You Called Me Vulgar While I Was Vomiting Your Child Chapter 07
Vivian’s eyes reddened.
“You said you’d always have my back no matter where I went.”
Julian paused.
He had said those exact words to me before.
Yet when I was actually lying in the hospital begging him for help, all he could do was accuse me of acting.
He didn’t look back.
“Vivian, I lost the baby.”
“Claire left me, too.”
Back in the country, he drove straight to the hospital.
The nurse on duty recognized his voice instantly.
“So you’re her husband.”
“Her prenatal scans showed anencephaly. The fetus had zero chance of survival.”
“Before she could even process it, she started hemorrhaging and was rushed into surgery.”
“She called you twice. The first time you hung up on her, and the second time you accused her of faking it
with us.”
Every word the nurse uttered made Julian’s face turn a shade paler.
He stood frozen in the hallway, those two phone calls replaying in his head like a broken record.
The first time I called, telling him something was wrong.
He didn’t even let me finish.
The second time I called, telling him the baby was gone and I was bleeding out.
Instead of listening, he berated me for being lazy at home and throwing petty tantrums over nothing.
When he finally got home, he saw the glass of milk he had warmed up for me before leaving.
It had long since gone sour, and the prenatal vitamins sat untouched on the table.
The nursery was crammed with everything he had bought.
A crib, tiny clothes, toys, and a baby journal with only a few pages filled out.
The very first page was in his handwriting.
[Daddy will always protect you and Mommy.]
Pinned right next to it was the medical report.
[Fetal anencephaly. Immediate termination advised.]
Julian collapsed onto the floor, his fingers tracing those two lines over and over again.
Hot tears broke loose, crashing down without warning.
It was only at that exact moment that he finally understood.
The baby’s departure wasn’t a lie cooked up for attention, nor was it some impulsive stunt on my part.
It was a catastrophe I had been forced to face entirely alone.
And right when I needed him most, he was the one who shoved me deeper into the abyss.
He pulled up the group chat.
The video call logs from that night clearly showed I had joined.
For a full twelve minutes.
He heard every single word he uttered.
Julian tracked down the Norwegian town I wanted to visit most by digging through our old travel
itineraries.
By the time he caught up to me, I had just stepped out of a local clinic for a follow-up checkup.
The biting north wind whipped my scarf away, exposing my bloodless face.
He stared at me from across the street for a long time before he finally dared to call my name.
“Claire.”
I froze.
Julian practically sprinted over to me.
In just a few short days, he had lost a dramatic amount of weight. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw, completely stripping away his former composure and polished air.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the diagnosis?”
The words slipped out before he caught himself, freezing in place.
I looked at him calmly.
“I did.”
“The first time, you hung up.
“The second time, you told me I hired actors to trick you.”
Julian’s lips trembled.
“I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t know. I honestly thought you were just mad about Vivian.
“If I had just listened, if I had known the baby couldn’t be saved, I would have dropped everything.”
I let out a dry, humorless laugh.
“Julian, you still don’t get it.”
“I never wanted you to pick me just because you saw a death certificate and confirmed I was broken.”
“I just wanted you to listen to me all the way through, just once, when I reached out for help.”
He reached out to touch me, but I stepped back, avoiding his hand entirely.
