up to me. I never imagined he had learned from my suffering just to take care of another woman. In despair, I picked up my phone and sent a message to a chat that had been silent for years. [The promise you made me… Does it still stand?] Chapter 2 I got out of the cab with my mind still in a fog. But before I even reached the door, I realized Annie was burning up in my arms. I had been malnourished during pregnancy, and Annie had been frail since birth. I had no choice but to keep her with me at all times. I hurried to the nearest hospital. After Annie was finally connected to an IV, I went to the hospital lobby to pay the bill, but an angry voice came from behind me. "Rose, didn't I say I'd explain when you got home? Why did you follow Mia and me to the hospital? She just found out she's pregnant with her second child and can't be upset. Hurry up and leave!" Calvin grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the entrance. I slapped him hard on the face instead. "Annie has a 104-degree fever, but you're here with another woman for a prenatal checkup. Where's your conscience?" "Annie is strong, just like you. How could she suddenly get sick?" He questioned me instead. Suddenly, I felt all the strength drained from my body. I had handled everything after Annie's birth. Calvin had not changed a single diaper and he knew nothing about Annie's health conditions. Calvin still wanted to say something, but he stopped when he saw my red eyes. "Where is she? I'll go see her." Then, he continued, "I told you a long time ago to stop being so stingy with the money. It was bad enough that you picked up a stroller someone else threw out for her, but you wouldn't even spend money on a cab. Now she has to suffer because of your penny-pinching." I could no longer control myself. Three years of hurt surged up all at once. "You think I want to do that? Would I be doing this if I had money? If not for that stroller, I never would have known you had pretended to be poor and lied to me for three years while spending every cent you made on your home wrecker." Calvin, who used to tease me with a smile no matter how unreasonable I was, instantly went cold. "What right does a woman who has slept with someone else have the right to call Mia a home wrecker?" My ears rang. For the first time, the man who had shared my bed for three years felt like a stranger. Back then, everyone avoided us after my family went bankrupt and my father jumped from a building. The debt collectors took me and tortured me for a full day and night as revenge. When Calvin called the police and saved me, I was barely clothed, covered in wounds and blood from fighting back in desperation. With red eyes, he held me and told me repeatedly that he believed me. He also had all the edited photos circulating online taken down. But… It turned out he had never believed me. I leaned weakly against the wall. When Calvin saw that I could barely stand, his expression softened. "What happened mattered to my parents, so they threatened to cut me off from my inheritance unless I married Mia. Once I take full control of the company, I'll bring you and Annie to live with me. I won't let you suffer anymore. "Mia has been spoiled since she was little, and she’s always depended on me. When the time comes, you’ll have to be a little more understanding with her." I let out a bitter laugh. "There's no need for that anymore." Before I could finish, Mia's voice came from the other end of the corridor. "Honey, you promised to go with me for my prenatal checkup. Where are you?" Calvin's expression changed instantly, and he quickly pulled away from me. But Mia still spotted us. She stormed over and swung her handbag, hitting my face. "I gave you a stroller out of my kindness, and you came here to seduce my husband? What's wrong with you?!" Chapter 3 Mia hit me so hard that I fell to the floor, and blood trickled down my nose. Calvin's eyes flashed with pity, and he instinctively reached out to help me. However, Mia held her forehead and leaned against him. "Honey, I'm so dizzy, and I just found out I'm pregnant. Will this affect our baby? Hurry and take me to a doctor." Calvin's expression changed. He threw a stack of cash at my face, then hurried away with Mia. Despite the pain, I staggered to my feet, but in the next second, I saw a nurse yanking Annie's IV and carrying her out. "All the doctors in the hospital have been called to treat Mrs. Gomez. We can't take this child anymore." Annie suddenly burst into tears. Her fever had not gone down, and her body started shaking after the fright. "She's having a seizure! Please save her! She's Calvin Gomez's daughter!" The nurse gave me a strange look but simply shook her head. I was so anxious I almost dropped to my knees. I had no choice but to use an old number to call Calvin. "Annie is having a seizure! Please have a doctor come see her!" An angry roar came from the other end of the phone. "You're using our daughter to lie now just to get attention? Do you even deserve to be a mother?" The call was immediately cut off. Seeing Annie's convulsions getting worse, I had no time to argue and ran to the nearest clinic. The doctor’s expression was grim. He said that if I had been even a little later, Annie would have suffered irreversible brain damage. Still shaken, I held Annie's little hand tightly with mine. Then, my phone started ringing nonstop. As soon as I answered, a vicious woman's voice came through. "You shameless witch! You're already a mother, and you're still throwing yourself at a married man! Do something decent for your child's sake!" Before I could speak, the call ended. Another unknown number called right away. I had just hung up when countless bad reviews and filthy insults flooded the delivery app. [Found her! This is the home wrecker who delivers food! I'm putting a bad review! Food delivered by someone like her disgusts me!] [You lowlife! It's because of ungrateful trash like you that more and more kind people become cold!] In the next second, a message from my manager popped up. [Don't come in anymore after tomorrow!] Mia had updated her social media and she had uploaded pictures of Calvin and me arguing in the hospital. She accused me that after I rode in the cab Calvin had called, I got ideas and wanted to become his mistress to extort money. In a video she uploaded, she cried as she spoke. "Thankfully, my husband knows how to keep his distance. Otherwise, I truly wouldn't know what to do." I nearly crushed my phone in my hand, but Annie suddenly pointed at the screen and called softly. "Daddy..." The tears I had forced back trickled out again. During the three years Calvin pretended to be poor, he spent longer and longer away from home each time. To make sure Annie recognized her father, I recorded plenty of videos of him whenever he was home. I played them for Annie over and over and kept telling her how much Calvin loved her. But now, someone in Mia's comment section had attached a photo of Annie with the caption, [The homewrecker's daughter.] Chapter 4 I swallowed my anger and carefully wrote how Calvin and I had met, fallen in love, and gotten married in the comment section. Once, those memories made me smile whenever I thought of them. Now, they all inflicted pain on me. Whenever I thought about how he had been lying to me behind every beautiful moment, I could not stop gritting my teeth. I had just typed the last word and had not yet pressed send when my account was suddenly suspended. Calvin's chat popped up. [Mia's emotions are getting very unstable during pregnancy. Don't take what she posted online personally. Just let her rant.] Then, I received a notification that ten thousand dollars had been transferred to my bank account, and more texts came in. [The internet forgets fast. Stay home with Annie for a while until this blows over.] [As long as you don't stir things up, my promise won't change. Once I inherit the company, I'll bring you both to live with me and make it up to you.] As I stared at the notification, my fingers dug into my palm so hard that it almost bled. When I gave birth to Annie, I had a difficult labor. The whole delivery room was filled with my screams. Yet, to maintain his carefully crafted image, Calvin refused to pay the two hundred dollars for a dose of pain medication. But to keep me quiet for Mia's sake, he handed me ten thousand dollars like it was nothing to him. The comments with photos of Annie and me spread fast, and my front door was splattered with red paint and rotting garbage from strangers. To protect Annie, I had no choice but to lock the doors and windows tight and draw the curtains. Just as I was waiting in despair for the storm to pass, Calvin kicked the door open with red eyes and grabbed me by the throat. "Rose! Are you trying to kill Mia's baby?!" I could barely breathe and struggled to follow his phone screen. An anonymous account had posted the story of how Calvin and I got together and claimed I had been pressured and cyberbullied by the woman who was the wife of a wealthy man. My eyes widened in shock. "This wasn't me! Someone else did that..." Before I could finish, Calvin slapped me and cut me off. "Who else but you would stoop this low to hurt a pregnant woman like Mia?! You'll pay for what you did!" He had Liam carry Annie away and shoved me into a car, then dragged me all the way to the hospital and forced me to kneel before Mia's hospital bed. Mia's face was pale. "You went to all this trouble to get close to my husband… Are you satisfied now that you see me like this?" Before she even finished, Calvin had someone set a phone in front of me, facing me as I was forced to my knees in front of Mia. "Apologize to her publicly on a livestream, or you'll never see Annie again." My whole body trembled for a moment, then I felt as if all my strength had been drained. "You're threatening me with our daughter?" He looked away with a dark expression on his face. "You owe her." I faced the comments scrolling on the screen and forced out each word. "I am Rose Wilson. I shouldn't have gone after Mia's husband when she was being kind to me. I should not have deliberately made up lies and used an anonymous account to spread rumors and slander her. I apologize to everyone for my actions." At his signal, I lowered my head to my knees. When I raised my eyes again, I saw all the edited photos from back then scrolling across the screen. The viewers were furious. [So she was already sleeping around all those years ago. No wonder she's so shameless.] The edited photos Calvin had once scrubbed from the internet were suddenly posted for all to see. I looked at him in disbelief, but I no longer had the strength to ask why. "Give my daughter back to me." Seeing the blank look on my face, he froze. He opened his mouth, but said nothing. Instead, he had Liam lock my daughter and me in a VIP ward on the same floor. Three days later, Calvin pushed open the door and said, "The online backlash is already under control. As long as you admit your mistake, we..." Only an empty room remained. At the same time, a message popped up on his phone, and Calvin's face went pale...