Chapter 81 Bonus Story Two: The Boy Love Raised Bonus Chapter 9: The First Lie Nathan Told

Chapter 81 Bonus Story Two: The Boy Love Raised
Bonus Chapter 9: The First Lie Nathan Told
2007 · Summer
Mason didn’t know where he came from.
At least, for a very long time, he didn’t.
He thought Nathan was his biological father. He thought the woman named Chloe was his biological mother. He thought she had simply gone far away, to some place too distant for a child to understand, to take care of something important. Once she finished, she would come back.
That was what Nathan told him.
Mason was still very small then, newly proud of being able to say full sentences. He sat on Nathan’s lap with the little teddy bear clutched in his arms, tipped his head back, and asked, “Daddy, where’s Mommy?”
Nathan had been feeding him dinner. The spoon stopped halfway to Mason’s mouth.
The kitchen light was warm, soft over both of them. Soup simmered on the stove, bubbling gently, steam fogging the window until the world outside became a blurred, distant painting.
Mason remembered Nathan going quiet for a moment.
Not long. Only a few seconds.
But in those few seconds, every sound in the kitchen seemed to vanish.
The soup stopped bubbling. The steam stopped rising.
Even the wind outside the window seemed to hold its breath.
Then Nathan said, “Your mom went on a long trip. When she’s done with what she has to do, she’ll come back.”
His voice was low. Gentle.
As if he were saying something certain.
Mason believed him.
Because Nathan never lied to him.
Nathan was the best person in the world to him.
Every morning, Nathan woke early to make him breakfast. His fried eggs were always shaped like suns, the yolk sitting perfectly in the center, bright and whole. When he took Mason to school, he crouched in front of him and tied his scarf properly, tucking the ends in so the wind couldn’t sneak through. When Mason was sick, Nathan stayed up all night beside his bed, checking his temperature every hour. When Mason got a perfect score on a test, Nathan smiled, rubbed his hair, and said, “Good job.”
To Mason, that was what a father was.
The kind every child had.
He didn’t know other children also had mothers.
He didn’t know mothers told bedtime stories. He didn’t know that when a child fell, a mother might run over, scoop him up, blow gently on the scrape, and say, “There, there. Doesn’t hurt anymore.”
He had never known any of that.
Because Nathan had never once made him feel as if anything was missing.
Every month, Nathan took him to a place far away.
Very far away.
The drive lasted so long that Mason would fall asleep in the back seat, wake up, fall asleep again, and wake up to find they were still on the road.
The place was a cemetery on a small hill outside the city.
Quiet.
So quiet.
Wind moved over the slope, carrying the smell of grass and damp earth. Trees rustled in the distance, their leaves whispering as though they were speaking in low voices.
Nathan always stood in front of one particular headstone for a long time.
He didn’t speak.
He only stood there.
Mason stood beside him and looked up at Nathan’s profile.
The sunset lay across Nathan’s face. His expression was calm, but his eyes were deep, so deep they looked like a well with no bottom. The wind lifted his hair. A few strands fell across his forehead, but he didn’t brush them away.
Mason was too young then to understand grief.
He only felt that his father was speaking to someone very important.
Speaking in his heart.
In a way only that person could hear.
“Who is this?” Mason asked, pointing at the photograph on the headstone.
The woman in the picture had a gentle smile. Her eyes were bright, as if someone had hidden stars inside them, and the corners of her mouth curved upward to reveal a row of neat white teeth. Her hair was golden brown and a little windblown, but still beautiful. She looked like someone who had stepped out of a painting.
Nathan was quiet for a moment.
Sunlight came from behind them, pulling their shadows long across the grass until they stretched all the way down the hill.
“Someone very important,” he said.
“What’s her name?”
“Chloe.”
Mason repeated the name silently.
Chloe.
He did not know then that this name would be carved into his heart for the rest of his life.
2012 · Spring
When Mason was six, Nathan had an accident.
He didn’t remember the exact date. He only remembered the rain.
It had started in the morning and kept falling until evening, never once letting up. The sky was gray, and rainwater slid down the windows in crooked streams, blurring the world outside. Puddles in the yard caught the dull light like pieces of a shattered mirror.
When Alvin came to pick him up, his face looked wrong.
Fear was written all over it.
“Mason,” Alvin said, “Nathan is sick. We’re going to the hospital to see him.”
“Daddy’s sick?” Mason clutched his teddy bear and climbed obediently into the booster seat.
The bear was the one Nathan had bought him. On the day he brought it home, Nathan had said, “This bear will stay with you, the way Daddy stays with you.” Mason had held it for years. Its fur had been rubbed almost bald in places.
Alvin didn’t answer. He only focused on driving.
The windshield wipers swung left and right, left and right, making a dull, repetitive sound. Inside the car, everything was quiet except for the rain and the low growl of the engine.
Mason looked out the window and watched the water draw twisted lines across the glass.
He didn’t know what sick meant.
He thought it meant a cold. Medicine. Soup. Sleep. Then better.
When they reached the hospital, he saw Nathan lying in a bed.
White gauze was wrapped around his head. A dark red stain had seeped through one side of the bandage. His face had no color. His lips were pale. His eyes were closed. Tubes ran into his arm, connected to a hanging IV bag where clear liquid dropped one bead at a time.
The heart monitor beside him went beep—beep—beep.
Slow. Steady.
But to Mason, the sound was terrifying.
It felt like something counting down.
He burst into tears and threw himself beside the bed, grabbing Nathan’s hand.
That hand was cold.
Not the usual kind of cold. Nathan’s hands were often cool, but that coolness had always felt comfortable, like an ice-cold soda on a summer afternoon. This was different. This was a cold that came from the inside out, as if the fire inside his body was almost gone.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
Nathan’s fingers moved.
Barely.
Like a butterfly beating its wings once.
Then he slowly opened his eyes. When he saw Mason crying so hard he could barely breathe, his nose and face smeared with tears, his lips moved slightly.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered. His voice was faint, light as wind. “Daddy’s okay.”
“You’re lying!” Mason cried harder. “You’re bleeding so much!”