Guzzle Relay to Another Laravel API

I have a main api middleware that relays an incoming request to another laravel based api.

the receiving api is unable to validate as the $request->input() doesnt have the json data in the correct place. it thinks 'data' is a field instead of the json data for the request.

when i call return response($request->all()) on a bad request it looks like

"data":"{"field_name":"example_data"}"

when a successful request should look like

{"field_name":"example_data"}

so that if i validate $request->field_name it works.

if i post directly to the receiving api everythinglooks right so i just dont understand why this relay with guzzle isnt working.

public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
            $client = new Client(['base_uri' => 'https://api.api', 'verify' => false]);
            $multipart = [];
            if($request->hasFile('file')){
                $multipart = [
                    [
                        'name'     => 'file',
                        'contents' => fopen($request->file->path(), 'r'),
                        'filename' => $request->file->getClientOriginalName(),
                    ]
                ];
            }

            $data = [
                'name'     => 'data',
                'contents' => json_encode($request->all()),
            ];

            array_push($multipart, $data);

                       $response = $client->request($request->method(), 'https://api.api/', ['headers' => ['Accept' => 'application/json', 'Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . $request->bearerToken()], 'timeout' => 60, 'multipart' => $multipart]);
            $body = $response->getBody();
            $content = $body->getContents();

            return response($content);
    }

thank you for all your help.