Chapter 154 THE DECISION

Chapter 154 THE DECISION

Piper POV —

The same morning. Before the studio meeting.

The bathroom tile was cold.

Piper had been sitting on it for twenty-three minutes. She knew because she had been watching the time on her phone, which was face-up on the tile beside her, which was the only light in the bathroom because she had not turned on the overhead and did not want to.

The cold was fine. The cold was actually helping. It was specific and real and it gave her something to feel that was not the thing she had been feeling for the past six weeks, which was too large and too shapeless and kept changing size depending on what time of day it was.

She heard the door.

Jordan came in from her run at 5:17 AM every morning, exactly, the way Jordan did everything — precisely and without fanfare. Piper heard the outer door, heard the pause, heard Jordan clock that the bathroom light was off and the gap under the door was dark.

The bathroom door opened.

Jordan stood in the doorway in her running clothes with her hair pulled back and looked at Piper on the tile.

She did not say anything.

She sat down on the tile beside her.

Not across from her, not in the doorway — beside her. Their shoulders almost touching. She stretched her legs out in front of her and looked at the wall and waited.

That was it.

That was all.

Piper looked at the wall too. She thought about how she had been rehearsing this conversation in her head for three days with various people and various versions and none of them had started like this, with someone just sitting down on cold tile and waiting.

"I'm keeping it," she said.

Jordan said: "Okay."

Piper looked at her. "That's all?"

Jordan looked back. "It's your decision," she said. "You made it." A pause. "Okay."

Piper looked at the wall again.

Something in her chest loosened. Not fixed. Not solved. Just — loosened. The way something loosened when you had been holding a shape for too long and someone sat beside you and the holding became slightly less necessary.

"I don't know how to tell my parents," she said.

"One sentence," Jordan said. "You say it in one sentence and then you stop talking and let them catch up."

"What's the sentence?"

Jordan thought about it for a moment. "I'm pregnant and I'm keeping it and I need you to get here." She looked at Piper. "That's three sentences. But they work together."

Piper almost smiled.

Almost.

"I need to tell the girls first," she said.

"Yes," Jordan said.

"And then I need to tell Omar."

Jordan was quiet for a moment. "Yes," she said.

They sat on the bathroom tile for another few minutes, two girls in the early morning, the cold coming up through the floor, the campus outside just beginning to stir.

Then Jordan stood up. She offered Piper her hand. Piper took it and stood up.

"Shower," Jordan said. "Then the studio text. Then we figure out the rest."

Piper nodded.

Jordan went to her side of the room and Piper stood in the bathroom doorway for a moment.

"Jordan," she said.

Jordan turned.

"Thank you," Piper said. "For sitting down."

Jordan looked at her for a moment. Then she said: "You'd do the same."

She would. Piper knew she would. She went to shower.

She told them one at a time.

Not all at once, not in the studio, not in a group. One at a time, in the order that felt right, which was the order of least to most complicated, which was something her grandmother had taught her about difficult conversations: start with the person who will make it easier to say, because by the time you get to the hard one you will have practiced enough to get through it.

Annabelle was first.

Wednesday afternoon. The library. Annabelle's desk, where she had three textbooks open simultaneously and a color-coded notes system that Piper had never fully understood.

"I'm pregnant," Piper said. She sat down across from her. "I'm keeping it."

Annabelle looked at her for two seconds. Then she closed the top textbook and pulled a notepad toward her.

"Okay," she said. "Prenatal vitamins — do you have any? Have you seen a doctor off campus? We need someone outside the school's medical system. Does Blackwood know?" She looked up. "Does anyone know?"

"Jordan," Piper said.

"Okay. Good." Annabelle wrote something down. "I know a clinic in town that doesn't share records with affiliated institutions. We book you an appointment this week. Do you have insurance that isn't through your parents?"

"No."

"I'll find out what the out-of-pocket is." She wrote something else. Then she looked up again, and for just a second, underneath the practical and the efficient, Piper saw something warm and real and slightly frightened pass across Annabelle Wilson's face. "You're going to be okay," she said. Not a platitude. A conclusion she had reached and was stating as fact. "We're going to make sure of it."

Piper nodded.

"Okay," Annabelle said, and went back to the notepad.

Whitney was second.

Thursday morning. The Gazette office, early, before Ryder arrived.

Whitney listened to the whole thing without interrupting, which was not how Whitney usually received information but which she did now, sitting very still with her notebook closed in front of her.

When Piper finished, Whitney said: "Have you considered all of your options?"

"Yes," Piper said.

"And this is the one you've chosen."

"Yes."

Whitney nodded once. "Okay," she said. Then she opened her notebook. "Lena knows people who know people. We can get you connected to resources outside the school's visibility. You'll need a cover story for the physical changes — we build it now, before anyone notices, so it's been in place long enough to be credible." She looked up. "Have you thought about what you're going to tell the school?"

"Not yet."

"We should think about it soon." She paused. One beat. Then she said: "Piper. I'm glad you told me."

It was the most personal thing Whitney had said in the entire conversation and it landed exactly right.

Vickey was third.

Thursday afternoon, the studio, just the two of them.

Piper said it. She watched Vickey's face.

Vickey's face did not manage itself. It never did. Every single thing she felt moved across it in sequence — surprise and then understanding and then something soft and fierce simultaneously.

She did not say anything for a moment.

Then she crossed the studio and she put her arms around Piper and she held on, and after about ten seconds Piper realized Vickey was crying. Not dramatically. The quiet kind, the kind that came from somewhere real.

"I'm going to paint something for her," Vickey said into her shoulder.

"You don't know it's a her," Piper said.

Vickey pulled back. Her eyes were wet. She looked completely certain. "I know it's a her," she said.

Piper laughed.

It surprised her. She had not laughed in weeks and here it was, in the studio with paint smell and Vickey's certain expression.

"Okay," she said. "Paint something for her."

Lena was last.

Friday evening. Lena's room. Which was immaculate in the specific way of someone who maintained order as a personal discipline rather than a habit.

Lena listened to everything with her hands folded in her lap and her face doing the careful neutral thing it did when she was processing. When Piper finished, Lena was quiet for a moment.

Then she said: "Your parents."

"Yes," Piper said.

"When."

"I don't know."

"Before you can't hide it anymore," Lena said. "Which means we should plan now." She paused. "I can help you find the words. The right order. The way to say it so they receive it instead of react to it." She looked at Piper. "I have been training for this my whole life."

Piper stared at her.

Then she started laughing. Properly, this time. The kind of laugh that came from somewhere genuine and startled, the kind she had not had in weeks. She put her hand over her mouth but it was too late, it was already happening.

Lena looked faintly pleased. "The García women," she said, with complete seriousness, "are trained from birth to deliver difficult news to families who do not want to receive it. It is, in fact, our primary skill."

Piper laughed harder.

"I'm serious," Lena said.

"I know you are," Piper said. "That's why it's funny."

Lena allowed the ghost of a smile. "So," she said. "Tell me about your parents. What they value, how they communicate, who speaks first in a crisis."

Piper took a breath.

She started talking.

The thing about telling all five of them was that by the end of it, the weight had not gone. It was not smaller. But it was distributed differently now. Spread across six people instead of sitting entirely on one. She could feel the difference.

She could breathe differently when weight was shared.

She was thinking about this on Monday morning, walking back from the off-campus clinic that Annabelle had found and booked and accompanied her to, when she saw Omar coming out of the main building.

He saw her at the same moment.

They had not spoken since before the formal. She had been managing this with the specific discipline of someone who knows a conversation is coming and is not ready for it and is buying time.

He looked at her. She looked at him. The campus moved around them.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she said.

They fell into step beside each other without deciding to, heading in the same direction toward the humanities wing, which was where both of them had first period on Mondays.

"I heard you fainted," he said. Not accusing. Just: information he had received that he was acknowledging.

"I'm fine," she said.

"Okay." He walked for a moment. "You don't have to tell me anything." He said it simply, looking straight ahead. "But I'm going to keep showing up until you do."

She looked at him.

He was looking at the path ahead. His jaw was doing the thing it did when he was holding something carefully, when he had decided something and was not going to be moved from it.

She opened her mouth.

Her phone buzzed.

She looked at it.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

Abbott. Smile and say stress. Nothing else.

She read it once.

She looked at Omar.

She smiled.

"Stress," she said. "That's all it is. I've been stressed and I haven't been sleeping and I fainted. I'm fine. I'm seeing someone about it."

He looked at her. He looked at her face for a long moment.

"Okay," he said.

He did not believe her. She could see that he did not believe her. But he nodded and he looked back at the path ahead and he kept walking beside her.

She kept walking too.

She kept the smile in place until they reached the humanities building and went through different doors.

Then she was alone in the corridor and the smile came off and she stood there for a moment with her phone in her hand and the text still on the screen.

She took a screenshot.

She put her phone in her bag.

She went to class.