My Unborn Daughter Warned Me Not To Marry Him Chapter 08
Under the Awning
[First-person POV: Autumn]
Six months later, I hear Josh’s company went bankrupt.
I’m huge by then. Due any day. Mrs. Kowalski, my landlady, sees me on the stairs, and every single time she launches into a rant about my “no-good ex-fiancé.”
Dawn’s voice is still here.
The day I made the call to Sloane, Dawn let out this huge breath. Told me she was proud of me.
“Mommy. Even if I can’t be your baby this time, wherever I end up, I’m gonna root for you. Every single day. Be safe. Be happy.”
But underneath the brave voice, I hear it. She’s aching.
In her future, I was locked up. Useless. She grew up alone with a dad who didn’t love her and a stepmom straight out of a horror movie.
God knows what that little girl swallowed to make it to eighteen.
She’s my baby. She burned up her own soul just to come back and save me.
How the hell am I supposed to let her go?
But she sees me here, this quiet little town upstate, six months and still no clinic appointment, and she starts to panic.
“Mom. You don’t get it. I’m the string tying you to Daddy.”
“I’m the reason the whole thing happens.”
“As long as I exist, you’ll never fully cut him loose.”
“No, baby. The reason it happened is Josh. Not you.”
“You’re my daughter. That’s all you are. That’s everything you are.”
But my due date creeps closer, and Dawn gets more and more scared. Like she can feel something coming.
Then one afternoon, the sky opens up. A full-on nor’easter. I duck under a bodega awning to wait it out.
I look up.
And I lock eyes with him.
Josh stares at me. His eyes drop to my belly. And they fill up, fast.
He’s wearing the button-down I bought him a year ago. But it hangs off him like he’s a coat hanger. He’s lost thirty pounds, easy.
He’s thirty-two years old. His temples are streaked with gray.
The rain hammers the sidewalk. Neither of us says a word for a long time.
Finally, when it eases up:
“Autumn. The day I told you I loved you, it was raining just like this.”
I nod. Flat. “Mm.”
That day was the best day. The memory is right here. Untouched.
But the boy in that memory? He’s a stranger now.
Two strangers under an awning. And all I’m thinking is: what if he tries to take the baby?
“I’m sorry.”
His voice cracks.
“I’ve been looking for you for six months. Autumn, I miss you. I miss you so much I can’t breathe.”
“Josh. We broke up. Don’t say things like that.”
He snaps.
“I don’t believe it! Ten years, Autumn! Ten years, we walked through every storm holding hands!”
“You didn’t just let that go. I don’t believe it.”
“You still love me. Say you still love me.”
“Because if you didn’t, you would’ve never kept the baby.”
“You have no idea what that adoption paper did to me. I read it and I wanted to die.”
“Autumn. I don’t blame you for lying. I earned that. I cheated. I broke us.”
“But one more chance. Please. For the baby. Let’s start over.”
Dawn’s voice snaps like a wire pulled too tight.
“No. No, Mommy. Please. Please don’t fall for it.”
I nod, small.
I look Josh dead in the eye.
“Josh. I will never trust you again.”
“There is no starting over. Not for us.”
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