Chapter 93 Late
Harper's POV,
I realized I was late on a Tuesday morning while restocking supplies in the clinic's storage closet.
Late as in: my period was eleven days overdue.
I stood there holding a box of kinesiology tape, doing mental math. My cycle was usually twenty-eight days, give or take a day. Predictable. Reliable. The one thing about my body that followed a schedule.
Except this month.
I pulled out my phone, opened the period tracking app I'd been using since college. Stared at the little calendar with its expected start date highlighted in red.
Expected: October 18th.
Today: October 29th.
Days late: 11.
Eleven days wasn't nothing. Eleven days was stress, or hormones, or...
Or pregnancy.
My hands started shaking.
Crew and I weren't trying. We weren't preventing, exactly, but we weren't actively trying either. We'd talked about it once, back when we first got married. Agreed we'd revisit the conversation in a year or two once life stabilized.
But we'd also been having sex regularly. Without protection. Because I'd been on birth control since I was eighteen and it had never failed before.
Except birth control was only 99% effective.
And 1% was still a percentage.
I put down the tape. Walked to my office. Closed the door. Pulled up my texts with Maya.
I'm late.
She responded immediately: Late for what?
My period. Eleven days.
OH. OH SHIT. Have you taken a test?
Not yet. I just realized.
Harper. Go buy a test. Right now. I'm not letting you spiral for hours without knowing.
I have clients all afternoon.
James can handle clients. GO.
I grabbed my keys and walked out to the reception area where James was reviewing tomorrow's schedule.
"I need to leave for an hour," I said. "Can you handle my two o'clock?"
He looked up, concerned. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah. Just—personal stuff. I'll be back by three."
The pharmacy was three blocks away. I walked there in a daze, bought three different pregnancy tests because I didn't know which brand was most accurate, paid cash because I didn't want a record on our credit card of me panicking.
Back at the clinic, I locked myself in the bathroom. Read the instructions on all three tests even though they were basically identical: pee on stick, wait three minutes, look for lines.
Simple.
Terrifying, but simple.
I took all three tests at once. Set them on the counter. Set a timer on my phone. Washed my hands twice because I didn't know what else to do.
The three minutes felt like three hours.
When the timer went off, I couldn't look at first. Just stared at the bathroom door, breathing, trying to prepare myself for either result.
Finally, I turned around.
Two lines. All three tests. Clear, unmistakable, positive.
I was pregnant.
I sat down on the closed toilet seat, still holding one of the tests, feeling like the floor had dropped out from under me.
Pregnant. I was pregnant. With Crew's baby. Six months into our marriage. Five months after his last relapse scare. While we were still figuring out how to be married adults.
My phone buzzed. Maya: WELL???
I took a photo of the three tests lined up on the counter. Sent it to her.
She called immediately. "Oh my god. OH MY GOD. Harper. You're pregnant."
"Yeah. Apparently."
"How do you feel?"
"Terrified? Shocked? I don't know. We weren't trying. This wasn't supposed to happen yet."
"But it did happen. So what are you going to do?"
"I have no idea. I haven't even told Crew yet. I literally just found out two minutes ago."
"Are you going to tell him? Tonight?"
"I don't know. Maybe? He's been stressed about the grant fund and the season and everything. I don't want to add to it."
"Harper. You can't hide a pregnancy because your husband is stressed. That's insane."
"I know. I just—I need to process first. Figure out how I feel before I tell him how he should feel."
"That's not how it works. You're supposed to tell him immediately and process together."
"Since when do you know how pregnancy announcements work?"
"Since I've watched approximately a thousand romantic comedies. They all handle this scene. You tell him tonight. He freaks out. You both freak out. Then you figure it out together because that's what married people do."
After we hung up, I sat in the bathroom for another ten minutes, staring at those two pink lines.
A baby. Our baby. Growing inside me right now. Cells dividing, forming into something human.
I felt a weird mix of emotions—terror, excitement, disbelief, wonder. All of it swirling together until I couldn't separate one feeling from another.
There was a knock on the bathroom door. "Harper? Your two-thirty is here. You okay in there?"
James. Right. I had clients. I couldn't just hide in the bathroom processing life-changing news.
"I'm fine. Be right out."
I splashed water on my face, hid the pregnancy tests in my bag, and walked out to greet my client with a smile that felt like it might crack.
The afternoon was torture. I went through the motions—assessed injuries, designed treatment plans, made appropriate therapeutic small talk—while my brain screamed you're pregnant you're pregnant you're pregnant on repeat.
By the time my last client left at five PM, I was exhausted.
James found me in my office, staring at my computer screen without actually seeing it.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked. "You've been weird all afternoon."
"I'm fine. Just tired."
"If you need to leave early tomorrow, I can cover. Patricia's follow-up is straightforward, and the new client assessment isn't until three—"
"James. I'm fine. Really. Just a long day."
He left, unconvinced but too professional to push.
At home, Crew was already there, sitting on the couch watching game film on his laptop. He looked up when I walked in.
"Hey. How was your day?"
"Long. Yours?"
"Fine. Practice was brutal but good. Coach is pushing hard for the playoff push." He closed his laptop. "You look exhausted. Want to order in?"
"Sure."
We ordered Thai food. Ate it mostly in silence. Crew kept glancing at me like he knew something was wrong but didn't want to pry.
Finally, halfway through pad thai, he said: "Okay. What's going on? You've barely said ten words since you got home."
"Nothing's going on."
"Harper. I know you. Something's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong. I'm just tired."
"You're lying. You only get that specific look on your face when you're lying."
I set down my fork. "What look?"
"The 'I'm fine but actually I'm processing something huge and don't want to talk about it yet' look. I've seen it approximately fifty times in the last six months."
"I don't have a look."
"You absolutely have a look." He moved the takeout containers to the coffee table, turned to face me fully. "So. What is it? Clinic stuff? Your dad? Are you okay?"
I took a breath. Then another. Then just said it.
"I'm pregnant."
The words hung in the air between us.
Crew's face went through about six different expressions in three seconds—shock, confusion, fear, something that might have been joy, back to fear.
"You're—what?"
"Pregnant. Eleven days late. Took three tests this afternoon. All positive."
"Holy shit."
"Yeah."
"Holy shit." He said it again, like repetition would make it real. "We're—you're pregnant. With a baby. Our baby."
"That's generally how it works."
"How long have you known?"
"Since three PM today. I took the tests at the clinic. Spent all afternoon pretending to be normal while my brain screamed about it."
Crew stood up, sat down, stood up again. "Okay. Okay. We're having a baby. That's—that's huge."
"Are you okay?" I asked. "You look like you might pass out."
"I'm not going to pass out. I'm just—processing. We weren't trying. We said we'd wait a year."
"I know. But apparently biology doesn't care about our timeline."
He sat back down, closer this time. "How do you feel? About it. About being pregnant."
"Terrified. Excited. Overwhelmed. I don't know. All of it at once." I looked at him. "How do you feel?"
"The same. All of it at once." He grabbed my hand. "Are we ready for this? I'm six months sober. You're still building the clinic. We're barely figuring out how to be married. Are we ready to be parents?"
"Probably not. But ready or not, it's happening."
"Unless—" He stopped. Started again. "Unless you don't want it to be happening. In which case, that's your choice. I support whatever you decide."
I'd been so focused on my own panic that I hadn't even considered that option. Not having it. Making a different choice.
"Do you want me to not have it?" I asked carefully.
"No. God, no. I want it. If you want it. But Harper, this is your body. Your choice. I'm just—I'm here. For whatever you decide."
"I want it," I heard myself say. "I'm terrified and we're not ready and the timing is terrible. But I want it."
Crew's eyes got wet. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. We're having a baby."
He pulled me against him, holding me so tight I could barely breathe. "We're having a baby. Holy shit. We're having a baby."
We sat there for a long time, wrapped around each other, both of us trying to process the fact that in approximately eight months, there would be three of us instead of two.
"I need to tell Dr. Okonkwo," Crew said finally. "And David. And I need to make sure my recovery is solid because I can't—Harper, I can't be a dad and an active addict. I can't do both."
"You're not an active addict. You're in recovery. And you're doing well."
"But what if the stress of a baby triggers something? What if I can't handle it?"
"Then we'll deal with it. Together. Like we deal with everything else." I pulled back to look at him. "Crew, you're allowed to be scared. I'm scared too. But we're going to figure this out."
"You sure?"
"No. But I'm committed to trying."
He kissed me. Soft at first, then deeper. When we pulled apart, he had his hand on my still-flat stomach.
"There's a human in there. Like, an actual human."
"A very tiny human. Currently the size of a poppy seed or something."
"A poppy seed human. That's insane." He looked at me. "Should you be eating Thai food? Is that safe?"
"It's fine. Spicy food is fine."
"What about the clinic? Can you still do physical therapy while pregnant?"
"Yes. Pregnant people can work, Crew. I'm not fragile."
"I know. I just—I want to make sure you're safe. That the baby's safe."
"We're safe. I'm just pregnant, not dying."
But even as I said it, I felt the weight of responsibility settle over me. This wasn't just about me anymore. There was someone else depending on my choices, my health, my ability to not screw this up.
Someone who didn't even exist yet but already mattered more than anything.
That night, we lay in bed talking about logistics. When to tell people. When to schedule the first doctor's appointment. How to adjust our lives to accommodate a tiny human.
"We need a bigger place," Crew said. "This apartment is too small for a baby."
"We have eight months. We'll figure it out."
"And you'll need to hire another person at the clinic. You can't work full-time while pregnant and then with a newborn."
"I know. I'm already thinking about it."
"And we need to tell our moms. Soon. Before we tell anyone else."
"Agreed." I turned to face him. "Are you happy? About this?"
He was quiet for a moment. "I'm terrified. But yeah. I'm happy. This is the best surprise panic I've ever had."
"Same."
We fell asleep holding each other, both of us thinking about the impossible reality that in eight months, we'd be parents.