Chapter 3- The New Beginning
897 Words
When running away feels like the only kind of freedom left.
The bus jolted over a pothole, shaking Lily out of her haze.
She clutched her tote bag tighter against her stomach, as though sheer will could protect what now lived inside her. Every breath she took felt heavier than the last. The air on the Greyhound was stale and carried the smell of old coffee and someone’s microwaved tuna sandwich. Her forehead rested against the window, watching as the city of New York faded into the distance like a life she had barely survived.
"I’m really doing this," she thought, blinking hard to keep the tears back.
She didn’t know where exactly she was going. Just that it had to be far. Away from the Galloway name, away from Aiden Blackwood, and most importantly — away from the lies.
Her fingers drifted to her lower stomach unconsciously.
A baby.
There was a baby growing inside her.
She still couldn’t say the word without her throat tightening.
She hadn’t told a soul. Not even the kind nurse at the free clinic who had handed her the pamphlet and a strained smile. Not the girl next to her on the bus who had complimented her boots. Not her father — god no. He’d twist it, weaponize it, use it to bind her to Aiden forever.
And Aiden? She had no idea what he'd do. Marry her instantly, maybe. Not for love, but for control. Or worse… take the baby from her. Billionaires have a way of making problems disappear — and people, too.
She needed time. Distance. A fresh start.
“Next stop, Barlow Ridge,” the driver’s gravelly voice announced over the crackly speaker.
Lily sat up straighter. It was a small town upstate, quiet and unremarkable. A place nobody would think to look for her. She’d never heard of it before that morning, when she randomly picked it on the map.
The bus hissed as it pulled into the station. She stood, adjusted the strap on her bag, and stepped out into the unfamiliar.
The first breath of Barlow Ridge’s air hit her like a reset button — crisp, cool, and calm in a way New York never was. The streets were clean, the trees full and green, and everything smelled faintly of cinnamon from the bakery across the road.
For the first time in days, she exhaled without her chest clenching.
An hour later, she was in a dusty little studio apartment above a bookstore, signing the lease with a homeowner who talked too much but asked too few questions. The rent was affordable, probably because the shower groaned when you turned it on and the radiator clanked like a ghost lived inside it.
Still, it was hers.
Her space. Her rules. Her restart.
She dropped onto the old loveseat by the window and let herself cry — really cry — for the first time since the test came back positive. There was no one to hear her, no one to hush her, no cold eyes watching and waiting to use her weakness against her.
She cried for the baby. For her mother. For the girl she used to be and the woman she was now forced to become.
When the tears dried, she got up and started building a life.
The job wasn’t glamorous — just a receptionist at a sleek marketing firm with bright lights, louder phones, and too many coffee runs. But it was honest work, and it paid enough for groceries and prenatal vitamins.
Her boss, Ethan Reid, was the kind of guy who wore his charm like a suit — fitted, practiced, and just tight enough to be impressive. He always smiled too much, asked too many personal questions, but for now, Lily ignored the gut feeling she got every time his hand lingered too long near hers.
She couldn’t afford paranoia — not now.
Ethan wasn’t her problem.
Keeping herself — and the baby — afloat was.
She started counting the days. Not weeks. Days.
The nausea came and went like waves. Her cravings turned strange — pickles and peanut butter — and her emotions? A total mess. She cried watching cat food commercials, screamed at the toaster, and once laughed so hard at a t****k she had to pee immediately after.
But still, she stood.
Every single day.
She was building something from nothing. And that had to count for something.
Then one night, she came home to find a letter wedged under her door.
No return address. No name.
She opened it slowly, half-expecting a threat from her father. But the handwriting was unfamiliar, messy but purposeful.
“I saw you on the bus. You looked sad. And scared. But strong, too.
I thought you should know that whatever you’re running from — it doesn’t define you.
Some of us build new lives out of broken ones.
You’re not alone.
— R”
Lily’s fingers trembled as she reread it.
R?
It couldn’t be him. No. There was no way Ryan knew where she was. Right?
Unless…
Her stomach twisted, but not from nausea this time.
She folded the letter, tucked it in her drawer, and stared at the window for a long time, watching the quiet town breathe beneath the streetlights.
She couldn’t go back.
Not now.
But maybe she’d never really left the past behind.
- Writer
