Surrogate by Deception

I was a virgin. The test in my hand said I was pregnant. Twentytwo years old. Two pink lines. My hands would not stop shaking.

Out in the hallway, Nolan pounded on the door and swore he would marry me. Swore he would raise the baby as his own, whoever it belonged to. He was good at this.

He had sounded exactly this sincere the last time. Then, in the delivery room, he had pressed a pillow over my face. Four weeks along.

Eight months until the day I died on that table. Eight months to find out one thing. I had never been with a man. So whose baby was I carrying? Chapter 1 "Vera.

Did you take it or not? You're not actually pregnant, are you?" Sera had been knocking for a while. I sat on the edge of the tub and watched the two lines get redder.

Last time, this baby ended with a pillow over my face. Last time I dropped out. Last time I married him at a courthouse. No ceremony, no ring.

And at the end of it, he held it there until the room went dark. I died without ever learning how I got pregnant. Or whose it was. The door swung open. Sera had run out of patience.

I already had the test buried in my sleeve. She looked around the bathroom, at the sink, at the trash. "Where's the stick?

Are you or aren't you?" I shook my head. "I've never had sex, Sera. How would I be pregnant?" Sera could not keep her mouth shut.

Last time, she knew before lunch and Nolan knew before dinner, and by the end of the week the whole dorm knew. This time I was going to keep it to myself.

Her shoulders dropped. "I honestly thought you were. And Nolan's about to propose, you know that? It would have been two celebrations at once." Two celebrations at once.

I watched her face. Since when did Sera care so much about babies? Nolan and I had gone to the mall twice. He had never even kissed me. No other man had been alone with me. Not one.

The only person who had been anywhere near me was Sera. And Sera was a girl. Then it came back to me. A month ago, the two of us went to the campus aquatic center.

A man swam up against me. He kept doing it, pressing closer, making sure I felt it. I screamed at him.

Sera screamed louder, called him every name she knew until he got out of the water. Afterward, I didn't want to shower. I told her I'd wait in the locker room.

I fell asleep on the bench. I woke up aching everywhere. I blamed the swimming. Now I sat on my bed with my arms around my knees and my skin went cold.

If someone had done that to me, my body would have kept a record of it. I wanted a name. At Mercy General, the ultrasound killed whatever hope I had left. Four weeks.

Exactly one month. The doctor asked whether I planned to keep it. I scheduled the termination before she finished the sentence. I didn't care who the father was. It was not staying.

She filled out the form without looking up, and said, half to herself, "Girls these days. No respect for their own bodies.

So young, too." I lifted my head and looked at her. "Doctor. Would you put that in my chart, word for word." Her pen stopped in the air.

I also asked for a full pelvic exam and an STD panel. Whoever had touched me, I had no idea what he was carrying. She snapped on her gloves and told me to lie back.

For a moment there was nothing but the hum of the light above me.

Then her hands went still. "This..." She sat back. "That isn't possible." "There's no sign you've ever had sex." She looked up, at my stomach. "But you're pregnant." Chapter 2 I had walked in there planning to leave with evidence and drive straight to a police station.

The doctor peeled off her gloves, one finger at a time, and dropped her voice. "Nineteen years, and I've seen this once.

In a textbook." "You've never had sex." "But you're pregnant." She let that sit. "Sweetheart, this was not an accident." I came out of that exam room with my head full of static.

A month had gone by since the pool. Whatever had been on my skin was long gone. Was I supposed to scrape this thing out of me and never find out what happened? My phone lit up.

Nolan. "Vera, where are you? Sera's been calling me for an hour, she can't find you. Did something happen?" A screen full of missed calls, all hers.

I had silenced the phone for the exam. His voice was so gentle it made my nose sting. Then I remembered the weight of him leaning down on my face. He hated me.

He had wanted me dead. And still he waited until the baby was out of me before he did it. Which meant the baby mattered to him. Which meant, somehow, the baby was his business.

Before I could follow that thought anywhere, Sera called. "Why aren't you picking up," she snapped. "Do you have any idea how worried I've been?" Something in me came loose.

I sat down on a bench in the corridor and sobbed. Last time, Sera was the one who told me to end it. I didn't listen. I listened to him.

The doctor had said my uterine lining was thin. Get rid of this one and you may never carry another. And Nolan held my hand and promised he would marry me. So I kept it.

A man does not raise another man's child out of love. I thanked him. I remember thanking him. Sera was the only person left I could tell.

I told her I was pregnant, and that I was at Mercy General. She was there in five minutes. She took my face in both hands, then pulled me into her coat. "A baby is good news.

Stop crying. I'm calling Nolan right now." I caught her wrist. "It might not be his." She went still.

Half a second, no more. "That's a hell of a move, Vera." Her voice was light. "Whose is it?" "I don't know." "I just want it out of me." Sera crouched down in front of the bench so I had to look at her. "Whatever you decide, I'm with you." She drove me to the appointment the next morning.

I was in the paper gown, one nurse away from the table, when the door banged open. "Wait. Vera, don't do it. I'll take care of you.

I'll take care of both of you." My fingers closed around the ultrasound printout. How did he know I was here? I had told exactly one person. I turned.

Sera looked as blank as I felt. "How is he even here?" Nolan dropped into the chair beside me, out of breath, and threaded his fingers through mine. "We have location sharing, remember?

I saw you at the hospital yesterday. I've been sick about it all night." He bowed his head. "I never thought it would be this." "I know the baby isn't mine.

We've never even—" He stopped himself. Started over, softer. "But Vera, your body isn't strong.

If you get rid of this one, I'm scared you'll never get to be a mother." Last time, he stood in this same corridor and said those exact words.

Eight months after that, he held a pillow over my face. Chapter 3 I pulled my hand out of his, one finger at a time. "No. I'm getting rid of it." I'm an oldfashioned girl.

I always assumed I'd have kids one day. But not this one. Not a child whose father I couldn't name. I would stay alone the rest of my life first. Nolan blinked.

His eyebrows drew together. "Why? I've already told you I don't care. What's left to worry about?" Sera lowered her voice. "He's right, Vera. A termination is hard on a body.

Maybe we sit with it a few days.

You're not strong, and..." Nolan took the ultrasound printout out of my hand and pulled me up off the chair. "I'm not letting you do this to yourself.

We'll get married next month, that's all. I won't hold it against you. I don't care if it isn't mine." Heads turned all the way down the corridor.

A nurse actually sighed. "What a guy. He'd raise another man's kid and not blink." "If it were me, I'd have the baby. Somebody's paying for it either way." Another man's kid.

Nolan's jaw tightened. Only for a second. His mouth kept doing its noble little speech and his jaw gave him away.

He wanted me to have this baby so he could spend the rest of my life making me pay for it. I laughed at him. "You think you're in a position to look down on me?" "We're done.

Whatever happens to me is none of your business." He was still holding my ultrasound printout. I took it out of his hand. The nurse stopped smiling. I walked out.

I needed to know what Nolan had to do with the thing growing inside me. He'd hinted about a hotel once, months ago. I said no and he never brought it up again.

My hand kept going to my stomach. This did not come from nowhere. The doctor's voice sat in my ear all the way home. This was not an accident. Someone had done it.

I just had to find the day. So I went back to the aquatic center. Cash in the security guard's hand got me an hour alone with the footage.

There are no cameras inside the locker rooms. All I could see was who went in and who came out. I watched it twice. Nobody. Not one person who didn't belong.

I sat back and rubbed my eyes. Maybe I had it backwards. Maybe that day had nothing to do with it. Sera came back with an iced latte and dropped into the chair beside me.

She sat down too lightly, the way you do when you already know how something ends. "I got rid of Nolan for you. So talk.

Whose baby is it?" I bit down on my lip. "I want to know that too. All I remember is the pool. And then somehow I was pregnant." She stopped.

Then she smacked her forehead. "What if somebody, you know. In the water." "I read about this.

A guy did it in a public pool on purpose and a bunch of girls ended up pregnant." I almost laughed. Sperm die fast. Chlorinated water kills them faster.

But she had an answer ready so quickly. Like she had been holding it for me. Still, she'd put the man in my head again, the one who kept swimming into me.

I pulled up the interior footage and started it over. Nolan. Hood up, ball cap pulled low, hanging back by the pool entrance, watching the water.

Then he stepped out of frame and into the men's room. I rewound it and froze the image and stared at the timestamp in the corner. It was the minute I fell asleep on that bench.

Chapter 4 I never got the chance to ask him. Someone hammered on my apartment door. Sera opened it and got shoved out of the way. My father came through first. My mother behind him.

I had barely gotten to my feet when his hand caught me across the face. A high sound came up inside my ear and swallowed whatever he said next. I tasted rust.

I covered my cheek on instinct. "Vera Zhou." He was shaking. "I raised a piece of trash.

Not even married and you're already spreading your legs to have some man's baby." Over his shoulder, Nolan didn't move. He was watching me, and he wasn't even trying to hide it.

Then he arranged his face and sighed. "I didn't want to do this, Vera. I'm just so scared you'll get rid of it." "I talked to your doctor. She says your lining is thin.

If you end this one, you might never get another." Same excuse. Last time he used it to rush me into a courthouse wedding. No ceremony. No ring. Nothing. And I thanked him for it.

I worked through my third trimester to pay him back for a debt I never owed. What exactly had I done wrong. I never even found out how I got pregnant.

My father's face had gone red down to his collar. "You'll drop out. You'll marry him. Wait until you're showing, and see how people look at you then." "Mr.

Zhou, don't upset yourself." Nolan pitched his voice just loud enough for the whole room. "Vera can take a leave of absence and we'll marry quietly.

My mom's already said she'll take the baby fulltime. Vera won't have to lift a finger." Sera pressed an ice pack into my hand. I sat down.

I put the ice against my cheek and said, "Nobody's getting married. I'm not doing it." My father's finger shook in the air in front of me. "Then what?

You're still going through with the abortion?" My mother was crying into her sleeve. "What did we ever do to deserve this? Pregnant, and not married.

If you don't marry him, who else is ever going to want you?" Something in me tipped over, and it came out as a laugh. "I'll marry the baby's father." I looked at all three of them. "Who told you it was Nolan's?" My mother stopped crying.

My father stopped shouting. "Nolan is impotent," I said. "He doesn't even qualify to be the father." Nolan's face curdled. "Are you sick in the head? You've never seen it.

How would you know?" My mother turned to him. "So it really isn't yours?" He saw the trap a half second too late. "Sir, ma'am, no.

It isn't mine." He got his footing back. "But I still want to marry her. I won't hold the baby against her." I rolled my eyes. "I broke up with you. Are you not following?

If I marry anyone, it'll be my baby's actual father." His teeth came together. "Then say it. Say whose it is." "Go on.

Say it out loud." My hand closed around the ice pack until it hurt. Sera moved between us fast, her hand on my shoulder, patting. "Everybody calm down.

We can talk about this like adults." My eyes went to her right hand. There was a man's ring on her middle finger. The morning we went to the pool, that ring was on Nolan's.

I opened my mouth again. I couldn't get a single word out.

Chapter 5 Nothing came out, and Nolan decided that meant he'd won. "I was going to let you keep some dignity." He smiled. "But look at you.

Who else is going to marry you now?" "Nobody wants used goods. Go pack. And don't expect a ring." There it was. He wasn't even bothering to act anymore.

Sera rounded on him. "What is wrong with you? If you breathe a word of this to anyone, I swear to God." "What word?" He shrugged. "She's dating me and sleeping with somebody else.

What would you call it?" My mother had my arm in both hands, shaking it. "Whose is it? Tell me. Whose baby is it?" I looked around the room. My father. My mother. Nolan. Sera.

I pulled my arm free. "Sera." I said it quietly. "Do you know whose baby this is?" Her eyes flicked away from mine. "Vera, sweetheart, how would I know?

You don't even know." I nodded. "Then let's call the police. I think somebody drugged me and raped me." The first people to panic were my parents.

My mother clamped a hand over my wrist. My father's voice cracked across the room. "Police? You know exactly who you slept with.

Haven't you humiliated us enough?" Sera crouched in front of me, all softness. "Are you thinking about that man at the pool? Vera. Even if it's his, you have nothing.

No proof, no case." "Have the baby first. I'll help you raise it. I mean that." Nolan let out a long sigh and let his voice go gentle again. "Everything I said, I meant.

I don't hold the baby against you. I'll marry you." My parents nodded along like he was reading scripture.

My mother actually bent at the waist and took his hands in hers. "Nolan, we've wronged you. We'll cover the down payment on a car for you. Whatever it takes.

We'll make it right by you." "I said no." I was on my feet. "Which word is confusing you?" My father's hand came up. I looked at him.

He held it there, trembling, and made himself put it down. "Don't push your luck, Vera. That boy is willing to marry you.

You should be on your knees thanking him." "Otherwise a girl who runs around like you, everyone on this block will be pointing at you on the street.

If you weren't my only child I'd have washed my hands of you years ago." My mother's hand was still resting on the back of Nolan's. I looked at her nails.

I took her to get them done last month. Nolan looked so pleased. These were the people I loved most. Every one of them was in this room, and not one of them cared what I wanted.

I was the only one who cared what I wanted. I breathed in. "Fine.

If it's a wedding you want, fine." Nolan couldn't stop the grin. "Vera, I promise, I'll take good care of you and the ba—" "I'm not keeping the baby, Nolan." "Let's be childfree." The grin froze on his face. "What?" I put my hand on my stomach. "I can't ask you to raise another man's child, can I?

Don't worry. I'll get my strength back. We'll have our own." I leaned toward him.

He shoved me away before he could stop himself. "Why," he said, and his voice cracked. "Why do you have to get rid of it?

What kind of woman is this cold?" I let the smile drop off my face. "You want it that badly? Raising another man's kid?" He didn't answer.

His right hand went to his ring finger, feeling for something. It was bare. Then his eyes went to Sera's hand.

Chapter 6 "Vera, I love you," Nolan said. "Anything you carry, I'll love." Sera jumped in. "Give him a chance. Please. A termination is hard on you." A termination is hard on me.

And nine months of pregnancy is a spa weekend. I looked at the two of them. My boyfriend since high school. My best friend of twelve years. I didn't know what they were hiding.

But they knew. Both of them knew whose baby I was carrying. "Nolan. A month ago. The day we went to the pool." "Where were you?" He opened his mouth to lie.

Then he looked at Sera and the lie went out of him and his head came down. "I was there. I saw that guy grabbing at you." He said the rest of it to the floor. "I was a coward.

I didn't come help you." He drew back his hand and slapped himself across the face. "I'm sorry, Vera. That one's on me. Please forgive me." None of that was what I wanted.

I wanted the locker room. I can't sleep in strange places. I lie awake in hotels. And I went out on a wooden bench with wet tile under my feet, in under ten minutes.

Sera set her teeth. Then she hit him, openhanded, across the other cheek. The room went quiet for a full second. Nolan's head turned with it.

He didn't look up at her. "Enough, Nolan. You're still going to sit there and lie to her?" She turned to me and her eyes were red. "I'm sorry, Vera.

I know whose baby it is." She swallowed hard. "It's Nolan's." I looked at him. There was nothing in his face but grief. The room tilted. It couldn't be his.

Last time this man leaned his whole weight into a pillow over my mouth. So which one was the performance.

That life, or this one. "I didn't see the man put something in your water," Sera said. "You fell asleep in the locker room.

Nolan went to find you." "And he couldn't keep it in his pants." Nolan had his head in his hands. "I lost my mind, Vera. I didn't go in there for that. You held on to me.

You wouldn't let go, and I..." His knees went. He hit the floor and started hitting himself, forehand, backhand, again. "Forgive me.

I'll spend my whole life making it up to you and the baby." He wasn't pulling the slaps. By the fourth one his cheek had gone the color of raw meat.

My father put a boot into his ribs. "You little bastard." Then, a moment later: "Well. It is what it is. The two of you get married.

Soon." Nolan crawled forward on his knees and wrapped both arms around my legs, snot and tears on my jeans. "I swear to you.

I'll be good to you and to our child." "And if you don't believe me, we'll do a DNA test the day it's born." I looked down at him for a long time. "All right," I said. "I believe you." The room let out its breath.

Sera slid her arm through mine and squeezed, careful as a nurse. "You have to forgive me too. I wasn't keeping it from you on purpose." I smiled at her. "Of course not.

You're my best friend." They were good. One on his knees, hitting himself. One with her eyes wet, wiping my face. I had watched this play once already.

This time I wasn't going to stop it. Chapter 7 I wanted the father's name more than I wanted air. I already had an answer. I just couldn't make myself believe it. Not that person.

Anyone but that person. By that night I was sure. To prove he wasn't impotent, Nolan took his pants off. He was not impotent. He stood there, waiting for something.

I counted to three. Nothing. They were lying to me. This baby was not his.

He came at the bed, hands already reaching, and I slapped him across the face. "The first three months are dangerous. Do you want me to miscarry?" He held his cheek.

He bent for his pants too fast and stepped on the cuff. "I'm sorry," he said, sulking. "I'll go take care of it in the bathroom." He shuffled out with his belt still open.

I followed him down the hall in bare feet and heard him mutter to himself. "Somebody's already had her.

Playing the blushing virgin." I put my back against the wall and bit down until my jaw ached. A minute later he came back up the hall. He didn't come into my room.

He went into Sera's. I opened the feed and watched the two of them go down onto her bed.

The first morning I woke up in this life again, I put a camera in the living room and another in the hall. I never told anyone. Sera hit his shoulder. "You have some nerve.

What if Vera finds out?" Nolan had his mouth on her throat. "Finds out what? She's a tool.

She drops the kid, I drop her." Sera made a soft sound. "Just never let her find out whose it is. We're both finished if she does." A laugh. "Not that she'd guess.

She could die guessing." The light went off. The microphone kept working. I turned the phone face down on my knees. The light bled out around my fingers.

I'd told myself I was ready. I sat there in the dark and my hands shook anyway. So that was the arrangement. He played the villain, she played the friend.

One of them hurt me and the other one held me while I cried. Last time they ran this on me for a year and I thanked them both.

If I hadn't looked down in my own living room and recognized the ring on Sera's finger, I'd still be thanking them. I had that ring made.

And once I saw it on her hand, a detail I'd been shoving away for a month walked up and stood in front of me. Two sets of initials, cut into the inside of the band. Mine. His.

The morning of the pool, it was on Nolan's hand. That hour in the locker room, exactly one person walked in.

And right now that person was wearing his ring, smiling, pulling the blanket up to my chin. Chapter 8 To find out if I was right, I asked Sera to take me to the hot springs.

Sera's family had money. Old money.

For years she'd pulled me all over the country, mountains and coastlines and bars and theme parks, everything paid for before I could reach for my wallet.

There was exactly one kind of place we had never gone together. A spa. We had never once been undressed in the same room.

From freshmanyear swim class to every city we ever slept in, she had never changed in front of me. The reason was always the same. She was a germaphobe.

Which meant I had never seen her body. She said no immediately. "You're pregnant. Do you have any idea how dangerous a hot spring is right now?

We'll go after the baby comes." "No hot springs?" I said. "Then I may as well get rid of..." "Fine. Fine.

God, you win." She reached over and tucked my hair behind my ear, laughing, looking at me the way you look at something you own. "It's a hot spring.

I'll take you." At Cedar Hollow she wouldn't take her robe off. Too many strangers, too many germs. She sat on the ledge with her feet out of the water and watched me.

I sank in to my collarbone and asked my first question. "Sera. You've never once told me about your family. What do your parents do?" "My father travels.

Business." She shrugged. "My mother stays home.

Why?" "I've never met your father." I kept my voice easy. "But I hear the woman he's married to isn't your mother." Her feet came out of the water.

In twelve years I had never seen her look at me with anything close to anger. "What exactly are you saying?" I looked up at her. "You're his bastard, aren't you." Sera came off the ledge and stood over me, pointing. "Vera Zhou.

If I mean anything to you at all, you'll never call me that again." I reached up out of the water and closed my hand around her wrist.

I turned the ring on her finger until it caught the light. "That afternoon," I said, "exactly one person walked into that locker room." "Sera.

What did you do to me?" Her face lost its color, degree by degree