Ch. Sorry Hayden, I’m Seven Months Pregnant with Another Man’s Baby 66 Sorry Hayden, I’m Seven Months Pregnant with Another Man’s Baby 66

Chapter 8 

Dad lost it. He stopped going to work and stopped doing anything else, except for one thing. 

Day and night, he hunted down anyone who had ever hurt me. He didn’t care how powerful they were or who they knew. 

He dragged Tommy and his friends right out of their classroom. He knew that if he went through the courts, their families would buy their way out. So he used his fists. 

My father, the quiet, soft-spoken man I’d known my whole life, had become terrifying. He swung without mercy. Blood spattered across the ground with every blow. 

Then he found Jack Fletcher, the man who had hidden his cruelty behind a kind face. Something cold and merciless settled in Dad’s eyes. He beat the man half to death, his fists flying as if he had nothing left to 

lose. 

Watching him come apart like that terrified me. I screamed at him to stop. “Dad, stop! Please, stop!” 

The neighbors had to drag him off before he killed him. 

Dad collapsed to his knees, all the fight draining out of him. He buried his face in his bloodied hands and 

whispered, “Lily, I got them. I got them for you.” 

Sirens cut through the air. The crowd parted as the police pushed through. 

Detective Gordon was up front, like before. One look told him everything he needed to know. He sighed heavily and motioned for his officers to cuff Dad. 

The day we left the crematorium, only Mom and Sam came. 

The sky hung low and gray. Cold rain ran down Mom’s face, but she didn’t seem to feel it. She shrugged off 

her jacket and wrapped it around my urn, clutching it close. 

“Lily always hated the rain. I can’t let her get wet.” 

After that, neither of them said another word. I knew what they were both thinking about. 

It happened in late fall, when I was four. Mom had caught me sneaking a cookie, and that same evening, I’d 

accidentally broken a bowl at dinner. 

Mom was furious. Dad and Sam begged her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen. She dragged me outside and 

locked me on the balcony in the pouring rain as punishment. 

By the time her anger cooled, I had collapsed in the rain. My fever spiked that night, and they had to rush me 

to the ICU. I didn’t wake up for three days. 

When I finally came to, I was terrified of the rain. I had been ever since. 

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I saw the guilt twisting Mom’s face and reached for her sleeve, though I knew she couldn’t feel me 

“Mom, please put your jacket back on. You’ll get sick.” 

“I’m dead now. The rain can’t hurt me anymore.” 

I stood there in the downpour, watching the raindrops fall right through me. I couldn’t feel a thing. 

My mind went back to those three days in the hospital. I’d been so sick I could barely open my eyes, but I’d sensed someone beside me. 

She never said a word, just stayed with me. She kept a cool cloth on my forehead. She set alarms through the night so she could check on me. For three days, she barely slept at all. 

Even through the haze, I remembered thinking one thing. It had to be Mom. 

It was like all those nights after she’d hurt me. She would slip into my room after I’d fallen asleep, just to look 

at me. 

Part of me believed she loved me. But I also knew how much she hated me. 

Sometimes I almost wanted her to punish me, just so she’d notice I was there. Pain was worth it if it meant 

she’d hold me afterward. 

I used to dream about it, over and over, about what it would feel like if she held me. She’d stroke my hair and 

call me Lily, her voice soft, telling me she loved me. 

I looked at the little urn cradled in Mom’s arms. Something twisted in my chest, bitter and aching.” 

She never held me like that while I was alive. Not once. 

Back home, Mom lay on the bed, clutching my urn to her chest. Tears slid down her face and soaked into the 

pillow. 

She whispered to me. 

“Lily, come to me in my dreams. Please. I miss you so much.” 

“Lily, I’m so sorry. I failed you. If I could do it all over again…” 

I looked down and saw myself starting to fade. I finished the sentence for her, though she couldn’t hear me. 

“I’m sorry, Mom. If there is a next life… please, don’t let me be yours.” 

Living hurt too much. I didn’t want her to suffer for me ever again. 

I just wanted to disappear, completely, so the three of them could finally be happy. 

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