Chapter 3: The Shelf Life of His Promises

By the time I reached the apartment, I barely made it past the living room before folding onto the couch. The cramps in my abdomen came in waves, each one leaving me more drained than the last.

I kept my phone in my hand, torn between calling for help and convincing myself that I was overreacting. When I finally reached the nurse advice line, she told me to lie down, monitor the pain, and seek urgent care if it worsened or if I noticed bleeding. I promised I would watch for the warning signs, though the truth was that I was frightened to be alone.

At one in the morning, the lock turned.

Ben hurried inside. The moment he saw me curled up on the couch, the color seemed to drain from his face. He dropped to his knees beside me and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead before looking anxiously at my stomach.

‘Claire? Does it still hurt? Are you bleeding? Why didn’t you text me when you got home?’

I had no answer for him. I was too tired to explain that I had spent the night waiting outside his family’s house while they laughed at the footage of my worst moment.

He rushed into the kitchen, filled a hot-water bottle, wrapped it in a towel, and settled it carefully in my arms. Then he knelt at my feet and began massaging my swollen calves as if his gentle hands could erase the evening.

‘I told Mara she can’t plan content like this anymore,’ he said quietly. ‘Once the baby is born, we’ll move farther away. No more filming, no more stunts. It’ll just be you and me, living a quiet life of our own.’

I looked down at him. For one foolish second, I nearly believed him.

When I first became pregnant, Mara had wanted to take me to the beach for a surfing photo shoot. She thought a pregnant woman balancing on a surfboard would attract attention. Ben had stood up for me then, his expression turning hard in front of everyone.

‘She is not your prop,’ he had said. ‘The doctor told us to avoid risks. If anyone makes another joke about the baby or her body, I’m done with the vlog.’

On the drive home that day, he had held my hand the entire way. I remembered how safe I’d felt beside him, how certain I had been that, no matter what my family did, he would protect me.

But only hours earlier, that same man had slipped my engagement ring off in front of a roomful of people, filmed my panic, and abandoned me while I was in pain so he could chase a spike in online traffic.

He remembered to massage my legs. He simply forgot that he was the reason I had been left to suffer.

***

The next morning, the fake ‘switched embryo’ video was everywhere.

The hashtag #DevastatedSurrogate had climbed the trending list. Mara had titled the upload: *My Sister Found Out the Embryo Was Switched—My Surrogate Sister and Her Fiancé’s Reaction Was Too Real!*

She kept the part where I clutched my stomach and begged Ben to explain. She kept the close-up of my bare ring finger, too. The only footage she removed was the moment I told them I was hurting and asked to go home.

Twelve hours after it went live, the video had passed three million views.

At first, I thought the comments were just cruel strangers behind their screens. Then someone recognized the neighborhood from the party’s exterior shots. Another viewer found our apartment building in one of Ben’s older videos. Soon, people began gathering downstairs with their phones raised.

They called my name through the security door. They demanded that I come down and reenact the breakup. A few even asked whether I could show them the exact expression I’d made when Ben took off my ring.

Two influencers blocked the garage exit, trying to capture footage of my stomach. Security had to send them away repeatedly before they finally left.

By the third afternoon, building management delivered a formal Notice to Cure. The letter explained that visitors associated with me were harassing residents and compromising the safety of the property. Unless the situation stopped immediately, management could begin eviction proceedings.

I read the notice twice, hoping I had misunderstood it. I was already carrying the stress of a pregnancy; now I was being threatened with losing my home because my family had turned my private pain into public entertainment.

When Ben came home that evening, I placed the letter in front of him.

‘Tell Mara to delete the video. Now.’

His jaw tightened as he read it. ‘I’ll talk to her.’

He called Mara while I stood beside him. The moment she heard what had happened, she began crying.

‘I honestly didn’t know people would go after Claire,’ she said. ‘But there are already two brand placements attached to the video. If I delete it now, I’ll have to pay a massive penalty, and the platform could punish the account. Ben, I just spoke to the clinic. I have to pay for the next IVF cycle. I really need that money.’

Ben fell silent, the phone pressed to his ear.

I stared at him, waiting for him to tell her that none of that mattered as much as my safety. Waiting for the man who had promised to protect me to remember what protection was supposed to mean.

Instead, he looked away.

‘Don’t delete it yet,’ he told her. ‘I’ll talk to Claire.’

The call ended. Something fragile inside me finally snapped.

‘There’s nothing to talk about.’ I tapped the warning letter. ‘This video is putting my safety and my housing at risk. She needs to take it down.’

Ben rubbed his forehead. ‘Claire, we can’t delete it.’

‘Why not?’

‘That money is for Mara’s next IVF cycle. It’s important.’

For a moment, I could only stare at him. ‘So my safety and my home are things we can sacrifice for her future? I’m carrying her baby. People are waiting downstairs to film me, and our building is threatening to evict me. How can you still think her next cycle matters more than what’s happening to me?’

His expression hardened. ‘Why do you always have to make everything such a big deal?’

The words came faster then, each one more cutting than the last. ‘A few people are taking pictures. Security has already dealt with them. You always take one little thing and make everyone miserable. Mara has given everything to this family to have a child. Why can’t you support her for once?’

I looked at him and remembered the man who had knelt beside my couch less than a day earlier, promising that we would move away and live peacefully together.

His promises had lasted less than twenty-four hours.

As long as Mara was crying and the video was earning money, my comfort was optional. My safety was negotiable. And the future he promised me could be withdrawn whenever his family wanted something else.

Ben opened the video’s comment section. One of the top comments asked for my address, claiming that a group wanted to visit and ‘comfort the saddest surrogate mom on the internet.’

He did not report it. He did not ask the account to stop encouraging people to find me.

Instead, he replied from his public account: *Thanks for caring about Claire. She isn’t upset, and we’re doing great. There’ll be even more exciting family content coming soon, so stay tuned.*

One sentence was all it took. He thanked the people harassing me and decided, on my behalf, that I was fine.

I pointed toward the door.

‘Get out.’

Ben looked up sharply. ‘What did you say?’

‘Get out of my apartment.’

His face darkened. He snatched up his jacket and strode toward the door. At the threshold, he stopped, took the now-cool hot-water bottle to the kitchen, refilled it, and returned it to the couch.

‘Don’t take it out on your body,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk when you’ve calmed down.’

Then he left, and the door slammed behind him.

I stared at the hot-water bottle. It was still warm beneath the towel, a small and almost absurd gesture of care from a man who had just dismissed a real threat to my home.

He could remember to massage my legs. He could remember to warm water and tuck a towel around it. But he could not bring himself to remove a video that had been bought with my dignity and was now putting my safety at risk.

I went to my desk and pulled a business card from the bottom drawer. It belonged to a lawyer who handled contracts and publicity rights. I had kept it after a colleague mentioned the firm months ago, never imagining I would need it for my own family.

When the call connected, I didn’t cry or hesitate.

‘Hello. I’d like to book a consultation as soon as possible,’ I said. ‘It involves unauthorized commercial use of my likeness, a joint lease, and a shared bank account.’

After I hung up, I slipped my engagement ring into an envelope. Then I began gathering every contract, statement, and document with my name on it.

Ben thought I was throwing a tantrum. He thought I would calm down, put the ring back on, and return to the role they had written for me.

But this time, I wasn’t preparing to forgive him.

I was preparing to remove him—and the seven years we had spent together—from my life for good.