Three Stories Before Goodbye

I've suffered from severe insomnia since I was a kid. Because of that, my boyfriend recorded bedtime stories for me every single night to help me fall asleep. They were usually old, corny stories, but coming from him, they always felt sweet. Even before he left on a week-long business trip, he made sure to record them in advance. Before he walked out the door, he wrapped his arms around me and whispered: "I recorded three stories." "Promise me you'll listen to one every night." I teased him for being paranoid. "You made them for me. Why wouldn't I listen?" He just stared at me, a subtle smirk playing on his lips. On the first night after his flight took off, I curled into bed and eagerly hit play on the first audio file. His familiar, warm, magnetic voice came through the speakers. "Story number one. Dedicated to my dearest girlfriend." I couldn't help but smile, thinking how cheesy he was being. Then came the next sentence: "I have a child." "With your best friend." After dropping that bomb, the recording paused for several seconds. As if giving me time to process it. My immediate reaction was that my boyfriend, Noah, was playing a sick joke. I reached for my phone to text him. To tell him he had crossed the line. There was no way my best friend would team up with my boyfriend to betray me. A second later, a woman's voice shattered my denial. When I saw her yesterday, she said she was flying home to visit her parents. Now, Chloe's voice was as soft and sweet as ever: "By the time you hear this, we'll probably be at the clinic for the baby's checkup." "I'm three months along now. It's a critical window." "So..." She gave a soft laugh. "Don't try to contact us right now. Don't ruin our mood." Then Noah's voice cut back in: "It's rare that we get to be together without hiding from you." "Just give us this holiday week to be together, okay?" Thud. My phone slipped from my fingers and hit the floor. I froze, completely numb. The audio kept playing. Noah sounded resigned, almost pitiful. "Maya, I didn't want to hurt you." "Chloe and I have been together for five years. If it weren't for this baby, we wouldn't have come clean." Tears instantly blurred my vision. Five years. Noah and I had been together for seven. That meant he only loved me for a fleeting couple of years. The rest was a lie. Chloe chimed in, using the same playful tone she always used with me: "I was actually planning to be your maid of honor for the wedding next month, but this baby completely threw off our plans." She sighed in mock annoyance: "If Noah hadn't lost control, I wouldn't have gotten pregnant right before your wedding." "Maya, you'll forgive me, right?" "I mean, you're still going to be the godmother!" She was quoting our late-night girl-talk promises. We used to swear that whoever had a baby first, the other would be the godmother. I never imagined the child she carried would belong to my fiancé. "We didn't want to tell you this way," Noah sighed. "But your temper is so volatile." "If we told you to your face, I was terrified you'd hurt Chloe." He sounded melancholy. As if he were casually complaining about a bad meal. Yet he forgot—the only reason I ever developed a fierce temper was to protect him. We grew up in the same foster home. His family went bankrupt, leaving him with nowhere to go. Because he was quiet and withdrawn, the other kids constantly picked on him. I was the one who threw punches, standing between him and the bullies every single time. Because of that, the kids retaliated against me. Night after night, they poured buckets of ice-cold water onto my bed while I tried to rest. For years, I was terrified to close my eyes, which triggered my severe insomnia. That was why Noah started telling me bedtime stories to soothe me to sleep. Now, in that very bedtime story, he was telling me he feared my temper would hurt his precious Chloe. He was heartless. The audio droned on. I couldn't stomach another syllable. I slammed the pause button. His prediction before leaving was spot on. I truly didn't want to hear his stories anymore. I crawled under the covers and let the tears soak into the pillow. It felt like I was back on that soaked, freezing mattress in the group home. Except this time, Noah's gentle voice wouldn't lull me to sleep. It had turned my sleepless nights into a living nightmare.I didn't sleep a wink. By morning, I was an absolute wreck. When Chloe sent me a snapshot of her ultrasound, my mind completely checked out, and I botched a presentation during an all-hands meeting. My boss called me into his office afterward, giving my shoulder an understanding squeeze. "I know you struggle with insomnia, Maya, but you can't let your personal life derail your career." I kept my head down, offering a quiet apology. He took in the dark circles under my eyes and softened his tone. "The holiday starts tomorrow. Take some time to reset." He added, "By the way, I know an incredible sleep specialist based in Berlin. If you accepted the transfer to the European headquarters, you could finally consult with him." My head snapped up. "Is the transfer offer still open? Can I still take it?" He looked puzzled. "Didn't you turn it down because of your boyfriend...?" A bitter smile touched my lips. "Not anymore." I had declined because I wanted to build a life with Noah, and his career was rooted here. None of that mattered now. It was dark by the time I got home. Because I hadn't replied to her ultrasound picture, Chloe had been spamming my phone all day. [Look at your future godson!] [Maya, aren't these baby clothes adorable?] [Why aren't you texting back?] [Are you mad at me?] I slowly typed back: [What do you think?] Chloe replied with a crying emoji. [Are you really going to throw away years of friendship over a baby?] [Since when are you so petty?] I nearly laughed out loud at the sheer audacity. Chloe and I met in high school. She was a transfer student, constantly picked on and ostracized. One day, I saw someone dump blue ink all over her lunch. She was curled up in a stairwell, sobbing over her ruined food. In that instant, she reminded me of Noah back at the foster home. I shared my lunch with her. Then I tracked down the bullies and got into a massive brawl. Afterward, Chloe hugged my arm, crying her eyes out: "You're my best friend for life." Now, my hands trembled as I blocked her number. Suddenly, my Bluetooth speaker chimed. My phone vibrated violently. Noah was calling. He had never once raised his voice at me in all the years we'd been together. Yet right now, his tone was freezing cold. I couldn't reconcile him with the gentle man I thought I knew. "Why did you block Chloe?" "You know she's pregnant. Do you have to make her cry?" Two short sentences, each plunging into my heart like a needle. Fighting back tears, I said, "What do you want from me? A card congratulating you two on starting a happy little family?" Noah sighed, his voice dripping with condescension. "You're just jealous." "Don't worry. On weekdays, I'll be with you. I'll spend the weekends with her and the baby." He sounded so damn confident. As if he never considered for a second that I might actually walk away. "If you can't even handle this, how are you going to listen to the rest of the stories?" "Trust me, after you hear today's story, you'll thank Chloe. She's giving you the chance to be a mother." "You're out of your mind!" I slammed the end-call button. Suddenly, the Bluetooth speaker came to life again. After last night, I had deleted the three audio files Noah sent me. I was terrified of hearing more devastating confessions. It made me sick to my stomach. Noah had apparently programmed an automated timer to push the files through. His smooth voice filled the bedroom: "Story number two. Still dedicated to my dearest girlfriend." I clamped my hands over my ears, but his words pierced right through. "You had a baby once, too." He let out a low chuckle. "Do you remember?" Tears spilled over my cheeks against my will. The second story Noah wanted to tell me was about the miscarriage I suffered years ago.In our third year together, I got pregnant. I was over the moon when I broke the news to Noah. He held me tight, whispering sweet promises: "I'll take care of both of you. I swear." Not long after, he delivered the crushing blow. He claimed the baby had anencephaly—a fatal neural tube defect. He said the doctor told us we had no choice but to terminate the pregnancy. That was the first time I ever saw Noah cry. Back at the foster home, even when a bunch of older kids beat him black and blue, he just bit his lip and endured it in silence. Yet when he broke the news to me, he wept like his heart was breaking: "I'm sorry. It's all my fault." "We'll have a healthy baby one day. I promise." Losing that baby shattered what little sleep I had left. Whenever I closed my eyes, all I could see was the ghost of our unborn child. And night after night, Noah pulled me into his arms to comfort me. "It was a lie." Noah's voice over the speaker was chillingly clear. "Our baby was completely healthy." He paused. "Chloe and I were already dating back then. When she found out you were pregnant, she threw a fit and threatened to leave me." "I couldn't let her go. So I paid off the doctor to forge the test results." The world stopped spinning. The truth hit me like a physical blow, knocking the wind out of my lungs and freezing the blood in my veins. Because he couldn't let her go, he chose to deceive me. He traded our healthy, living child for an illicit affair with Chloe. "Maya, I didn't want to do it," Noah's voice drifted out, airy and nonchalant. "I loved you, but I couldn't stop falling for Chloe either." "It was the only compromise that made sense." In the background, Chloe sniffled and whined: "I know it hurts." "But you always said what's yours is mine, and what's mine is yours." "My baby is your baby!" The two of them played good cop, bad cop on the recording, painting me as the unreasonable villain. Losing my mind, I bombarded Noah's FaceTime. He picked up almost immediately. His face was flushed, and his neck was covered in dark, fresh hickeys. I froze. Noah smirked, making no effort to hide what they had just been doing. "Chloe had a nightmare. I was just calming her down." "Did you finish the second story?" My heart felt splintered into a million pieces. My voice was a shredded rasp as I forced the words out. Why would he do this to me? Why would he do that to our child? Back at the foster home, we swore an oath to protect each other for life. How did we end up here? Before I could speak, Chloe let out a breathy gasp from off-screen. Panting, she whined playfully, "Noah, did you forget to tell Maya the big news?" "You promised me!" Noah reached over and affectionately tapped her nose, whispering an apology. Then he casually glanced back at his screen. "Maya, Chloe doesn't want my attention divided." "So I had a vasectomy." "Chloe's baby will be the only child I ever have in this life." "You just have to accept it." A dead cold settled deep into my bones. I didn't even notice when the call disconnected. All I remember was that on the first night of the long weekend, I swallowed three handfuls of sleeping pills. When the sirens wailed in the distance, my eyes finally fluttered shut. This time, I didn't need Noah's bedtime stories to fall asleep.The sharp, chemical stench of hospital disinfectant burned my nose. I opened my eyes slowly, greeted by blinding white walls. "Am I... alive?" I muttered under my breath, only to be cut off by a voice beside the bed. "Don't talk nonsense!" "You're way too young to be throwing your life away!" I turned my head and met the frantic, worried gaze of my landlady, Mrs. Gable. My sluggish brain slowly pieced reality together. It was the first of the month. She had come by to collect the rent. "I knocked for ages, but you didn't answer," Mrs. Gable said, her voice trembling with lingering terror. "I got worried something happened, so I used the spare key." "The whole bottle of pills was practically empty! The ER doctor said five more minutes and you wouldn't have made it..." She rambled on, but for once, I didn't mind the noise. "Thank you, Mrs. Gable." I lifted my pale face, forcing a weak smile. "I didn't actually want to die." I was just so exhausted. I just wanted to finally sleep. Mrs. Gable fell silent. After a long pause, she asked gently, "Did that boyfriend of yours do this to you?" Yesterday, when she found me unresponsive, she immediately called Noah. Noah's reaction was pure indifference: "Don't fall for it." "She's just putting on a show to force me to come home." Mrs. Gable looked at the empty pill bottle, then at my lifeless, pale face. "She's really dying—" "Enough," Noah snapped, cutting her off. "Did she put you up to this? Did she pay you to lie to me?" "Faking a suicide just to get me to fly back? She's getting more childish by the day." Mrs. Gable tried to argue, but a woman's giggling voice carried through the receiver. "Noah, just play along with your girlfriend. Don't leave her hanging all by herself." Then the line went dead. In an instant, everything made sense. While I was flatlining in the ICU, he was in bed with another woman. With my best friend. I listened to her recount the call in absolute silence. He didn't even care about the child carrying his own blood, so why would he care about me? When your heart completely dies, the humiliation doesn't even hurt anymore. I checked my phone. During the ten hours I was unconscious, Noah hadn't sent a single message. The only update was a fresh photo on his Instagram: his hand slipping a diamond ring onto Chloe's finger. The caption read: [To the love of my life.] I let out a hollow laugh. It was beyond absurd. Back at the foster home, to defend Noah from the bullies, I had my clothes shredded, my bed soaked with ice water, and my knees kicked until they were black and blue. Noah, who had never thrown a punch in his life, fought back for the very first time. Bruised and bleeding, he wrapped his arms around me and swore that no one would ever hurt me again. And now? Hearing that I was on the brink of death didn't faze him in the slightest. He was halfway across the world, playing house with my best friend. This was the boy I spent over a decade protecting. I left a single comment under his post: [Congratulations.] Then I blocked and deleted him everywhere. I went back to the apartment, tossed the empty pill bottle into the trash, and packed my bags. Just as I grabbed my suitcase to leave, the Bluetooth speaker crackled to life again. "Story number three. Still dedicated to my dearest girlfriend." "Maya, will you marry me..." Noah's voice was as soft and melodious as ever. I covered my ears, pulled my luggage behind me, and walked away without looking back.