I had already reached the elevator when someone shouted my name.

“Tran Hi!”

I stopped.

Not because I wanted to.

Because for three years, my body had been trained to respond whenever Chu Muc called.

I turned slowly.

He was running toward me.

Behind him, Giang Ha was still arguing with the doctor, demanding another test, another explanation, anything that could turn the words on that report into a mistake.

Bach Nguyet had been wheeled back toward her room.

The celebration from minutes earlier had disappeared.

Chu Muc stopped in front of me.

His face was still completely white.

“What are you doing here?”

I looked at him.

It was almost funny.

He had spent hours outside my room.

His mother had insulted me through a door.

They had celebrated another child only a few meters away.

And not once had either of them realized I was there.

“I had something to take care of.”

His eyes moved to the medical documents in my hand.

Then to my pale face.

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing that concerns you anymore.”

I pressed the elevator button.

His hand suddenly caught my wrist.

“Wait.”

Pain shot through my lower abdomen.

I frowned.

He immediately released me.

“Sorry.”

The elevator arrived.

Before I could enter, the doctor called him again.

“Mr. Chu, we need you to come back. We need to arrange confirmatory testing.”

Chu Muc looked at the elevator.

Then at the doctor.

For one brief second, I saw hesitation.

Once, I would have waited to see whom he chose.

This time, I stepped inside.

The doors closed between us.

He chose Bach Nguyet again.

And strangely, I felt relieved.

The final image I carried out of that hospital was not Chu Muc collapsed on the floor.

It was the sunlight outside.

Warm.

Bright.

Almost painfully beautiful.

Three years of marriage had ended that morning. The child Chu Muc had ordered me to give up was gone, while the son his family had celebrated as their long-awaited heir had just been found not to be biologically his. Pasted markdown Pasted markdown

I thought that was the end.

I was wrong.

Three days later, Chu Muc appeared outside my apartment.

Technically, it was still the apartment we had once shared.

But the property had been mine before marriage.

He had simply forgotten that.

I opened the door but didn’t invite him inside.

He looked terrible.

Unshaven.

Red eyes.

Same shirt from the hospital.

“What do you want?”

“Can we talk?”

“We’re talking.”

He swallowed.

“The second test came back.”

I said nothing.

“He isn’t mine.”

“I know.”

His face twisted.

“How?”

“I was there when the doctor told you.”

“No. I mean…”

He rubbed his face.

“How could she do this?”

I almost laughed.

He stared at me.

“What?”

“You really came here to ask me that?”

“Tran Hi—”

“You cheated on your pregnant wife with another woman. You demanded a divorce. You told me to terminate our child because your lover was carrying what you thought was your son.”

My voice remained calm.

“And now you’re standing outside my door asking me how someone could betray you?”

His eyes dropped.

For once, Chu Muc had no defense.

Then he whispered:

“I made a mistake.”

“No.”

I had thought about those words many times.

Now I finally understood them.

“A mistake happens once.”

“You chose her every day.”

He looked up.

“I was confused.”

“You were very clear when you told me our baby couldn’t be kept.”

His entire body froze.

He stared at me.

Then his eyes moved toward my stomach.

Something changed in his expression.

“Your surgery…”

I didn’t answer.

“Tran Hi.”

His voice began trembling.

“What surgery did you have that day?”

I held his gaze.

Understanding arrived slowly.

Then all at once.

“No.”

He stepped backward.

“No…”

I felt my fingers tighten around the door.

“You told me what you wanted.”

“You…”

His voice broke.

“You terminated the pregnancy?”

“You asked me to.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You said the baby couldn’t be kept.”

He shook his head violently.

“I was angry. I was under pressure. Nguyet was about to give birth. My mother kept—”

“Stop.”

For the first time, my voice rose.

“Don’t you dare blame your mother.”

He fell silent.

“You were my husband.”

“You were the father.”

“You made that decision.”

His eyes filled with tears.

I had never seen Chu Muc cry.

Not at our wedding.

Not when his father was hospitalized.

Not even when his company almost failed.

Now tears ran down his face.

“Our baby…”

I looked at him.

“Yes.”

He covered his face.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then he whispered:

“Can we start again?”

I genuinely thought I had misheard him.

“What?”

“I know I don’t deserve it.”

“No, you don’t.”

“But we were happy once.”

“Were we?”

He looked wounded.

I continued.

“Or was I happy because I didn’t know the truth?”

He reached toward me.

I stepped back.

That small movement stopped him more effectively than a slap could have.

“I’ll change,” he said.

“Change for your next wife.”

“I don’t want another wife.”

“That is no longer my problem.”

I closed the door.

He stayed outside for almost an hour.

I knew because I could see his shadow beneath it.

I never opened it again.

A week later, Giang Ha came.

Unlike her son, she didn’t arrive apologizing.

She arrived furious.

The moment I opened the door, she shouted:

“You knew!”

I stared at her.

“Knew what?”

“That the child wasn’t A Muc’s!”

“No.”

“You were at the hospital!”

“I learned approximately thirty seconds before your son did.”

Her face distorted.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?”

I almost admired the question.

“What exactly should I have said?”

She couldn’t answer.

Then her eyes dropped toward my stomach.

Her expression changed.

“A Muc told me.”

There it was.

For the first time since I had known her, Giang Ha looked at me without contempt.

“You really…?”

“Yes.”

Her lips trembled.

“That was our Chu family’s child.”

“No.”

I looked directly into her eyes.

“That was my child.”

“You had no right—”

I laughed.

She stopped.

Three years.

Three years of swallowing her insults.

Three years of being criticized because I hadn’t given her a grandchild quickly enough.

And when I finally became pregnant, her son chose another woman’s baby.

“You called me a hen that couldn’t lay eggs outside my hospital room.”

Her face drained of color.

“You heard that?”

“Every word.”

“I didn’t know you were inside.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

She opened her mouth.

I didn’t let her speak.

“You celebrated because you thought Bach Nguyet had given you an heir.”

“You said your family had finally gotten rid of me.”

“And now that you know her child isn’t your grandson, suddenly mine matters?”

Giang Ha began crying.

I felt nothing.

“You don’t miss my child.”

I closed the door halfway.

“You miss what you thought that child belonged to.”

The door shut.

Two months passed.

I moved to another city.

I sold the apartment.

Changed my phone number.

Returned to work.

And for the first time in years, I began making decisions without asking whether they would inconvenience Chu Muc.

I cut my hair.

Bought a small apartment with enormous windows.

Started traveling again.

Some nights were difficult.

Grief doesn’t disappear simply because the person who caused it deserves your anger.

There were nights when I placed my hand over my stomach and cried until morning.

Not for my marriage.

For the child.

That grief belonged to me.

I refused to let Chu Muc take ownership of it too.

Six months after the divorce, my friend sent me a message.

“Do you want to know what happened to them?”

I almost wrote no.

Instead, I typed:

“Tell me.”

Bach Nguyet had admitted the truth.

She had been seeing another man during the same period she reunited with Chu Muc.

When she discovered she was pregnant, she wasn’t certain who the father was.

But the other man had no money.

Chu Muc did.

So she chose the answer that gave her the better future.

His mother had welcomed her.

Chu Muc had divorced me.

Everything had worked perfectly.

Until the child was born.

After the paternity results, Chu Muc demanded that Bach Nguyet leave.

Then the child’s biological father appeared.

Not because he wanted custody.

Because he wanted money.

The entire situation became an ugly public dispute.

I read the message once.

Then deleted it.

That night, another email arrived.

From Chu Muc.

The subject contained only three words.

“Please read this.”

I almost deleted it too.

Instead, I opened it.

There was no excuse this time.

No request to reconcile.

He wrote that he finally understood there was nothing he could do to repair what he had done.

He said he dreamed about our child.

He said he still remembered the phone call when I first told him I was pregnant and how happy he had been.

He said that was the last version of himself he could still respect.

At the end, he wrote:

“If I could go back, I would choose you and our child.”

I stared at that sentence for a long time.

Then I replied with one line.

“You already had that choice.”

I blocked the address.

A year later, I returned to City Center Hospital.

Not because of Chu Muc.

Not because of Bach Nguyet.

I had come to visit a colleague who had just given birth.

As I walked through the third-floor corridor, I recognized everything.

The nurse’s station.

The chairs.

The delivery room doors.

And the small room where I had lain alone while my former husband celebrated another woman’s child outside.

For a moment, I couldn’t move.

Then a nurse passed carrying flowers.

“Miss, are you all right?”

I looked toward the window.

Sunlight covered the floor.

Just like that day.

I smiled.

“Yes.”

And this time, I meant it.

When I left the hospital, nobody called my name behind me.

Nobody asked me to wait.

Nobody demanded that I sacrifice myself so someone else could have the life they wanted.

I walked through the doors and into the afternoon sun.

Once, I thought losing Chu Muc meant losing the future I had spent three years building.

But I had been wrong.

That future hadn’t disappeared.

Only the people in it had changed.

And somewhere between signing my divorce certificate and walking out of that hospital alone, I had finally understood something:

Bach Nguyet’s betrayal was Chu Muc’s punishment.

Losing me was simply the consequence of his own choice.

As for me?

I didn’t need revenge.

I had something better.

A life in which none of them had a place.