I was seven months pregnant when I found the messages.
They weren’t subtle, and that was what made it worse. There was no room for doubt, no way to misinterpret what I was seeing. Every word felt deliberate, every sentence intimate in a way that didn’t belong to me anymore.
I remember sitting there on the edge of the bed, my phone trembling in my hands, trying to breathe through the tightness in my chest.
We had just painted the nursery two weeks before.
He had stood behind me, one hand on my belly, laughing about how our son would probably hate the color we picked.
And all that time—he was already somewhere else.
I didn’t scream.
I didn’t throw anything.
I just… stopped.
The next thing I remember is being in my childhood bedroom, curled up on the bed I hadn’t slept in for years, crying so hard my body shook. My stomach tightened with each sob, and somewhere through the noise in my head, I remembered the doctor’s voice warning me about stress.
“Try to stay calm.”
As if that were even possible.
A soft knock broke through everything.
“Can I come in?” my dad asked.
I didn’t answer.
But he came in anyway.
