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“I almost fell at practice.” I hadn’t planned to tell them that part, but it comes out anyway, part of the general unlocking that’s happening now that the first sentence is out. “Two weeks ago. Kara caught me. I told everyone I lost my footing.”
Wren, who’s been quiet this whole time, finally speaks. “You’ve been flying pregnant.”
It’s not a question either. It’s plain and careful and lands harder than anything Sloane or June has said, because Wren doesn’t waste words, and the ones she chooses are always the ones that matter most.
“Yes.”
“Margo.” Wren’s voice cracks slightly on my name, the first real break in her steadiness. “You could have — the fall risk alone —”
“I know.” My voice breaks too. “I know, Wren. I’ve thought about it every single day. I looked it up the night after the stumble. I know what I’ve been risking.”
“Then why —”
“Because I didn’t know how to stop.” The honesty surprises even me, coming out raw and unguarded. “Because stopping meant explaining why, and explaining why meant telling everyone, and I wasn’t ready. I’m still not sure I’m ready. I just know I can’t keep doing this alone anymore.”
June sits me down at the kitchen table. Gets me water. Gets herself a notepad, actual paper, because June processes things by writing them down, the same reflex that makes her color-code her class notes and keep a running spreadsheet of grocery items.
“Okay,” she says. “Practical questions. You don’t have to answer all of them right now, but I want them on the table.” She clicks her pen. “Have you seen a doctor?”
“No.” I feel the shame of that land plainly. “I’ve been too scared to make the appointment. Making the appointment means it’s real, means my name’s in a system somewhere, means —”
“It’s already real, Margo.” June says it gently but doesn’t let it go. “The appointment doesn’t make it real. It just makes it safer. You need actual prenatal care. Not a lawyer’s timeline. An actual doctor, this week, not after Nationals.”
“June —”
“I’m not trying to lecture you. I’m trying to keep you and the baby safe, which I think is a thing you also want, or you wouldn’t have looked up fall risk the same night it happened.” June’s voice softens, just slightly. “You clearly care already. Let yourself act like it.”
I don’t have an answer to that. She’s right, and I know she’s right, and some part of me has known it since the bathroom floor at Northfield.
“There’s a clinic near campus,” June continues, already writing. “Discreet. Confidential. I looked into it once for a friend from home — I’ll text you the number tonight. You call tomorrow morning, first thing, before you can talk yourself out of it.”
“You’ll hold me to that.”
“I will absolutely hold you to that.” She underlines something on her notepad with more force than strictly necessary. “I’m going to text you at nine a.m. and I’m going to keep texting until you tell me you called.”
“That’s very you.”
“I know.” She almost smiles. “It’s how I love people. Efficiently and with follow-up.”
“I’ll call tomorrow,” I say. Quiet. “I’ll find someone. I promise.”
“Good.” June writes something down. Underlines it. “Second question. Who else needs to know, and when?”
Here it is. The question I knew was coming, the one I’ve been dreading since the word pregnant left my mouth.
“Theo,” Sloane says. Careful. Gentle, but not backing away from it. “You have to tell Theo.”
“I know.”
“When?”
I look at my hands. “After Nationals. Eleven days — well, nine now. I don’t want him distracted going into the biggest stretch of his season. Frozen Four’s right there. The draft’s right there. I don’t want to be the reason any of it —”
“Margo.” Sloane’s voice is soft but she doesn’t let me finish. “I love you. I’m not going to pretend I don’t understand the impulse — I do, you’re trying to protect him, that’s very you. But he deserves to know now. Not because you owe him convenience. Because every day you wait, the eventual telling gets harder, and because he’s going to feel it as a much bigger betrayal the longer it sits.”
“I’m not trying to betray him.”
“I know that. I don’t think he’ll think that either, not really, not once he understands why. But Sloane —” She stops herself. Starts over. “I’ve watched Beau go through things without telling me right away. Even when he meant well. It still hurt, every time, worse than if he’d just told me the hard thing when it happened.”