He Chose Her While I Bled Chapter 1

The day the typhoon warning was upgraded to a severe category threat, I went to the hospital for my prenatal checkup alone.

On my way back, the coastal bridge was shut down due to flooding, trapping me in the emergency room lobby.

That was when Cora—Jared’s childhood sweet, frail best friend—called him, sobbing into the receiver that the thunder was scaring her to death.

He abandoned me, driving through a city submerged in gale-force winds and downpours just to hold her hand.

Meanwhile, sitting in the lobby, I clutched my bleeding lower abdomen and begged him over the phone to come back and sign my emergency surgery consent form.

His response was a cold, impatient snap: "Sally, can you stop making a scene at a time like this?"

After the procedure was over, I sat alone in the stark, freezing recovery ward and sent him one last text message.

"Jared, the baby is gone. You’re free."

...

* * *

When I woke up, dawn hadn't broken yet.

The overhead fluorescent lights in the post-op observation room glared down, making my eyes sting. A dull, rhythmic agony dragged at my lower belly—a persistent, hollow cramp.

Nurse Jenkins slapped a sheet of post-operative instructions onto the wall beside my headboard, her tone crisp and hurried.

"You need round-the-clock supervision for the next twenty-four hours. Absolutely no getting out of bed on your own. If the bleeding surges, hit the call button immediately."

She paused, her eyes sweeping over the empty plastic chair beside my bed.

"Where's your family?"

I stared up at the speckled ceiling tiles, unable to answer.

My phone buzzed against the pillow. Jared’s name illuminated the screen.

In that quiet, miserable second, my heart betrayed me. It softened. I desperately wanted to believe that he was calling to ask where I was, to ask if I was okay.

I answered. Jared’s voice came through low and tightly wound.

"Sally, what on earth are you trying to accomplish?"

I stayed silent, my breath hitching in my throat.

"Using a fake baby emergency to scare me—do you think that's funny?" he continued, his tone sharp with accusation. "Cora was so terrified earlier she couldn't even stand up on her own. Did you really have to pick this exact moment to throw a hysterical fit?"

Nurse Jenkins was standing close enough to hear every word. Her expression hardened instantly. Without asking, she reached down, took the phone from my trembling fingers, and pressed the speakerphone button.

"This is the head nurse in OB-GYN Emergency," she said, her voice like ice. "Your wife, Sally, just underwent an emergency D&C following a severe hemorrhage and incomplete miscarriage. The fetus could not be saved. She is currently in post-op observation, and we need an immediate family member on-site to sign her risk disclosures and discharge paperwork."

The line went dead silent.

It lasted so long that all I could hear was the metallic rattle of a supply cart being wheeled down the linoleum floor far down the corridor.

Finally, Jared spoke. "Can... can she talk right now?"

Nurse Jenkins looked down at me, her eyes filled with grim sympathy. "What she needs right now is someone to take care of her."

Half an hour later, Jared arrived.

The first thing I saw wasn't him—it was the wheelchair.

Cora was sitting in it, wrapped in Jared’s heavy black trench coat, a blue gel ice pack strapped around her slender ankle. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her fingers clutching the lapels of his coat as if it were her only lifeline.

"Sally..." she whimpered, her voice cracking as tears spilled over her lashes. "I'm so sorry... I didn't know you were actually..."

She broke off into helpless sniffling. Jared pushed her chair into the cramped space, his eyes alighting on my pale face for a fraction of a second before pivoting straight to Nurse Jenkins.

"She slipped and sprained her ankle during the storm earlier," Jared said, his voice brimming with urgency. "Can someone here take a look at her foot while we're here?"

The observation room plunged into a breathless quiet.

Nurse Jenkins snapped her medical chart shut with a loud "thwack".

"This is Obstetrics and Gynecology Emergency, sir. Orthopedics and trauma are downstairs."

Jared’s brow furrowed into a deep, irritated V. "She's emotionally unstable right now, and the lines down there are way too long."

Nurse Jenkins ignored his explanation entirely. She pointed a firm finger at the digital monitor beside my bed. "This woman right here just lost her pregnancy. Her post-op bleeding risk is dangerously elevated. You need to sign these risk documents immediately."

Jared’s face darkened. He walked over to the side of my bed, his eyes finally landing on the blood-soaked pad beneath me, the IV drip, and the laminated medical chart.

For a brief instant, the absolute conviction in his posture crumbled.

Then Cora clutched her chest with a small, dramatic gasp. "Jared... I feel so dizzy..."

Jared spun around instantaneously, dropping to his knee to catch her shoulder.

He looked back over his shoulder at me, his tone dropping into that familiar, pacifying murmur he always used when he wanted me to yield. "Sally, let me take Cora down to trauma first. I'll be right back up. Don't overthink things. I'll handle everything."

An attending physician stepped through the curtain holding a clipboard. "Family needs to sign the consent and post-op acknowledgment now."

Jared reached out and took the pen.

The tip touched the paper. Before he could press down, Cora let out a delicate, shuddering moan. "Jared... I'm scared."

The pen froze.

I watched, numb, as he set the pen down on the rolling tray table.

"I'll take her down first," he muttered.

Nurse Jenkins stepped into his path. "Sir, she just came out of surgery. She has no one here."

Jared stared down at me, his gaze cold, almost resentful. "Sally, you've always been the sensible one. Don't make a scene in a hospital."

Those words crashed over me like ice water. My head throbbed; my vision blurred around the edges.

He turned and pushed Cora out the door. The rubber wheels of the chair clicked against the floor tiles, the sound echoing down the hallway until it faded into nothing.

Nurse Jenkins stood beside my bed for a long time before asking softly, "Do you still want him listed as your primary emergency contact?"

I swallowed the metallic taste of blood in my mouth and recited my mother's cell phone number instead.

My phone buzzed on the mattress. A text from Jared: "Wait for me. Don't start letting your mind run wild."

I deleted the message thread, deleted his contact entry, and removed him from my medical profile entirely.

Then, opening a healthcare concierge app on my phone, I booked a single private room at a specialized postpartum recovery lodge in the neighboring county.

Outside the heavy hospital windows, the roar of the thunder had finally ceased.

Yet inside my head, the sound of those wheelchair wheels rolling away kept playing, over and over again.