Someone else's child

~ Loise ~

“We don't want the baby anymore.”

For a second, I forgot how to breathe. I pressed the phone tighter against my ear, convinced I had somehow heard her wrong

“What?”

My voice came out barely above a whisper. On the other end, the woman sighed, impatiently, as if I were the one making this difficult.

“I said we don't want the baby. We’re divorced. Whatever arrangement you had with us is no longer valid.”

My fingers went numb.

“No.” I swallowed hard. “No, that doesn't make sense. The pregnancy is already—” three months old, I wanted to say, but she cut me off almost immediately. 

“We're sorry, Loise, but there's nothing we can do.”  

“I'm sorry?”

A bitter laugh escaped me, sharp and breathless. That's all she had to say? She was sorry?

“You can't just call me halfway through a pregnancy and tell me you don't want the baby anymore!”

I yelled as my heart hammered against my ribs. 

“We can do whatever we want, Loise. The sperm wasn't even my ex husband's.” 

“I—I don't understand.” My voice cracked. “What the fuck do you mean?”

I waited for an answer, but all I received was a deafening silence that made my blood boil even more. Then…

Beep Beep Beep!

The line went dead, making dread hit me. She had hung up on me. No explanation, no nothing. The room suddenly tilted, and I reached for the wall, my palm scraping against the cold surface as I struggled to keep myself upright. My knees trembled beneath me, and a strange pressure tightened around my chest.

They didn't want the baby—that was all that kept ringing in my mind. 

I squeezed my eyes shut hoping to stop the tears that were threatening to fall, but they came anyway.

For three months, I had carried a child that wasn't supposed to be mine, following every instruction they gave me, swallowing every pill, enduring every appointment, and watching my body slowly change because I believed I was helping a woman who desperately wanted to become a mother.

I had agreed to this because I trusted Tony. That's right.

Tony, my boyfriend, was the one who introduced me to his aunt, who couldn't have children of her own, and asked me to help her because, according to him, I was already part of the family.

He had promised me that everything would be fine. He had promised that I wouldn't regret it—that I would be compensated. 

I scrolled through my phone with trembling fingers and dialed his number, but it went straight to voicemail.

“Tony, please pick up,” I whispered, even though I knew he couldn't hear me.

When the call ended, I didn't waste another second. I hurried toward my drawer, pulled it open, and took out the last fifty-dollar bill I had left, stuffing it into my worn-out purse before rushing out of the apartment to find him. If anyone could explain what was happening, it had to be him. At least, that's what I thought.

…

The stench that greeted me the moment I stepped into the bar almost made me throw up, but I forced the nausea back down and continued walking deeper into the building, my hand instinctively moving to my stomach as the loud music shook the walls around me.

The air was thick with the smell of alcohol, sweat, and sex, while couples occupied secluded corners of the bar, too lost in each other to care who was watching. Tony loved places like this, although he had never once brought me along, and honestly, I had never wanted to come here in the first place.

I scanned the crowded room, my eyes moving from one unfamiliar face to another until they finally landed on a figure I knew better than anyone—Tony.

He was sitting in the farthest corner of the bar, his lips locked with a blonde woman who was comfortably straddling his lap.

“What the fuck?”

The words slipped from my lips the moment I reached them, a crack breaking through my voice.

They stopped kissing, and he turned toward me, his eyes widening for a brief second before his expression settled into something indifferent.

My gaze moved from his face to the woman sitting on his lap, and she didn't even bother getting up. Instead, she looked at me with a triumphant little smirk that made something inside my chest twist painfully. She was none other than my best friend, Eleanor. 

“You two are unbelievable,” I muttered, clutching my purse so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

“It's not what you think, Loise,” Eleanor said, her voice annoyingly calm as she slowly ran her hands up Tony's chest. “Tony was lonely, and since you couldn't do anything about it, I thought I'd help.”

Tony didn't even stop her, and something inside me snapped.

I stepped closer, staring at the woman I had trusted with everything, the woman I had called my best friend and considered family, before my hand moved on its own.

SLAP!

My palm collided with her cheek, sending her head sharply to the side.

“You were supposed to be my best friend, Eleanor!” I yelled, my voice breaking as tears burned behind my eyes. “How could you do this to someone you called your family?”

The bile that had risen into my throat made me swallow hard, but the pain in my chest was far worse.

“How dare you touch her!”

Tony's voice thundered before he shoved me so hard that I stumbled backward, my waist slamming against the edge of a nearby table.

I hissed as a sharp pain shot through me, immediately placing a protective hand over my stomach.

“You know, you've always acted like you were a saint, too pure to be tainted.” Tony snapped, glaring at me as though I were the one who had betrayed him. “You never let me touch you, yet you have the nerve to slap someone who's willing to make me happy? Aren't you such a hypocrite?”

For a moment, I simply stared at him. Then I almost laughed.

So this was what everything I had done for him over the years amounted to?

I had given him my loyalty, my trust, and every piece of myself I knew how to give, yet apparently none of it mattered because Eleanor was willing to give him something I wasn't. She was willing to be his personal slut, climbing up his bed whenever he needed her. 

“I'm breaking up with you.”

The words hit harder than the slap I had just given Eleanor. I could hear my own heart shattering inside my chest, but somehow, I forced myself to remain standing.

“Do you know about the divorce?” I asked quietly, staring into his brown eyes and desperately searching for some sign that he was just as confused as I was. “Your aunt called me.”

“Yes.”

He didn't even hesitate.

“Looks like the plan changed.”

He said it so casually, as though we were discussing something completely insignificant, as though I wasn't carrying a baby inside me.

Then his gaze dropped to my stomach.

“You'll have to take care of the bastard yourself.”

I stared at him for several seconds before a broken laugh escaped me, my eyes stinging as I fought the tears threatening to fall. Of course. Of course he would say that. Why had I thought otherwise?

I looked at him one last time, memorizing the face of the man I had once believed would never hurt me, before turning around and dragging my feet toward the exit.

The moment I stepped outside, it felt as though someone had finally opened the dam I had been desperately holding shut.

All the emotions I had swallowed came rushing back at once, and tears streamed down my cheeks as I walked aimlessly down the street, trying desperately to keep myself together.

I had lost my family, I had lost my boyfriend. I had lost my best friend. And now, I’d been left alone with a baby I had never planned to have.

I hadn't even made it very far when my phone suddenly rang in my pocket.

I pulled it out, wiping my tears with the back of my hand as I stared at the unfamiliar number glowing on the screen.

“Hello?”

“Miss Loise?” a woman's voice asked. “I will need you to come to the hospital tomorrow morning. It's regarding the owner of the semen used for your artificial insemination. I'm sure Mrs. Brown already informed you that there was a mix-up.”

My footsteps slowly came to a stop as the words echoed inside my head.

 I stared blankly ahead as the pieces finally began falling into place. The realization suddenly hit me— They'd mistakenly made me carry someone's eyes child!