All Chapters of The Surrogate Virgin : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

After the interview aired, I didn’t sleep for two days. I tried, God, I tried but sleep doesn’t come easily when the whole world has its eyes on you.The video clips played on every screen I passed. The campus cafeteria, my phone notifications, and even a muted screen above the gas station counter while I bought tea.They didn’t just show my face. They showed opinions chopped-up sentences pulled from strangers who’d never met me but swore they knew me. Some called me brave while some called me a disgrace and a liar in the comment section, bold and cruel with their keyboards.I could take that but what I wasn’t ready for… was the silence from my mom.Not even a prayer text this time. No message, missed calls, just absence like the kind of silence you feel at a funeral, thick and waiting.Noah tried to distract me. He cooked badly. He brought me flowers. I forgot to water them. He even found an old movie we’d both once said we loved but we didn’t finish it.The truth was, I felt like I’

No one warned me that love could feel like terror that the more you have, the more you fear losing.It’s not the fear of being alone that haunts me, it’s the fear of having too much, the fear of waking up beside someone so good, I find myself half-expecting hidden cameras, a glitch in the universe, or some sign that I’ve accidentally wandered into someone else’s life.I used to believe love would feel like a soft landing gentle, safe, easy but with Noah, it feels like falling. A breath I can’t quite release. The charged stillness just before lightning strikes.Every day, I’m terrified not because I think he’ll leave me but because he won’t, he’s still here still choosing to stay and that’s something I’ve never had before.For the first time in my life, someone sees me exactly as I am and stays not out of obligation because he needs something but simply because he wants to.And sometimes, late at night, I lie awake next to him, listening to the quiet rhythm of his breathing, and I real

I didn’t sleep that night not because of the noise online, though there was plenty.Not because of the slap heard around the room, though that still rang in my ears. I didn’t sleep because Noah didn’t say a word after Catherine’s final line.We got home in silence. He laid Nova down gently, his movements careful, almost reverent. I stayed in the kitchen, fingers curling around the edge of the island, staring at the engagement ring on my finger like it was suddenly a stranger to me.“You’re quiet,” I said at last.He leaned against the counter, shoulders heavy, face drawn like he’d aged ten years in the last hour.“There’s something I should’ve told you sooner.”I folded my arms. “You think?”He nodded, slow, as if bracing himself.And then… he told me.Catherine had been his fiancée once.They’d met through his mother, one of those “perfect” matches arranged on charity boards and society guest lists. She was charming, magnetic, ambitious… but cold. Even then.Still, he tried because s

We drove in silence not the kind that felt strained or awkward, the kind that was earned gently and familiar.Nova was asleep in the back seat, head tilted to one side, her tiny fingers twitching like she was dreaming of something small and important.Noah’s hand rested between us on the gearshift. Now and then, he’d brush his knuckle against mine. He didn’t say much, he didn’t have to but he knew where we were going.The cemetery was on a quiet hill just outside the city. It consisted of simple, unadorned, clean rows of grey and stone, lined like soldiers under an open sky.I hadn’t been here since, I didn’t make it to the burial because my mom didn’t tell me about it until it was too late and I wished my father had lived long enough to see me not just survive but bloom.Now, I am here with a child on my hip and a man beside me who once felt like a contract but has become so much more. His face looked so peaceful. I knelt slowly, letting Nova’s weight anchor me as I reached forward t

Some people wait a lifetime to feel safe.Me? I waited until the storm had already broken me. Until I’d been dragged through hell and handed back my name. Until the world had spit me out, scandalized and ruined… and I’d rebuilt everything from nothing. And still, I wasn’t sure what to do with peace once I finally had it. It had been five months since the wedding.Five months since I stood barefoot on a private beach, wearing silk and vulnerability, and said “I do” to the man who turned my life upside down.We lived quietly now. A charming house just outside the city. One floor, two bedrooms, wrap-around porch, and more sunlight than we knew what to do with.Nova had her room with purple curtains, glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Stuffed animals she gave names like “Princess Toasty” and “Captain Bunnyhead.”She ran this house and she knew it.I started waking early not because I had to, but because I liked the quiet.The sunrise leaked through the kitchen window in shades of ora