Chapter 16 Day One Of Twenty-Nine Days Without Crew
Harper's POV,
The bubbles kept blinking. Like he was typing and deleting, trying to find the right words.
"He's probably getting briefed by the facility people," Maya said from the driver's seat. "They usually do an intake meeting before transport."
"I know." I didn't look up from my phone. "I just… I need to hear from him one more time before he goes."
Finally, they disappeared and a message came through.
Crew: Harper, I have to give them my phone soon
Transport’s loading up and they're taking it for the first week
My throat tightened. This was really it.
Me: Okay
I'll be here when you can call
Crew: Seven days until we can talk and fourteen… until you can come visit.
That's too long
Me: I know
But you can do this
Crew: What if I come out and you've realized you don't want this anymore?
Me: Not possible
Crew: Harper I'm serious
Crew: What if you wake up tomorrow and think "why am I waiting for a drug addict who ruined my life"?
I typed fast, before he could spiral further.
Me: Then I'll wake up the day after and remember that I love you
Stop looking for reasons I'll leave
I'm not going anywhere
The typing bubble appeared and disappeared three times. Then he messaged back:
Crew: They're taking it now
I love you
Me: I love you too. Go get clean. Get healthy. And come back to me.
I'll be there when you get out. Promise.
The message delivered but never switched to read.
He was gone.
I put my phone down and stared out the window at Seattle passing by in gray and rain.
"You okay?" Maya asked.
"No." My voice came out flat. "But I will be."
Maya's phone rang through the car speakers. She glanced at the screen and her expression changed.
"It's my office. I need to take this." She answered.
"Maya Park… Yes, I saw… Wait! When did this happen?... How bad is it?... Okay, but does Harper know yet?”
My stomach dropped. "Know what?"
Maya held up a finger. "Okay. I'm with her now. We're heading back to my place. I'll call you in ten." She hung up.
"Maya, what is it?"
"Brianna's in the hospital."
The world tilted sideways. "What?"
"She went in about an hour ago. Cramping and spotting. Her team is calling it pregnancy complications and they're linking it to this morning's altercation."
"I barely touched her," I said, but my hands were already shaking. "We just rolled around on the floor for like thirty seconds before you pulled us apart."
"I know that. You know that." Maya's jaw was tight. "But her PR team is spinning it differently."
She pulled up a news site on her phone and handed it to me.
“Take a look at this.” she said, her finger pointing at the screen.
"BREAKING: Brianna Cross Hospitalized - Pregnancy at Risk After Physical Altercation"
Below it, a photo of Brianna being helped into a car, one hand on her stomach, face twisted in pain. The photo looked somehow staged. But it didn't matter because it was already everywhere.
I scrolled through article after article, each one worse than the last.
Sources close to Cross say she began experiencing severe cramping hours after the fight…
Medical experts warn that physical trauma during pregnancy can lead to...
Joel Hartley rushed to the hospital to be with his fiancée...
"This is my fault," I whispered.
"This is NOT your fault." Maya snatched the phone back. "She slapped you. You defended yourself. Whatever's happening now— that's if anything is actually happening—is not on you."
"But what if I hurt her baby? What if–"
"Harper, stop." Maya's voice went sharp.
"We don't even know if this is real. For all we know, she had a regular checkup and her team is using it for sympathy."
My phone started buzzing against my leg, vibrating so hard I could feel it through my jeans.
When I pulled it out, the screen was completely flooded with notifications scrolling faster than I could read them.
Twitter mentions, Instagram comments, text messages from numbers I'd never seen before, all piling on top of each other in an endless stream.
I opened Twitter without thinking, and the first thing I saw was my name trending at number one with a little flame icon next to it. The comments loaded and my stomach dropped straight through the floor as I started reading.
'She attacked a pregnant woman and now this? Harper Sinclair is disgusting.'
'I don't care if Brianna slapped first. You don't put hands on someone carrying a baby.'
'Harper should be in jail.'
'If that baby dies, it's murder.'
I kept scrolling even though every comment felt like a physical blow, my thumb moving on autopilot through an endless feed of strangers who'd decided I was a monster based on thirty seconds of shaky cell phone footage.
But then I started seeing different voices mixed in with the hate.
Y'all acting like Brianna didn't assault Harper first. What was she supposed to do?
Pregnant women don't get a free pass to hit people.
This feels like a PR stunt to make Harper look bad.
I closed the app before I could read anymore. My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone.
"Don't look at that," Maya said. "People are idiots with opinions."
"Half of them think I tried to kill a baby."
"The other half knew you were defending yourself." Maya pulled into her building's parking garage. "Come on. Let's get inside before someone recognizes you."
We made it to her apartment without incident. I collapsed on her couch while Maya locked the door and closed all the blinds.
"Okay," she said, sitting down next to me.
"Here's what we're going to do: NOTHING"
"Nothing?"
"Nothing. Don't bother responding, posting or engaging with anyone online or in person. Brianna's team wants you to react so they can use it against you. So you stay quiet and let this play out."
"What if she loses the baby and it actually is my fault?"
"Then it's a tragedy, but it's still not your fault." Maya grabbed my shoulders.
My phone buzzed again and I flinched, the sound making my heart jump even though I'd been expecting it. I looked at the screen and saw
An Unknown Number staring back at me, and every instinct I had screamed not to open it, to just delete it and pretend it didn't exist.
But my thumb was already moving, tapping the message before my brain could stop it, and then the words were filling my screen and I couldn't look away.
.....
"I hope you're happy. The doctors say there might be complications. If I lose this baby, it's because of you. You couldn't let me have one good thing. You had to destroy everything. But I guess that's what jealous people do. They ruin other people's happiness because they don't have any of their own.
I hope it was worth it, Harper. I hope ruining my life makes you feel powerful. Because you just might have killed an innocent child."
\-Brianna
.....
The words blurred as my eyes filled with tears. I read it once, then twice, then a third time because my brain couldn't process that someone had actually written those words and sent them to me, that Brianna genuinely believed I'd tried to hurt her baby or didn't care and just wanted to hurt me anyway.
"Harper?" Maya's voice sounded far away. "What is it?"
I couldn't answer. I just held out my phone with shaking hands.
"That manipulative–" She grabbed my phone and blocked the number. "She's trying to break you before we even know if anything's actually wrong."
"What if something is wrong though?" My voice came out small. "What if I really did hurt her baby?"