Divorce Papers in My Baby’s Gift Box? Fine—I Signed Them! Chapter 09
Before one storm had even settled, another hit. Ryan tested positive for HIV.
When the test results came back, everyone from the Whitmore and Cole families, including Maddie’s so-called buddies, nearly lost their minds.
“It was you! You did this to me, didn’t you?”
Ryan stared at Maddie with bloodshot eyes, while her own face was just as pale.
“That’s impossible… No, it wasn’t me.”
Maddie shook her head, her voice trembling.
Ryan closed his eyes in despair.
He suddenly remembered the period right after Maddie came back to the States.
At a party, someone had kindly warned him, “Maddie lived recklessly abroad. Be careful. Don’t let her drag you into her mess.”
At the time, Ryan had laughed and told him to fuck off.
Now, he couldn’t laugh anymore.
The news spread faster than the wind.
The scandal involving the Whitmore and Cole families swept through their entire circle overnight.
Under public pressure, the hospital was unwilling to let them keep causing a scene there, so both Ryan and Maddie were transferred somewhere else soon afterward.
The older members of both families fell ill one after another.
But before long, Ryan and Maddie disappeared.
They vanished without a trace.
Some said their families had quietly sent them abroad for treatment.
They supposedly changed their names and would never come back.
Others said Ryan and Maddie had a huge fight, and he shoved her.
She fell down the stairs and was gone, along with the baby in her womb.
And Ryan, in the end, was said to have ended his own life late one night.
Rumors kept spreading, each version different from the last.
But no matter which version was true, or whether any of them were true at all, none of it had anything to do with me anymore.
Day after day, life went on.
Emma learned to walk.
She toddled after butterflies in the garden.
Her tiny bare feet stepped unevenly through the grass, making her look like a clumsy, happy little bunny.
Sunlight fell across her face, soft, fuzzy, and warm.
I crouched down and opened my arms.
She giggled and threw herself into my embrace.
I held her tight, resting my chin against her soft hair.
Then, suddenly, I smiled.
It turned out that without Ryan Whitmore, our days could be this happy.
And they would stay that way.