Chapter 2

I turned to look at my best friend. Her face was as pale as a sheet.

She had heard every single word of Lucas’s soft, adoring murmurs to Nana over the phone.

Tears welled up again in her swollen, red-rimmed eyes, and her slender frame trembled uncontrollably.

Noticing the pain in my eyes, she forced a tight, brittle smile. "Honestly... it's fine."

She rested a hand over her flat belly and cast her eyes downward, lost in her own private grief.

For a long moment, I was completely at a loss for words.

### 小说标题

Left in the Rubble, Born from the Ruins### 全文翻译

She had been neglected by her parents her whole life. I was her only real friend, so she treated me like her true family.

Even when the earthquake hit, her first instinct had been to drive through the chaos to save me.

I knew better than anyone how desperately she had longed for the baby growing inside her.

And now...

I had no idea how to comfort her.

My own baby had only lived for ten days, dying right before my very eyes.

Right now, we were like two wounded animals, huddled together, licking each other's open wounds.

The sudden ring of a phone shattered our fragile silence.

The moment she hit speaker, Lucas’s furious, teeth-gritting voice exploded from the other end.

"Harper, haven't I warned you? Stop sticking your nose into Ethan's marriage! Just because Chloe is your best friend doesn't change the fact that she's married to my brother! Do you really get a sick kick out of watching his family fall apart?

"Nana and her dog were buried alive under the rubble.

"Her parents are dead! That dog is the only family she has left in this world. It got injured, she was having an emotional breakdown, and I spent a few minutes comforting her.

"If you want to be paranoid and not believe me, that's your problem.

"And let me make this damn clear: if you think you can pull the same petty trick as Chloe and threaten me with divorce, you're dead wrong.

"You want out? Fine by me! But there's no way in hell you're keeping my kid. A brainless mother like you would only ruin the child's life!"

With that venomous parting shot, Lucas slammed the phone down.

"Heh."

A dry, bitter laugh broke from our lips at the exact same time.

It lasted only a fraction of a second. Neither of us knew if we were laughing at those two pathetic men, or laughing at ourselves.

The hospital room quickly plunged back into dead silence.

Time seemed to freeze in place.

I watched her face drain into a mask of pure numbness. The vibrant, starlit spark that used to define her eyes had been replaced by a hollow void.

Her chest heaved, choked with silent, suffocating sobs.

Fighting through the pain, I awkwardly stretched out my plastered arms and pulled her close. "It's time to end this."

My voice was terrifyingly raspy, yet raw with unshakeable resolve.

From the second the earthquake struck until now, neither of them had offered a single word of concern, not a single breath of worry.

There were only endless accusations and cruel hostility.

For our marriages to end like this was almost comical.

If they had abandoned us for the greater good—to sacrifice their personal lives to rescue strangers—I would never have blamed Ethan.

If he had put our community above our family in a genuine emergency, I wouldn't harbor this venomous hatred.

But he abandoned us for his precious childhood sweetheart!

And her damn dog!

Did his wife and newborn child really matter less than a stray dog?

If Nana had been the only woman he ever loved all along, why did he pursue me back then?

Why did he ask me out? Why did he propose on bended knee?

Why did we bring a baby into this world?

Were Harper and I just props in their twisted little games?

I knew there were no logical answers to those questions. But one thing was crystal clear: neither of them had ever given a single damn about us.

If that was the case, it was better to rip the band-aid off clean.

"Let's divorce them together."

"Deal."

...

The tremors finally ceased completely, and most of the trapped survivors had been pulled from the ruins.

Harper sat on the edge of the bed, scrolling through TikTok and sharing funny clips with me.

Laughter trickled into the room with each goofy video, slowly taking the edge off our raw despair.

The agony we were forcing ourselves to bury was temporarily kept at bay by the distraction.

As the saying goes, misery loves company, but karma strikes when you let your guard down.

While scrolling through our feeds, Harper and I stumbled upon a post from Nana.

In the photo, Nana sat cradling her small dog, while two tall figures stood half a step behind her like protective sentinels.

Ethan and Lucas Sterling.

Both men were gazing down at Nana with eyes full of tenderness—a warmth so soft and reverent it looked like clear spring water.

She looked like a sheltered princess holding her prized pet, flanked by two fiercely loyal knights.

Her caption read: *He saved my life...*

Though the words were sparse, that trailing ellipsis left an entire ocean for people's imaginations to run wild.

The comment section had completely lost its mind.

[Saved your life? Girl, you owe him your heart!]

[Damn, can't she just take both brothers? Why choose?]

[That dog needs to be smart and call both of them Daddy.]

[Only kids pick one. Grown women take them both!]

...

The further Harper scrolled through the comments, the dimmer her eyes became.

She stared intently at Lucas’s soft, adoring expression in the picture. Her trembling finger traced his face on the screen over and over again, before a self-deprecating smile touched her lips. "Look at that. It's been ages since he looked at me like that.

"He used to look at me that way once upon a time. But then again, he's never stopped looking at Nana like that."