Theater: NovelMaster | Language: English | NEW
Synopsis
My best friend and I married two brothers from the Sterling family, becoming sisters-in-law.
My husband was a fire captain, and hers was a renowned ER doctor. We lived in the same apartment building and became pregnant around the exact same time.
Just ten days after I gave birth, a massive earthquake tore through our city.
We were trapped beneath the collapsed ruins of our building.
My newborn baby and I were covered in deep cuts, the smell of blood mixing sickeningly with the choking dust.
Shielding my baby beneath my trembling body, I desperately dialed my husband’s number.
Call after call, he hung up on me.
Finally, the call went through, but instead of help, a barrage of furious shouts poured through the speaker: "I'm on duty! Don't you know there's an earthquake? You still want to start a damn fight right now? I just pulled Nana from the rubble and I need to get her to safety. Leave me alone!"
He hung up immediately.
Then came the violent aftershock. A slab of falling concrete crushed both my arms, and right before my eyes, my baby was killed.
The world went blood-red.
Just when I had lost all hope, my best friend arrived leading a rescue crew in her car. But her brakes failed, and she crashed straight into the debris.
Blood soaked through the bottom of her dress instantly. Trembling, she dialed her husband’s phone.
Her husband snapped in fury, "Are you insane? There's an earthquake! The ER is packed with casualties and you're calling to nag me?"
Before she could speak, his tone shifted on the other end, turning sickeningly tender: "Nana, don't cry. We'll go look for your dog later. Right now, let me treat your wounds, okay? Be a good girl."
That sweet, doting tone was immediately cut off by the harsh dial tone.
The rescue team eventually pulled both of us onto stretchers and rushed us to the hospital.
I barely survived with my life. She lost the baby in her womb.
In that quiet hospital room, we both decided to get a divorce.
...
I sat on the hospital bed, feeling like an empty shell. Both of my broken arms were wrapped in heavy plaster casts, and absolute despair slowly crept into my heart.
"My baby is dead. Why wasn't it him instead?"
I had just watched them wheel my little boy into the morgue. I couldn’t even arrange a proper funeral for him yet. All I could do was think of him lying alone in that freezing cold room.
Before he died, his tiny fingers had still been wrapped tightly around mine, his small mouth parted as if crying out for his mom.
My best friend looked at me with aching eyes, reaching out to wrap me in a gentle hug.
Her previously rounded belly was now flat. A profound, hollow darkness swallowed her gaze.
I looked up urgently. "My phone is gone. Call Ethan Sterling for me. I want a divorce!"
She complied quietly and dialed Ethan’s number.
The phone rang for a painfully long time—so long that I thought he would never pick up. But finally, the call connected.
"What ridiculous drama is Chloe feeding you now? I don't have time for this crap. There are real victims out here who need saving."
Ethan barely suppressed his fury, spitting each word through gritted teeth.
In the background, a woman’s soft, fragile whimpering drifted through the line, along with the patient, gentle voice of his brother, Lucas, soothing her.
It was Nana.
My baby had just died, and these two brothers were busy fussing over another woman. A cold, bitter laugh escaped my lips. "Ethan, let's get a divorce."
My voice was remarkably calm. Saying those words out loud actually brought an unexpected rush of relief.
Hearing my voice, he exploded on instinct: "If you're out of your mind, go see a shrink! I'm out here doing search and rescue. Why do you keep blowing up my phone?"
"You just had a baby—can't you just stay put and rest? Why do you have to stir up drama 24/7? Nana was a victim of this earthquake! I pulled her out myself! Can you stop being so insecure and paranoid?"
"Let me tell you something: stop using divorce to threaten me! I have lives to save. Don't you dare call me again!"
Before I could say another syllable, the line went dead.
When I tried calling back, the number was already blocked.
A sharp, sour ache gripped my chest. Tears spilled uncontrollably down my cheeks, turning from burning hot to ice cold against my skin.
Just like the love I had once carried for Ethan Sterling.
I never could have imagined that the man I loved for six whole years could rot away into something so despicable.
I truly must have been blind.
His fire station was stationed in the East District. His assigned patrol area only covered our immediate neighborhood and surrounding blocks.
Nana’s apartment was across town in the West District—miles away from his jurisdiction.
I couldn't help but wonder: how exactly did she end up being his "rescue victim"?
While he rushed across the city to play her knight in shining armor, did it ever cross his mind that his own home was right in the middle of the earthquake zone?
Or did he just not give a damn about me—or the ten-day-old life we had brought into the world?
What made him think that a woman only ten days postpartum could sprint down three flights of stairs holding a newborn?
He didn't come to save me. He didn't even bother to make a single caring phone call.
If I hadn't taken basic emergency survival training in college, I wouldn't have even survived long enough for my friend to find me.
A part of me wished I had died alongside my son beneath that suffocating rubble.
At least then, I wouldn't have to face this shattered reality.
Memories of the earthquake flooded back. I had clutched my baby tightly, desperately trying to limp down the stairs, but the agonizing pain in my body made it impossible to run. Trapped, all I could do was crouch down in a structural corner.
My baby's terrified wails hammered against my chest. My hands shook violently as I dialed my husband’s number over and over again.
Call after call went unanswered, or got brutally disconnected.
I lost count of how many times I redialed before that familiar voice finally snapped: "Hello?"
"Babe, please, save us, I'm—" I choked out, desperate to tell him what was happening.
"I'm on duty! Don't you know there's an earthquake? You still want to start a damn fight right now? I just pulled Nana from the rubble and I need to get her to safety. Leave me alone!"
He cut me off before I could finish, unleashing a barrage of vitriol before hanging up and blocking my number entirely.
He abandoned me and our child in that living hell.
When the aftershock struck, unstable cracked concrete slabs collapsed from above. Both of my arms snapped under the impact, and my baby was pinned beneath the weight.
He was so tiny! He hadn't even had the chance to see what the world looked like!
I fought desperately to crawl to him, but my arms were completely useless, and heavy debris pinned my back to the floor.
All I could do was listen as his cries grew weaker and weaker, until his tiny chest stopped rising altogether.
No matter how I begged, no matter how hard I screamed, nothing changed.
He had become a cold, lifeless body forever.
Right before darkness completely swallowed my vision, I heard my best friend’s frantic voice shouting: "Over here! Hurry, get them out!"
Then came a violent, crushing crash.
All I knew was that when I finally woke up, her baby was gone, too.I turned to look at my best friend. Her face was as pale as a sheet.
She had heard every single word of Lucas’s soft, adoring murmurs to Nana over the phone.
Tears welled up again in her swollen, red-rimmed eyes, and her slender frame trembled uncontrollably.
Noticing the pain in my eyes, she forced a tight, brittle smile. "Honestly... it's fine."
She rested a hand over her flat belly and cast her eyes downward, lost in her own private grief.
For a long moment, I was completely at a loss for words.
### 小说标题
Left in the Rubble, Born from the Ruins### 全文翻译
She had been neglected by her parents her whole life. I was her only real friend, so she treated me like her true family.
Even when the earthquake hit, her first instinct had been to drive through the chaos to save me.
I knew better than anyone how desperately she had longed for the baby growing inside her.
And now...
I had no idea how to comfort her.
My own baby had only lived for ten days, dying right before my very eyes.
Right now, we were like two wounded animals, huddled together, licking each other's open wounds.
The sudden ring of a phone shattered our fragile silence.
The moment she hit speaker, Lucas’s furious, teeth-gritting voice exploded from the other end.
"Harper, haven't I warned you? Stop sticking your nose into Ethan's marriage! Just because Chloe is your best friend doesn't change the fact that she's married to my brother! Do you really get a sick kick out of watching his family fall apart?
"Nana and her dog were buried alive under the rubble.
"Her parents are dead! That dog is the only family she has left in this world. It got injured, she was having an emotional breakdown, and I spent a few minutes comforting her.
"If you want to be paranoid and not believe me, that's your problem.
"And let me make this damn clear: if you think you can pull the same petty trick as Chloe and threaten me with divorce, you're dead wrong.
"You want out? Fine by me! But there's no way in hell you're keeping my kid. A brainless mother like you would only ruin the child's life!"
With that venomous parting shot, Lucas slammed the phone down.
"Heh."
A dry, bitter laugh broke from our lips at the exact same time.
It lasted only a fraction of a second. Neither of us knew if we were laughing at those two pathetic men, or laughing at ourselves.
The hospital room quickly plunged back into dead silence.
Time seemed to freeze in place.
I watched her face drain into a mask of pure numbness. The vibrant, starlit spark that used to define her eyes had been replaced by a hollow void.
Her chest heaved, choked with silent, suffocating sobs.
Fighting through the pain, I awkwardly stretched out my plastered arms and pulled her close. "It's time to end this."
My voice was terrifyingly raspy, yet raw with unshakeable resolve.
From the second the earthquake struck until now, neither of them had offered a single word of concern, not a single breath of worry.
There were only endless accusations and cruel hostility.
For our marriages to end like this was almost comical.
If they had abandoned us for the greater good—to sacrifice their personal lives to rescue strangers—I would never have blamed Ethan.
If he had put our community above our family in a genuine emergency, I wouldn't harbor this venomous hatred.
But he abandoned us for his precious childhood sweetheart!
And her damn dog!
Did his wife and newborn child really matter less than a stray dog?
If Nana had been the only woman he ever loved all along, why did he pursue me back then?
Why did he ask me out? Why did he propose on bended knee?
Why did we bring a baby into this world?
Were Harper and I just props in their twisted little games?
I knew there were no logical answers to those questions. But one thing was crystal clear: neither of them had ever given a single damn about us.
If that was the case, it was better to rip the band-aid off clean.
"Let's divorce them together."
"Deal."
...
The tremors finally ceased completely, and most of the trapped survivors had been pulled from the ruins.
Harper sat on the edge of the bed, scrolling through TikTok and sharing funny clips with me.
Laughter trickled into the room with each goofy video, slowly taking the edge off our raw despair.
The agony we were forcing ourselves to bury was temporarily kept at bay by the distraction.
As the saying goes, misery loves company, but karma strikes when you let your guard down.
While scrolling through our feeds, Harper and I stumbled upon a post from Nana.
In the photo, Nana sat cradling her small dog, while two tall figures stood half a step behind her like protective sentinels.
Ethan and Lucas Sterling.
Both men were gazing down at Nana with eyes full of tenderness—a warmth so soft and reverent it looked like clear spring water.
She looked like a sheltered princess holding her prized pet, flanked by two fiercely loyal knights.
Her caption read: *He saved my life...*
Though the words were sparse, that trailing ellipsis left an entire ocean for people's imaginations to run wild.
The comment section had completely lost its mind.
[Saved your life? Girl, you owe him your heart!]
[Damn, can't she just take both brothers? Why choose?]
[That dog needs to be smart and call both of them Daddy.]
[Only kids pick one. Grown women take them both!]
...
The further Harper scrolled through the comments, the dimmer her eyes became.
She stared intently at Lucas’s soft, adoring expression in the picture. Her trembling finger traced his face on the screen over and over again, before a self-deprecating smile touched her lips. "Look at that. It's been ages since he looked at me like that.
"He used to look at me that way once upon a time. But then again, he's never stopped looking at Nana like that."I rested my head gently against her shoulder, a bitter ache swelling in my chest.
I nudged her cheek softly with mine. "Don't dwell on it. We've already decided to leave. Even if they turn it into a three-way freak show, it has nothing to do with us anymore."
She blinked away the rising tears, her hand unconsciously drifting back to her flat stomach. A long, quiet sigh escaped her. "Yeah. Nothing to do with us."
Her voice was barely above a whisper, so faint it felt as though the slightest breeze could scatter it into dust.
A few days later, I had my baby boy cremated.
My precious, tiny son had been reduced to a small urn of cold ashes.
I kept him close by my side. I promised myself that once the divorce was finalized and my shattered bones had healed, I would take him to see the vast, beautiful world.
Desperate to drag ourselves out of this living hell, we hired an attorney and drafted the divorce papers immediately.
With great difficulty, I signed my name using my braced fingers and instructed the lawyer to deliver the packet straight to the disaster relief station.
About half an hour later, Harper’s phone rang.
"Harper. Put Chloe on the line."
Ethan’s voice was icy, curt, and thoroughly drained of warmth.
Harper tapped the speaker button, and I spoke coldly into the microphone: "What?"
"Chloe, have you completely lost your mind? Did you honestly think that hiring some clown to impersonate a lawyer and wave fake divorce papers would scare me?
"And look at you, getting bolder by the day! You even had the nerve to block my number. Trying to get payback on me, is that it?"
His infuriated voice hammered mercilessly against my eardrums.
Only then did it hit me: the reason he called Harper was that my phone had been smashed during the earthquake.
He only reached out to me because he was holding the divorce agreement.
And yet, in his twisted, arrogant mind, he genuinely believed I had just blocked him out of petty spite.
It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that throughout these agonizing days, he hadn't tried to call me once. He hadn't spared a single thought for me, or for our baby.
A sharp, throbbing pang seized my chest. My nose stung, and despite my best efforts, hot tears betrayed me and rolled down my face.
I sniffled quietly, fighting with everything I had to keep my tone deadpan: "I'm not playing games, Ethan. Just sign the damn papers, and we'll file them at city hall."
"What the hell is your problem right now? Are you seriously throwing a tantrum because I saved Nana? She's my childhood best friend! Her parents are dead—looking out for her is the bare minimum any decent human would do!
"Why can't you be just a little bit understanding for once? If there was ever anything between her and me, do you really think you would have stood a chance?"
His voice dripped with raw impatience.
He had thrown those exact same excuses at me countless times in the past, and every single time, I had forced myself to swallow them.
Deep down, I knew he hadn't truly convinced me; I had simply convinced myself.
Because I loved him, I had lowered myself into the dirt, groveling for scraps of his affection like a stray dog.
But now, the love was dead.
There was no way his cheap, gaslighting tactics were going to sweep this under the rug ever again.
He honestly believed he was tossing me an olive branch, expecting me to back down humbly and fall right back into line, just like I always did.
Not this time.
"Why are you wasting your breath explaining yourself to me? I asked for a divorce. I don't give a damn about whatever you're doing with Nana."
My voice turned frost-cold, eerily calm.
I blinked back the remaining moisture, refusing to show a shred of weakness in front of him ever again.
How sickeningly pathetic it was. Even now, he thought I was just acting out of petty jealousy.
It hadn't crossed his mind for a single second to ask whether his wife and newborn child were alive, injured, or dead under the rubble.
A husband and father like this didn't deserve another breath of my time—he needed to be excised from my life like a tumor.
"Ethan? Are you on the phone with Chloe? You've worked so hard the past few days... is she upset with you?"
Nana’s sweet, delicate voice purred in the background, thick with rehearsed innocence.
"No. She's fine. Don't worry about her," Ethan replied instantly.
"But didn't Chloe just give birth ten days ago? And with the earthquake and everything, is she..."
Her cloying, theatrical concern dragged on, while Ethan’s harsh tone visibly softened: "You're too kind-hearted, Nana. If only Chloe had half the empathy you do.
"Don't stress. She has a high-end postpartum nanny looking after her. Nothing can happen to her."
Every syllable of his voice struck my skull like a sledgehammer.
A violent wave of nausea surged up from my gut. I gagged, desperate to throw up.
How could a human being be this utterly repulsive?
Harper instantly hit the red button, cutting the call. "Are you okay? Come on, let me help you to the bathroom. You'll feel better once you get it out."
"We're getting that divorce," I choked out, leaning on her. "Once it's done, they can drown in Nana's delicate little charms all they want. Let them have each other!"
Chapters (3)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Watch & Promotions
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