My Unborn Daughter Warned Me Not To Marry Him Chapter 10
The Long Dream
I’m in a very long dream.
In the dream, I never called it off before the wedding. I married Josh. And every time I tried to leave, he’d hit me with the same line: “Our baby needs a dad.”
But Dawn is born, and Josh doesn’t love her either.
I move through my own life like a ghost. Dawn is the only thing holding me here.
Then, when Dawn is five, Sloane gets pregnant. And Josh brings her home. To our house.
The day Sloane “falls” and loses the baby, only she and Dawn are upstairs. She swears, hand on the Bible, that Dawn pushed her. She says Dawn didn’t want a little brother.
Dawn is five. She’s sobbing. Snot running down her face. “Mommy, I didn’t, I swear, I didn’t touch her!”
Nobody believes her. Nobody except me.
And Josh? Sloane threatens to kill herself, and Josh actually orders my baby to kneel and take a belt. All night.
That’s when I break.
I grab a kitchen knife. I run at both of them, slashing. Screaming. Not aiming. Just swinging.
In that moment, it’s the only way I can think of to protect my kid.
The price? A psych evaluation. A diagnosis. A locked ward.
Once a month, they let Dawn visit. That visit is the only reason I keep breathing.
Until her eighteenth birthday.
That’s the day the visits stop.
—
I ram my head through the window. Turn the broken glass into a weapon. Cut my way out of the ward.
Josh has the balls to hold a funeral.
I see him sitting up front at the wake. Head bowed. Playing the grieving father.
And behind him, Sloane. Not even hiding the little smirk on her face.
The last thing I remember is a wall of flames.
—
I open my eyes.
Hospital room. Fluorescent lights. My belly, flat.
I panic. I try to reach for Dawn’s voice inside me.
Nothing.
Silence.
I scream her name in my head.
Beg her. Dawnie. Baby. Answer Mommy. Please.
Nothing.
My whole body goes limp. My chest caves in. It hurts so bad I can’t breathe.
Then the door opens.
A nurse walks in. A pink bundle in her arms.
“Oh good, Mom’s awake! Baby’s perfect. Just had her bottle.”
My hands are shaking so hard I almost drop her.
But the second I look at that little face,
I know.
It’s her.
It’s my Dawn. The same Dawn who came back from eighteen years in the future. The Dawn who burned up her own soul to save me.
Tears hit the blanket. Fat, hot, ugly ones.
The baby wiggles. Her tiny hand shoots out. Grabs my finger. Squeezes. Hard.
Like she’s been waiting eighteen years to hold my hand.
My heart cracks wide open.
I look up.
Josh is in the doorway.
I have no idea how long he’s been standing there.
His eyes are red. Wrecked.
Something in his face is different. Older. Broken. Aware.
Somehow, I just know.
Josh opens his mouth. His voice is a rasp.
“Autumn. I remember. All of it.”
“It was me. I destroyed everything.”
He lifts his hand and slaps himself. Hard. The sound cracks through the room.
“I got our baby killed. I got the love of my life killed.”
“Autumn. You were right. I don’t have the right to ask you to forgive me. A man like me doesn’t get a second chance.”
“I’m leaving today. I will never come near you or Dawn again.”
“Take care of yourself, Autumn.”
“Don’t ever tell her she had a father like me.”
His eyes drag over the baby and me one last time.
Then he’s gone.
I never see Josh again after that day.
And I never hear Dawn’s voice in my head again either.
I know why. She’s back in her tiny body now. Starting over. Growing up right this time.
The lucky part? This time around, I’m not some broken wife locked in Josh’s shadow.
This time I get to give my daughter a real childhood. Sunlight. Playgrounds. Bedtime stories. All of it.
The last thing I see before Josh closes the door is a wall of fire, exactly like the one from my dream. But this one is behind me now.
I’m walking away from it.
—