Masquerade ✔️

seventeen: noelle

SIX MONTHS LATER

Nate is going to propose.

He thinks he's being secretive, but I found the ring in our dresser two weeks ago. Unclear how long it's been there, but tonight he is most definitely going to propose.

It's our anniversary, sort of, one year today was the day we first met, and he's pulling out all the stops in a rather disastrous way. First he lit a curtain on fire with a candle, then forgot to defrost the chicken, so now we're having Chinese takeout and turning fans on so the smell of burned cotton evaporates.

"Babe! Can you pay the guy!" I yell back into our apartment, taking the cartons carefully from the man who's delivered our food. "My wallet's on the table."

"Sure." Nate replies, picking up my small leather wallet to grab a twenty. I walk into the kitchen and set down the food, opening a cupboard to grab two plates and wine glasses. The transaction only goes on for a few seconds, then Nate comes in holding a small, rumpled piece of paper. I recognize it even from across the room.

The wine glass shatters on the tile, cracking into a thousand pieces that spin haphazardly across the kitchen floor. "S.hit."

I bend over and collect the pieces, like I've done so many times before for my mother, tossing them carefully into the trash while Nate watches me.

"Noelle." Oh, God, he never calls me Noelle. Sometimes baby, or angel, or Noe, but never Noelle.

"March ninth, 2006." He reads off the corner of the sonogram, which I'm beginning to regret keeping in my wallet. I can see him doing the math in his head, subtracting the years before a look of shock comes over him.

"You had a baby at fifteen?" Nate asks, looking at me like he doesn't already know the answer.

"No." I manage, trying in vain to keep pain and loss out of my voice.

"No?" His voice gets louder, not shouting but close to it.

"I didn't have a baby." I switch pain to numbness, it's been ten damn years but I still haven't gotten over it. Do you ever get over the loss of a child?

"Then what's this? Why is there a f.ucking sonogram dated ten years ago in your wallet?"

"I told you, I didn't have a baby." My voice is still empty, devoid of all emotion so I don't let it out.

"Don't lie! Why'd you have a f.ucking sonogram, then? This is yours, Noelle! Stop lying!" Nate roars, and then I snap.

"I'm not lying! Why do you think I never talk about my mother, Nate! Because she was a horrible person, who did horrible things to me! I told you I didn't have a baby, and I didn't! I did get pregnant when I was fifteen! I was going to give him up for adoption! But I didn't, because my mother found out I was pregnant and got so f.ucking pissed at me she gave me abortion pills and killed my boy! My baby! My mother killed my child!" Every word gets higher as I continue speaking, and every word is true.

I don't even realize I'm crying until I feel dampness on my cheeks, dripping down my face as I yell.

Nate doesn't speak. He has a stunned expression on his face, like someone just stabbed him in the back.