At Eight Months Pregnant, I Chose To Raise My Baby Without Her Vampire Father

The shower started running upstairs.

I slowly pushed myself up from the couch, steadying my heavy body against the armrest, then walked over and picked up Adrian's phone.

I opened his messaging app and found Clara's chat at the top. Her profile picture was that smug selfie. Adrian's nickname for her was a single word: "Mine."

I stood there, bile rising in my throat.

The chat history was worse than I'd imagined.

"Miss you."

"Be good. I can't come today — she's home."

"Don't worry. I'm here. Even if you're really pregnant with my child, I'll handle everything. Emily's not going to try anything."

Every message was a blade, carving open the happiness I'd foolishly believed was real.

I took a deep breath, turned on screen recording, and scrolled through page after page. Bank transfers, hotel reservations, property transfers — I saved everything. Then I opened his email and shopping apps, screenshotting every receipt connected to Clara and forwarding it all to my own phone.

By the time I finished, cold sweat had soaked through my back. The baby kicked again — hard — as if sensing something was wrong. My heart seized. I gripped the edge of the table and carefully lowered myself back down, one hand gently soothing my belly.

"It's okay, baby."

"Just a little longer."

"Mommy's going to get us out of here soon."

The water upstairs stopped.

I quickly erased every trace, put the phone back exactly where it had been, and used the armrest to pull myself up and return to the couch. A few minutes later, Adrian came downstairs in loungewear, hair still damp, looking cool and gentle.

He sat beside me and casually pulled me into his arms. "Why aren't you in bed yet?"

I leaned against his chest, listening to the steady heartbeat his body willed into being — a body that should have had no warmth at all — and suddenly remembered a night many years ago, when he first told me what he was.

We'd just started dating. He stood in the moonlight, his face so pale it was almost translucent, and quietly admitted he wasn't human. Adrian said that because of me, for the first time, he'd considered giving up eternity.

I hadn't run.

I'd held him.

I said, "Adrian, it's not the vampire part that scares me. It's losing you."

Looking back now, the truly terrifying thing was never what he was.

It was that his love could change in a heartbeat.

I closed my eyes slowly, forcing every emotion down, my voice so docile it surprised even me. "Adrian."

"Hmm?"

"After the baby's born, will things always be like this?"

He looked down at me, his dark eyes holding mine, his voice warm and certain: "Of course."

"Emily, I'll be with you and the baby forever."

Forever.

What a beautiful word.

Too bad I didn't believe a single syllable of it anymore.