Blimey, got this wild story! Morning rush near Oxford Street had its own beat – heels clicking on the pavement, car horns blaring in the queues above, the distant squeal of a Tube train cutting through the autumn air. Emily drifted like a ghost in faded blue cleaner’s overalls, her hand tight around a steaming paper cup. Seven months pregnant, dead on her feet and barely hanging on, but still turning up. Still trying, you know?
She ducked through the grubby underpass like always, dodging street vendors, flower carts, and scattered belongings of rough sleepers. Most folks looked away. Emily didn’t. Couldn’t. Not after everything she’d been through.
That’s when she spotted him again.
Slumped against the concrete wall, half-hidden in shadows, was the bloke she’d seen before: curly hair matted over his forehead, a crutch across his lap, and a tatty baseball cap turned upside-down for coins. But something about him felt off. He didn’t yell. Didn’t beg. Just sat there… watching.
Emily hesitated a sec, then walked over. She fished a crumpled five-pound note from her coat pocket – yesterday’s tip money – and held it out.
“Grab something hot, yeah?” she said softly. “Not much, but it’ll help.”
He didn’t take it. Not straight off.
Instead, he eyed her bump.
“Always this kind?” he asked, voice low and rough.
Emily shrugged. “Suppose I’ve been on both sides of the pavement.”
He smiled faintly and took the note.
But when his fingers brushed hers, something odd flashed in his eyes. A shift. Like recognition. Or guilt.
“Oi,” he said suddenly, glancing round. “You walking this way tomorrow?”
Emily blinked. “Yeah. Always do.”
He leaned in just an inch. “Maybe don’t. Tomorrow. Not round here.”
Her breath hitched.
“Why?” she whispered.
But he was already turning away, pulling up his hood and sinking back into the shadows.
Emily stood there, unsettled. The city buzzed round her like nothing happened, like no one’d just dropped a warning in her ordinary morning.
Was it a threat? A trap?
Or something else completely?
Later that night, back in her cramped studio in Peckham, she replayed it over and over. His eyes. That urgency in his voice. Weird hesitation, like he nearly said more and bottled it. She curled up on her sagging mattress, one hand on her belly, the other gripping her phone. Nearly called someone. But who? She’d no one. No family. No mates close enough for a midnight ring.
Just that bloke.
Just his words.
“Maybe don’t walk this way tomorrow.”
She didn’t know it yet, but what he meant… well, it’d change everything!
