After graduating from high school, Mathew sets out to do a two-year missionary service like everyone else his age.
Mathew thought that his only problem would be him adjusting to the city as someone who's lived in a farming town all his life. he didn...
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"So, you've been living on your own ever since you left your mum's place?" I asked, and Nathaniel just nodded as he filled a page of the book in his hand. We were on his bed, lying side by side on our backs. I wasn't really don't anything but watching Nathaniel read. I liked to watch him do just about anything.
I hummed, thinking about what he's been through. To think he started living by himself when he was seventeen and was now twenty-four. I was almost nineteen and I was still a mama's boy. I'm not sure what fascinated me more; the fact that he started living on his own at such a young age, or the fact that he just shrugged it off like it was just another fact of his life.
"Do you miss your mother?" I asked, and I watched as he bit his bottom lip before closing the hardcover book in his hands and putting it away.
"Sometimes," he said, turning to his side so that he could look at me. "But mostly, I'm kind of happy she's getting to sort her life out. I should never have been in it," he said, and I frowned a bit, wondering what he meant by the last part of his statement.
"I should never have been in it."
"You're overthinking things again," I heard him laughed, and I blinked, realizing that I had zoned out yet again. "If you have questions, ask. I'll answer the ones I can," he said, reaching out to run a hand through my hair. He's been doing that a lot lately — touching my hair that is. I wanted to touch his, but I hadn't really gone about touching anywhere beyond his face.
I stared into his dark eyes for a bit, wondering if I should ask him what I was bouncing about in my head. After giving it some thought, I decided to go ahead and ask him. "What do you mean by you never should have been in it?" I asked, and he smiled at me like he had been expecting me to ask just that.
"Well," he started, using his free hand to adjust the pillow under his head. "I'm an illegitimate baby," he laughed, and I just stared blankly at him. "Someone forced himself on my mother on her way back from school and that's how I came to be," he said. The room went silent. I wasn't sure what to say or how to react to that. The fan blades moved slowly creating a low creaking noise. I didn't say anything, and Nath stayed quiet too. He sighed, catching my attention again.
"I don't know where he is." Nath's words when talking about his father a while back suddenly made sense. He didn't just know who he was.
"Well, at least she had you. Aren't you happy to be alive?" I asked, ending the tense silence. I watched on as he chuckled, shaking his head before pulling his hand away from my hair.
"No, not really," he said, turning until he was lying on his back again. "I don't especially think I'm happy to be alive. She should have aborted me. She was only seventeen and afraid."
"She had me because she felt like she was obligated to, not because she wanted to. Christian and all that moral code rubbish," he said with his eyes still on the ceiling above. "And look how I turned out. I'm probably a Christian mother's worst nightmare," he laughed.
