I drove to Wilks Bari and handed over the Mason jar like a piece of evidence because that’s what it was about to become. Five more days of Julian smoothies and Julian’s smile. Every morning he blended, I sipped, he watched, I poured the rest out after he left. If I ever lose my warehouse job, I have a backup career in undercover operations or dinner theater.
One evening, I asked Julian to feel the baby kick. He put his hand on my stomach, smiled when the baby moved, and said, “That’s our little one.” I searched his face for guilt, anything. And found nothing. He was sitting with his palm on the child he was trying to destroy, and he looked peaceful, like watching a sunset. That’s the moment I can’t shake.
Not the doctor’s warning, not the burner phone, his hand on my belly, and the emptiness behind his eyes. Some people bury their guilt deep. Julian had nothing to bury. While I waited for lab results, I opened our shared Google Photos account set up two years ago for vacation pictures. Julian hadn’t posted in months. But Google Photos autosyncs.
You delete a photo from your phone thinking it’s gone. But if the cloud grabbed it first, and it almost always does, it’s sitting right there in the shared album timestamped. Julian thought deleting meant disappearing. This is a man who once asked me why his deleted emails were still in the trash folder. Technology was never going to be his criminal accomplice.
I found 47 photos, 7 months of them. Julian with a woman I’d never seen. Restaurants, a lakehouse, a selfie, and a furniture showroom with sold stickers on the floor. models, late 20s, dark hair, bright smile, and in the most recent photos, 3 weeks old. She was visibly pregnant, much further along than me. One photo showed a name tag, Tara B.
I checked Julian’s regular phone. He never changed his passcode, and found Tara Beckley saved under a fake business name, Northeast Fleet Parts. Her address, Dunmore, 15 minutes away. Her Instagram was public. Bio. Living my best chapter. Three weeks ago, she posted tiny baby sneakers. Can’t wait to meet you, little one.
Living my best chapter. Ma’am, you were a footnote in my worst one. But I didn’t blame her yet. If Julian lied to me for 3 years, he could lie to her, too. The timeline clicked like a deadbolt. Tara was 24 weeks pregnant. I was 14. She got pregnant first. Julian found out about Terara’s baby, panicked, and then I told him about mine.
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