Abusive Husband's Plot Foiled

After hanging up on Bruce in a daze, I immediately received a message from him.

[I'll be home in half an hour. If you're hungry, there's cake in the fridge. Have some to hold you over.]

I stared blankly at the message, almost mechanically tapping on Bruce's profile picture.

Just at that moment, his profile picture changed.

Originally, it had been a photo of the two of us together, but now it had switched to something unsettlingly familiar.

It was a photo of a steering wheel, with a hand adorned with a pink rhinestone sticker clumsily placed on it.

Wait... isn't this the same profile picture I saw earlier today, the one that belonged to that despicable person?

Does this mean that person was Bruce all along?

All those vile comments in the thread, were they really his true thoughts? Did he really type out all those nasty words, one by one?

Staring at the profile picture, I felt an inexplicable chill run down my spine.

Maybe it was my pregnancy hormones making me impulsive, but I dialed his number without a second thought.

Bruce picked up almost immediately, his voice tinged with nervousness.

"Honey, what's wrong?"

Suppressing the turmoil inside me, I casually mentioned a few snacks I was craving before finally steering the conversation to the topic at hand.

"Bruce, why did you change your profile picture?"

There was a brief pause on the other end, followed by his nonchalant reply.

"Oh, it's nothing. I was driving to work this morning and noticed that cute pink rhinestone you stuck on the wheel. I thought it was adorable, so I snapped a picture and changed it."

As soon as those words left his mouth, I felt myself sink to rock bottom.

How could a photo he took this morning have already been stolen and used by someone else?

People say pregnancy makes you a bit slow, but I was not so out of it that I would overlook something this blatant.

After hanging up, I was utterly uneasy, counting the minutes until seven o'clock at night.

At precisely 7:10 PM, Bruce returned home, carrying all sorts of snacks I loved.

But the more considerate he acted, the more uneasy I became.

As I stared at the assortment of high-fat, high-sugar, high-calorie treats, a chilling comment I had read earlier came to mind.

[Feed your wife more of these fattening foods. That way, even if nothing goes wrong, the baby will be so big she'll have a difficult delivery.]

The thought made me shiver involuntarily.

How terrifying it was to think that the person who shared my bed could be harboring such dark intentions against me.

Yet as I watched Bruce carefully peel the fruit for me, then tie on an apron to start cooking, I was overwhelmed with sadness and confusion.

Could it be that all the kindness he'd shown me over the years was just an act?

Just then, Bruce's phone, left on the sofa, suddenly rang.