His Side Chick Made Him Dump Me… 100 Times! Now Watch Him Beg! - Chapter 76: Chapter 76

My belly grew bigger day by day, my body getting more and more unwieldy.
Just bending over to pick something up became a challenge.
That afternoon in the living room, I dropped a pen and it rolled under Marcus's side of the couch.
With my protruding belly, I awkwardly crouched down trying to reach it, but couldn't get close enough.
Marcus was sitting right there on the adjacent armchair, legs crossed, scrolling through stock charts on his phone.
"Marcus, can you grab that pen for me? It's under the couch on your side." I was breathing heavily.
He didn't even look up: "Mm-hmm, give me a sec. Let me finish checking these candlestick patterns."
I waited several minutes, my back aching like crazy.
"You done yet?"
"Almost." His finger kept swiping across the screen.
After a few more minutes, I couldn't take it anymore. I braced myself against the couch and struggled to stand up, my back feeling like it might snap.
"Are you gonna get it or not?"
Only then did he lazily put down his phone, glancing at my swollen belly with mild irritation: "Jeez, be careful. You shouldn't be moving around so much with that huge belly. Where's the pen?"
"Right by your feet under the couch!"
He finally bent down, felt around for a few seconds, picked up the pen, and handed it to me.
"Here. Be more careful next time, don't just drop stuff everywhere." There was a hint of blame in his tone.
I took the pen, my fingertips ice-cold.
The distance of one pen felt like crossing an ocean.
Had we really reached the point where even the simplest favor required a cost-benefit analysis?
At six months pregnant, my body was getting heavier by the day.
My feet were so swollen they looked like dinner rolls—none of my old shoes fit anymore.
That weekend, my friend Riley invited me to go shopping to lift my spirits.
At the mall, I tried on a pair of soft, roomy maternity shoes that felt like walking on clouds, instantly relieving the aching pressure in my feet.
"These feel amazing!" I couldn't help but yell out.
Riley checked the price tag: "Only $78. Get them! Your feet need to be comfortable!"
But I hesitated.
Seventy-eight dollars wasn't pocket change for me right now.
Between prenatal appointments and supplements, I'd already spent quite a bit, and Marcus was keeping meticulous track, waiting for me to transfer my half at month's end.
The sales associate pushed enthusiastically: "Hon, when you're pregnant, you gotta treat yourself right! Comfort is everything!"
Riley was egging me on too: "Exactly! Buy them! I'll get them for you as a gift!"
"No, no need," I quickly waved her off, then finally gritted my teeth, "I'll get them myself." I didn't want to owe anyone else favors.
Walking out with the shoebox, my steps did feel noticeably lighter.
When I got home, Marcus was sitting at the dining table with his laptop, the screen showing colorful charts and graphs.
Hearing me come in, he glanced up at the bag in my hand.
"Whatcha get?"
"Shoes. My feet are so swollen I can't fit into my old ones anymore." I tried to keep my tone neutral.
"Ah." He grunted, his attention returning to the screen. A few seconds later, as if suddenly remembering something, he looked up again: "How much?"
My heart sank: "Seventy-eight dollars."
He nodded, his fingers lightly tapping on the table like he was doing mental math.
Then he said, completely naturally: "Okay, so when we do the monthly accounting, we'll put this under your personal expenses." He paused, then added, "After all, this was your decision to buy them—it's a personal need."
A chill shot from the soles of my feet straight to the top of my head.
I stared at his matter-of-fact expression, at that invisible battle line running across our dining table.
These shoes—the ones that made my feet slightly less miserable—had become my "personal" expense.
So what about this baby growing bigger in my belly every day?
Was that my "personal" project too?
"Marcus," my voice was eerily calm, so calm it scared even me, "these shoes are on my feet. But who am I swelling up like a balloon for? The baby in my belly—is that just mine alone?"
He froze, clearly not expecting me to challenge him so directly.
He pushed up his glasses—his go-to move when building psychological defenses.
"Evie, you can't look at it that way." His tone turned serious.
"The fifty-fifty arrangement is a family financial management system we both agreed to before marriage. It's contractual. The baby's arrival does increase our shared burden, but that doesn't mean we can just randomly break established rules."
He leaned forward slightly, like he was at a negotiation table.
"Regarding baby expenses, I already told you—I'll strictly cover the father's proportional share of responsibility. But your personal lifestyle expenses, like these shoes, clearly fall under non-essential, non-shared spending. Mixing up concepts would be very harmful to maintaining our marriage's financial health."
His argument was confident and logically airtight.
I looked at those calculating eyes behind his glasses and realized for the first time with crystal clarity that Marcus and I were fundamentally different people.
In his cold system of rules, emotions, responsibility, even blood bonds could all be broken down into numbers waiting to be split.
And the pain my body was enduring? In his eyes, that probably just fell under "depreciation and wear."
"Fine." I forced out an ugly smile. "Personal expense. Got it."
I grabbed the shoebox, turned around, and walked into the bedroom, quietly closing the door.
With my back against the cold door, I slowly slid down to the floor.
I placed my hand on my prominently rounded belly, feeling the strong movements of that little life inside.
Tears poured out silently.
Not from hurt—from despair.
For myself, but more for this unborn child who'd already been price-tagged by their own father.