Honest Illusions [niall horan]

Chapter 40

Aubrey's P.O.V.

My grin widened more and more with each passing second as I watched her struggle in her attempts to pick out the cereal she wanted. I couldn't help the giggles escaping me since the moment she wobbled out of her stroller and began making her way towards the multi-box shelf on our right. Her light brown curls bounced with every step she took, her small, slim fingers  blindly reached out for Lucky Charms, causing the few boxes adjacent to it to fall like a stack of dominos. Not wasting another second watching her struggle, I rushed over to her, knelt down, and carefully picked her up. Luckily there wasn't a huge mess, and it turns out the cereal box she wanted remained in place.

"Mommy, are you mad?" She asked me, her lip quivering, and those bright blue eyes beginning to gloss over with tears. I immediately brought my hand up to cup her cheek, pushing a few strands of her hair behind her ear, before I  placed a soft kiss against her nose.

"No, baby, I could never be mad at you," I softly whispered. "Accidents happen, always remember that, okay?" I carefully spoke as I placed her back on the ground. Three years breezed by in the blink of an eye. It seemed so surreal how in a matter of a second, my entire life took a turn for the worse, or at least that's what I thought after Niall cold-heartedly walked out on me. Ever since she was born, Fiona brought an infinite amount of happiness and positivity into my life. Every ounce of pain and suffering seemed insignificant to the bundle of joy now present in my life. 

"Okay," Fiona responded, nodding her head at me. "But can we still get the cw-earl?" Her voice sounded so hopeful, making my heart melt even more.

"Of course," I smiled, picking her up and securing her back in the stroller. I walked in front of the stroller in order to get the box she wanted along with some new Cheerios flavor that Adam has been wanting to try for months now. Once I got the ones I needed, I turned around to place them into my shopping basket. The cereal boxes ended up leaving my hands, except they didn't land in the shopping basket. Instead they immediately dropped to the tile floor at the same time I felt my own heart shatter into a million pieces all over again. My breath came to a hitch while my mind quickly began to process if what I was seeing was reality or not.

"Aubrey?" His familiar voice and accent more than confirmed my suspicions, but I didn't want to believe it. The mere sound of his voice sent an entire frenzy of thoughts to break out within me. I didn't even know how I could possibly handle being in his presence right now, especially with Fiona. For the past three years, I tried so hard to cope with his leaving and a sudden pregnancy. As time went on, I realized he wasn't coming back for me, or his unborn child, yet a small part of me always hoped that he would wake up and come back for me, for his daughter, just come back. Sadly, he never came back, never called or tried to contact me in any way possible.

Fiona, only being three and a half, asked about her dad at times, and that only brought about an entire waterfall of tears. I wasn't going to lie to her about who her dad was, but at the same time I didn't know how I could fully explain to her that her father wanted nothing to do with her. There was no easy way to explain it to her, so I simply put it like this to her: "He's way on vacation."

"Oh god," I muttered under my breath, immediately kneeling down and picking up the fallen cereal boxes. I heard his footsteps nearing us, which made my heart beat quicken with every millisecond.  I hoped my hair would serve as a distraction, and he would just walk past without noticing anything out of the ordinary. With the sound of his footsteps becoming louder, I bit down in my bottom lip.

"Mommy," Fiona's voice broke out. Sighing, I picked myself up off the ground and walked over to her to see what was wrong. "I'm hungry," she whined, playfully kicking her feet in front of me.