Page 145 of Keller

Inside my office, I settle into my chair and pull the stack of folders toward me. Grant applications, a budget variance report, and the scholarship committee minutes from last week.

My hand drifts to my stomach without thought and rests there as I go through everything. The curve is different now,fuller beneath my palm. I leave my hand where it is while I flip open the second folder.

Application for transitional housing assistance. Veteran, age 34. Two kids.

I make a note in the margin.

-Needs income verification.

-Check timeline against current waitlist.

The baby shifts. It's a flutter, nothing more. I'm getting used to these small movements now, the way my body tells me someone else lives inside it.

The third folder contains a request from a veteran's spouse for a job training program. She wants to become a medical billing specialist while her husband recovers from his third surgery. I read through her personal statement twice.

I just want to contribute again,she writes on her application.

I understand that feeling.

Fatigue pulls at the edges of my focus. It's not the bone-deep exhaustion from the first week, but something softer.

I roll my shoulders and reach for my water bottle. The cold helps.

Outside my door, footsteps pass, and I hear Carmen call goodbye to someone down the hall. Doors open and close as the building empties little-by-little.

Somewhere between the positive test and now, fear turned into something else. Acceptance, maybe. Or readiness.

I organized my whole life into compartments. Work here. Family there. Feelings locked away where they couldn't compromise anything.

But this, sitting in my office with the sun going down and my hand on my belly, feels different. The compartments are dissolving. The walls between who I am and who I'm becoming are thinning.

Southern Stars isn't where I landed when everything fell apart. It's where I'm choosing to build my future.

Silence settles around me.

I close the last folder and set it on the approved stack. The building hums with emptiness. Just the soft whir of the air conditioning and the distant sound of traffic on the street below.

My phone sits on the desk. I've been avoiding looking at it for the past hour.

The sky outside has deepened to purple. Streetlights blink on one by one along the avenue. I watch them through the window, counting each small burst of orange light.

My hand moves to the phone. Picks it up. Sets it back down.

I unlock the screen, scroll to contacts, and his name sits there between Katie from college and my dentist's office. Keller Stone. There's no photo, just letters on a screen.

Ninety-eight days since he walked out my door. Ninety-eight days since I heard his voice crack when he said love without loyalty means nothing.

I wonder if he still believes that.

My thumb hovers over the call button. I watch it there, suspended above the glass. My breathing stays even. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. The same rhythm I use before a presentation or before anything that requires me to be steady.

This requires me to be steady.

I could wait another day, another week. I could let the bump grow larger, let the decision feel more urgent. But waiting won't make the words easier or his reaction more predictable. It won't change the fact that he deserves to know.

The baby shifts. A gentle reminder that this isn't just about me anymore.

I press the button. The phone rings. Once. Twice. Three times. My heart beats against my ribs.