The Surrogate

Holly's Story

Ester flops down on to Holly's white leather sofa while on the table in front of her sits two bottles of sparkling, white non-alcoholic wine.

Holly's already wishing that the wine was alcoholic, if she wasn't pregnant then getting drunk would be top of her list of things to do.

Placing two glasses next to the bottles, she settles down next to her friend, readying herself for the inevitable grilling she's about to get over Seb and how she's just let him walk away.

Looking down at her baby bump she feels bereft; letting Seb end their relationship and walk away without a fight is a big mistake, she knows that, but she just can't see how things can be any other way. If he didn't leave her now then he'd sure as hell leave her later down the line.

As she pours the wine Ester can't help but notice how down her friend is and as she checks her phone once more it's clear that she's missing Seb more than she lets on, especially as his photo is still her lockscreen. "So that's it then? It's over between you two?" she asks, handing Holly a glass.

She inspects it's contents, wishing that she could get drunk and forget all about the gorgeous German. After crying what she thinks is all her tears out earlier, she now feels tired and numb, "yeah, he ended it."

"Have you tried to call him since then? Just in case he's still in the country."

She watches the bubbles rising up the inside of her glass, in near perfect straight columns, "voice mail," she answers sadly.

Ester takes a sip of her wine, it's not bad for a non-alcoholic one but not as good their favourite Chardonnay. "And you didn't even put up a fight? You didn't try to convince him to stay?"

"There's no point."

"But you love him," she points out, "that means there's something worth fighting for."

Holly puts her glass down and smooths a hand back over hair where it's tied back in a simple low ponytail tail, "I do love him but.....there's just no point."

Ester sits forward and puts her glass down, suddenly sounding very forthright as she announces, "right, I'm going to be cruel to be kind here."

"Whatever you say, I can't be with Seb, he deserves more than I can give him," she brings her legs up on the sofa and tucks them underneath herself.

"You've been told your relationship with him is ok, you've been told you can still be a surrogate for someone else, Seb's said he's prepared to let you have someone else's baby....the man loves you, he's truly, madly and deeply in love with you and you're actually prepared to throw all that away because you're too stubborn to let yourself be happy and to let go of whatever it is that's hanging over you. For what it's worth I think you're fucking mental and you should be trying your hardest to sort things out with him. Have you ever taken a moment to think about how he feels?" Ester ends on a question and sits back to observe Holly, worried that she might have been a bit too harsh. The poor girl looks haunted and a stray tear rolls down her cheek.

Now's the time. It's the only way Ester will understand why Holly feels that she can't be with Seb and why she can't be the mum that he wants her to be. And as she thinks about it, it makes her feel like she owes this to Imogen, the little girl who's now a teenager and would have celebrated her fourteenth birthday three months ago - hopefully with the loving family she deserves.

"Holly," Ester speaks softly and shuffles closer to slip an arm around her friend's shoulders, "whatever it is, you can tell me and I promise it won't leave this room. We'll try and sort something out together that means you can be with Seb."

"He won't want me, it's best this way," she disagrees.

"He loves you, I'm sure if you talked to him and explained your reasons to him...."