Chapter 40

Olivia

I was lying in my bed in the dim light. I had been dozing on and off all day, but this time I was fast asleep.

Suddenly, a creak caught my attention. I stirred from my nap, my eyes blinking away the remnants of sleep. The room felt hazy, and as my vision cleared, I noticed Nathan standing in the doorway.

His face flushed a deep shade of red, and he quickly concealed his lower half behind the door.

Confusion clouded my mind as I sat up, pulling the covers closer to me.

"What are you doing, Nathan?" I asked, my voice laced with both curiosity and concern.

Nathan’s face somehow turned an even deeper shade of red as he stammered out a response. “I… I… Um…” He cleared his throat. “How did everything go with my mom this morning?”

At the mention of Nathan’s mother and her horrible soup, I practically felt nauseous just thinking about it. I shook my head and laid back down with a shrug. “It was fine.”

Nathan shot me a puzzled look. He hovered there for a few moments, still with his lower half oddly hidden behind the door frame, before he finally let out what sounded like a small sigh of relief and came out fully.

“Are you sure it was fine?” he asked, taking a few steps into my room. “You don’t seem like it was fine.”

I shrugged. The worry was evident on his face when I glanced over at him, and finally I sighed, knowing that he’d get it out of me eventually if I tried to hide it, even though I didn’t want to talk about it.

“I just got sick from the soup she gave me, that’s all,” I said. “She made me eat two bowls even though the smell made me throw up both times.”

Nathan’s eyes widened slightly. “Oh, no!” he exclaimed, coming over to the side of the bed. “Are you alright?”

“It’s probably just morning sickness,” I replied with a weak smile.

But Nathan, perceptive as ever, saw through my half-truth almost instantly. He folded his arms across his chest and shot me a confused, but also concerned, look.

“And what else?” he asked.

I chewed my lip for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. He knew that something else was amiss; if it was just morning sickness, then I wouldn’t be acting so melancholy. But it wasn’t just the morning sickness. I could’ve handled it if it was just that.

It was also the fact that his mother kept using that one specific word.

Surrogate.

Something about it made me uneasy.

“Tell me, Olivia,” Nathan said, sitting down on the edge of my bed. “You know you can talk to me.”

Finally, I sighed and rolled over onto my back. I ran a hand through my hair as I looked up at the ceiling. For the briefest moment, I thought I saw Nathan’s eyes flicker down to my chest, but I pretended not to notice it.

“Your mom started off by asking how we wound up ‘getting together’,” I replied, making air quotes with my fingers. “And she was comparing me to Layla. Which is fine, I guess. But it’s not just that.”

Nathan raised an eyebrow. “What else is it?”

I sighed again. “She kept calling me a… surrogate. She said that I don’t have the right to make decisions about my nutrition as this so-called ‘surrogate’.”

As I spoke, I could see Nathan’s expression fade from concerned to awkward. His eyes widened slightly, and when I was finished, he looked down at his lap and laughed uncomfortably as he ran a hand through his blond hair.

“Um… Did she explain why she thinks that?” he asked quietly.

I shook my head. “Nope. I mean, I didn’t bother asking. I was more focused on finishing the soup so it could all just be over with, since she basically wouldn’t leave until I ate it all. That stuff was horrible.”

Nathan chuckled slightly. “Yeah,” he replied. “I could smell it when I came in earlier. She must have used a lot of medicinal herbs. I’m sorry about that…”

Suddenly, I sat up and looked intensely at Nathan. It felt as though he was withholding some of the truth, like there was something that he wanted to say but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

“Why did she keep calling me a surrogate?” I asked. “Is that what people think I am? Just a surrogate? As if my reputation isn’t already in the dumps as it is, people are now gonna think that my baby isn’t even my own?”

Nathan abruptly shook his head. “No!” he replied, somewhat frantically. “I promise that my mother is most likely the only person who feels that way.”

“But why does she feel that way?” I pressed, urging Nathan for more information. “It’s not very fair to me, is it, so make it out like I’m just a surrogate with no say over how my baby is cared for?”

Nathan fell silent for a few moments. Once again, his face flushed red with embarrassment.

“Nathan?” I asked, poking his shoulder. “Spit it out already.”

Finally, Nathan stood with a sigh and scratched his head. “I just don’t know if I should say it,” he said. “It’s… kind of personal.”

My eyes widened a bit and I folded my arms across my chest angrily.

“That’s not fair,” I growled. “It’s not personal anymore if your mom is using whatever it is to treat me like garbage, force me to eat disgusting ‘soup’ even if it makes me puke my brains out, and then belittle me and call me a surrogate. I’ve had enough of people looking down on me like this and I deserve to know why.”

My voice was laced with frustration. Nathan fell silent for a few moments. He didn’t seem to want to meet my gaze, but I just kept burning my eyes into the side of his skull, silently demanding an answer.

What if Maria was implying that she planned to take my baby for whatever reason? What if she intended on claiming my baby as her own, or at the very least planned on making it out like my baby didn’t really belong to me?

I was determined to know the truth about whatever was going on here. This didn’t just involve me; it involved my baby, too. The words that Nathan’s mother said to me still hung heavily in my mind, the weight of their implications crushing my spirit.

“I won’t be kept in the dark, Nathan,” I said quietly.

After a few long moments, Nathan let out a deep breath and nodded.

“Alright,” he finally said, his voice so low it was barely above a whisper. “I’ll tell you. But you have to promise not to judge me or Layla.”

My eyebrows raised simultaneously. “What?” I asked.

Nathan turned to face me finally, and his expression was oddly fervent.

“Promise me,” he said. “And promise, too, that you won’t tell anyone.”

I felt oddly discomforted beneath Nathan’s stern gaze. Finally, after some thought during our shocked silence, I nodded.

“Okay,” I said quietly. “I promise I won’t say a word about it.”