Our Second Forever

Chapter 5

Alina’s POV

I didn’t sleep that night either.

After Elijah left the bakery, my hands shook for hours. I tried to go through the rest of the evening like normal making dinner, helping Sophie brush her teeth, reading her a bedtime story. But inside, I felt like a storm had hit me and I was still standing in the middle of it.

He knew about Sophie. Or at least… he suspected.

I could see it in his face. The way he asked about her. The way his voice changed when he said her name. And when I told him she didn’t have a father? The look in his eyes crushed me.

I hadn’t planned on keeping Sophie from him forever. I really hadn’t. But when I found out I was pregnant, he was already gone. My father had made sure of that.

By the time I gathered the strength to tell him, he had disappeared from everything. No phone number. No email. Nothing. I tried once, with a letter I sent to his old apartment one last attempt to tell him everything but it came back unopened. “No longer at this address.”

And just like that, he was gone.

So I raised Sophie on my own. I moved here, found work at the bakery, rented a small apartment, and made a life. A quiet one. A simple one.

One where I didn’t have to keep looking over my shoulder.

But now, here he was. Back in my world. And angrier than I had ever seen him.

“Elijah, it’s not what you think,” I had tried to say. But it wasn’t enough. How could I explain everything in just a few words?

He had walked out the door before I even got the chance.

The next morning, I stood in the mirror longer than usual, brushing my hair and staring at myself like maybe I’d find some strength buried in there somewhere.

“You okay, Mommy?” Sophie asked, standing in her pajamas, her little pink toothbrush in hand.

I smiled and crouched down beside her. “Yeah, baby. Just a little tired.”

“Did that man make you sad?”

My heart tightened. “What man?”

“The one from the bakery. The one who looked at me funny.”

I paused, then pulled her into a gentle hug. “He didn’t mean to. Sometimes adults are just… confused.”

“Was he your friend?”

I closed my eyes and breathed in her soft hair. “A long time ago.”

She leaned back and looked at me, her face so serious it nearly broke me.

“Is he my daddy?”

I froze.

How did she…?

“Why would you ask that, sweetheart?”

She shrugged. “He looked at me like he knew me. And you looked at him like you were going to cry.”

I blinked back the sudden sting behind my eyes.

I wanted to tell her the truth. I wanted to scoop her up and explain everything—how her daddy had loved me once, how life had torn us apart, how none of it was her fault. But I couldn’t. Not yet. I needed time. I needed to talk to Elijah first, face to face. Not in anger. Not with that hurt still burning in his eyes.

So instead, I whispered, “He’s someone Mommy used to care about very much.”

She seemed to accept that. For now.

After I dropped her off at school, I headed straight to the park, needing air and space. I sat on the same bench I used to go to when I was pregnant, six years ago. Back when everything felt like a mess I couldn’t crawl out of.

I didn’t expect to end up here again. I had built something here peace, however fragile. I had worked so hard to protect Sophie from everything ugly. From secrets. From pain.

But maybe it was time she knew the truth.

And maybe it was time Elijah heard it too.

Still, the thought terrified me.

He had looked at me like I was a stranger. Like I was a liar. Like I had ruined his life.

And maybe, in some way, I had.

But he didn’t know what it cost me. How my father had stood there, stone-faced, as I begged him not to do it. How he dangled Elijah’s sister’s life over my head like a price I had to pay. How I’d made the hardest decision of my life that night after we’d made love for the first time knowing it would be the last time.

I thought I was protecting him.

Instead, I’d destroyed us both.

I spent the whole day trying to keep it together. But when Sophie came home and asked if she could draw pictures for “the man with the sad eyes,” I had to step into the bathroom and cry in silence.

He still had that hold on me. Even after all this time. Even after all the pain.

And now?

He was back.

Back in our town.

Back in our lives.

And whether we were ready or not… the truth was coming.