Chapter 1

The first time I felt the baby move, I was so overjoyed I recorded a five-second video and sent it to Vincent Weiss.

I didn't mean for it to be seen by Lois James, his childhood friend who suffered from a phobia of pregnancy.

That night, her fear spiraled out of control, and she slit her wrists at home.

In his fury, Vincent pulled off my mother's oxygen mask for five seconds.

"I warned you. Why would you still send me a video like that?!"

"You like recording the baby's movements, do you?"

"Then let me give you all the recording you want!"

Five seconds. My mother's face went ashen, her heart monitor flattening almost to a single line.

Tears streaming down my face, I dropped to my knees and swore over and over that I'd never send another video.

Vincent refused, cold as ice.

He forced me to wear a monitor twenty-four hours a day.

"From now on, however many seconds the baby moves, that's how many seconds someone pulls off your mother's oxygen mask."

"Until Lois wakes from her coma!"

For a month, I was painstakingly careful with my belly.

But I still couldn't stop the baby from moving.

The sixth time I watched them pull off my mother's oxygen mask, my tears ran dry.

I stopped trying to stop Vincent. I took out my phone and booked an appointment to end the pregnancy.

If I wanted my belly to go completely still, wasn't getting rid of the baby the answer?

……

"Beep… beep beep beep…!"

In the hospital room, my mother's oxygen mask was pulled off for the sixth time.

This time, a full seventeen seconds.

Watching the heartbeat line flatten inch by inch, all that was left in my mind was panic.

"Enough!"

"Vincent, the time's up!"

"The baby only moved for seventeen seconds last night!"

Face soaked with tears, I rushed forward, desperate to fit the mask back over her.

But Vincent's eyes were glacial.

"It was twenty-five seconds!"

"Olivia Swanson, last night you secretly took the monitor off for eight seconds."

The words fell from him without warmth, and his fingertip tapped lightly against his wristwatch.

Once, then again.

Until, after eight excruciating seconds.

He signaled them to let go of me.

"Olivia, I don't want to see you sneak the monitor off ever again."

"This is your last warning."

My ears roared. With trembling fingers I fitted the mask back onto my mother.

My eyes locked on the heart monitor.

One second…

Five seconds…

Slowly, the line steadied.

My whole body went limp, and I braced myself against the wall to stay upright.

This past month, I'd tried countless ways to keep the baby from moving.

And it still happened six times.

Six times, exactly, my mother's oxygen mask was taken away.

Every time I put it back on, I was terrified I'd lose her forever.

Dread after dread after dread.

I was worn out, body and soul.

This time it was twenty-five seconds.

What about the next?

My head buzzing, I opened my phone and pulled up the post I'd made before.

【How can I stop the baby from moving?】

Below it, someone had left a sneering reply.

【You want to be pregnant but you don't want the baby to move?】

【Then why have a baby at all?】

【Just get rid of it. Then it'll never move again!】

Right.

Get rid of the baby, and it would never move again, wouldn't it?

My hand resting gently on the swell of my belly, I saw, in a daze, the Vincent from the day we first found out I was pregnant.

He'd wrapped his arms around my stomach, thrilled, his eyes full of light as he asked again and again.

"Olivia, I'm going to be a father?"

"I'm really going to be a father?!"

That day, he bought stacks of parenting books and started following bloggers on maternal and infant health.

He even created a group chat, Olivia's Pregnancy Tracking Group Chat.

Among all his crowded work chats, that one stayed pinned to the top, always.

Every time I posted something about the baby.

He would reply right away.