Poison

Chapter 53

Nathaniel's P.O.V

"I'm happy you called." Elizabeth says from her side of the table with that smile that was a little nauseating. I'd spoken to her a few times over the last few months since we've met but I still had not gotten accustom to that smile. She looked like someone jacked her up with fun dip powder and threw away the sticks.
This was the first time I was meeting her without Andy. It was a risk, for both of us, but I needed to do this alone and for once not be so damn dependent on my girlfriend.

"You know why I called." I grumble making her smile fade as she pours a sugar packet down her throat.
I never got why she did this, you'd think with her knowledge of medicine, she'd know this was bad for her.

"Straight to business I see." She says looking at me with slight amusement.

"I don't want your money Elizabeth." I say pushing the envelope with almost half a million in it. "I can't accept it. It's too much."

"Then take half." She says with a shrug that makes me frown. "It's not pity money if that's what you're thinking, it's me helping you get through university where you can't." She says making me ball my hand into a fist as I clench my jaw tightly.

"What are you talking about?"

"You got your brains from me Nathaniel, I'm not blind to what's happening around me. I've seen you working double shifts at several restaurants and I did a little digging and I know you're working about ten jobs." She replies nonchalantly, forcing me to take deeps so I don't do anything to her or to this place in a blind act of rage.

I should've brought Andy.

"And? So what if I am, is it a crime to want some side money?"

"No, but that's a lot of side money." She replies with a slight smirk that made me see myself in her. Moments like this made me feel uncomfortable, so far, I'd been thinking of Elizabeth as a friend's weird mother or sister. When she did things like that it made me realise she was my mother, she gave birth to me and I was her son.
It made me feel like I was cheating on my real mom at home and I hated it.

"I don't want your money." I reiterate as I get up to leave.

"Does she know?" She asks seriously making me freeze as I look back at her with borderline hatred.

"No." I say through clenched teeth.

"Nathaniel, I know I have no right interfering like this, but if you don't tell that girl that you can't afford the bills and end up not going with her. It will break her." She says as I slowly sit back down. "It will break the both of you."

"I know!" I exclaim as I burry my hands in my face. I got a scholarship to the school of my choice, a great school of arts ten minutes away from Andy's university and twenty from our apartment. They boosted my partial scholarship to a full when they saw my SAT results that came out a few days ago and it made everyone extremely happy and proud.
Mom and dad didn't have to tell me for me to know that it would still be expensive for them. They'd have to pay for meals, accommodation, plane tickets, books and so much more and then had to support the rest of them at home. I knew they wouldn't be able to do it, so I started working enough jobs to kill me. I knew I should've told Andy that their was a possibility that I may find myself back home after the first term or two but I couldn't. Every single time she smiled up at me when we talked about her school or shopped online for furniture for the apartment, she'd light up like a Christmas tree and I couldn't bare to pull the plug on her.

"Nathaniel, I want to help you." Elizabeth says making me shake my head. I hated being treated as a charity case, taking things that I couldn't obtain on my own labor wasn't me and I couldn't do it. "I went to your parents with this, offered it to them. They weren't keen on it like you, they were actually very upset that I was offering money to them. Which in hindsight, wasn't the best idea as your birthmother, but, in the end they said it was up to you. So I came to you Nathaniel."