Wonderful! Here's Chapter 2: The Betrayal, continuing Bonitah emotional journey. This chapter focuses on her struggle to survive, the harsh realities she faces, and the deep betrayal of being left behind.
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Chapter 2: The Betrayal
She learned to sleep lightly, with one eye open and her back pressed to the wall.
After Leon disappeared, the cousin made it clear—she couldn't stay for free. "Life is hard for everyone," he said, not looking her in the eye. "You're not the only one struggling." Then came the hints. The suggestions. The uncomfortable silences. One night, he stood too close, smelled too strong of beer, and said too much.
She left the next morning before sunrise.
She found herself wandering the streets, carrying her bag and her unborn child, looking for a place that didn't exist. The city wasn't cruel—it was just indifferent. No one cared. People passed her without seeing her. She knocked on church doors, asked strangers for directions to shelters, stood outside restaurants hoping for a leftover meal. Every "no" felt like a stone in her stomach.
Her body changed fast. She hadn't even had time to process that she was going to be a mother. The idea of a child—of cradling something so small and innocent—felt both beautiful and impossible. She didn't even have a pillow to sleep on.
She finally found a rundown women's shelter in the outskirts of the city. It smelled of boiled cabbages and old pain. The beds were metal-framed and too close together. But it was warm. And safe. At least for a while.
There were others like her. Women who had been promised the world and left with nothing but wounds and names no one remembered. Some were quiet. Some angry. Some already mothers. They looked at Bonitah with a mix of pity and familiarity.
"You're not the first," one of them said. "And you won't be the last."
Bonitah nodded, even though her heart screamed.
Days turned to weeks. Her belly grew, and so did her fear. She went to the local clinic when she could, sitting for hours in overcrowded waiting rooms, hoping for kindness. Most nurses were tired, but one woman—a nurse named Jessica—smiled at her and gave her vitamins. "You're strong," Jessica whispered. "Your child is already lucky."
But bonitah didn't feel strong.
One evening, while folding donated baby clothes at the shelter, she found an old pink blanket. It was worn thin but soft. She hugged it to her chest, tears falling before she could stop them. She imagined wrapping her baby in it. Rocking him to sleep. Protecting him from the world.
And then came the letter.
She'd written to Leon, even though she knew it was foolish. One last time. Just to tell him about the baby. Just to say he had a son or daughter growing inside her.
The reply came weeks later. A message scrawled on cheap paper, passed through someone who "knew someone."
It read:
> I'm not coming back. I didn't ask for this. Take care of yourself.
That was it.
No name. No apology. No emotion.
Just like that, the dream she had built with him collapsed like a house with no walls.
She burned the letter in a metal bin behind the shelter and didn't cry. Not this time.
Instead, she whispered a prayer.
"God, I don't know what you're doing. But if you're still with me… help me make it. Help me make him proud. Help me raise him strong."
It was the last time she thought of herself as abandoned.
From that moment on, she became a warrior.