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“This is different. This is his entire future sitting in the balance during the exact week he needs to be at his best.”

“Is it different, though?” Sloane’s voice stays gentle but the question lands with weight. “Or is it the same story you always tell yourself — that protecting the people you love means managing what they get to know, and when. You did it with your parents for years. You did it with Theo before you even started dating, keeping the arrangement secret because you told yourself it protected something. I love you, and I understand exactly where this comes from. I just don’t think it’s actually about him. I think it’s about you not being ready to watch his face when you say it.”

I sit with that. It lands somewhere true and uncomfortable, deeper than anything else said tonight.

“Maybe,” I admit. Quiet. “Maybe it’s both.”

“Probably.” Sloane squeezes my hand. “That’s usually how it works.”

“I need Nationals,” I say, finally. “I need to get through this one thing without it collapsing everything else. Please. I know it’s not the brave choice. I know what I said in my own ethics defense about fear and courage and I know I’m not living up to it right now. But I need nine more days.”

Sloane doesn’t push further. She looks at me for a long moment, some complicated mix of worry and love, and then she nods.

“Okay,” she says. “Nine days. But Margo — after that, no more waiting. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

June, still writing, doesn’t look up. “I support whatever timeline you need, as long as you see a doctor this week. That’s non-negotiable for me. The rest is your call.”

Wren says nothing for a long moment. Then, quiet: “He’s going to be scared. When you tell him. Not about the baby — about you. About the fact that you carried this alone for weeks and didn’t trust him enough to let him in.”

“I trust him completely.”

“I know you do.” Wren holds my eyes. “That’s not the same as showing him you do. Just — think about that. Before you decide waiting is protecting him. Sometimes waiting protects you instead, and you tell yourself it’s the same thing.”

I look at her. Wren, who I’ve known for a shorter time than Sloane or June, who plays hockey with the same quiet economy she does everything else, who watches more than she speaks and says less than any of us but somehow always ends up saying the thing that matters most.

“How do you know that,” I ask. Not challenging. Genuinely curious.

She’s quiet for a second, considering the question. “Because I did the same thing once. Different situation, but the same shape of it. I told myself I was protecting someone by not telling them something hard, and really I just wasn’t ready to watch them react. It took me a long time to understand the difference.” A pause. “I’m not saying that to make you feel worse. I’m saying it because I wish someone had said it to me sooner.”

The words settle into my chest and stay there, heavier than anything else said tonight, because Wren doesn’t waste words and she’s just handed me the exact thing I haven’t let myself examine too closely.

“Thank you,” I tell her. Quiet. “For saying that.”

“You don’t have to thank me. Just think about it.”

“I will.”

We sit together a long time after that. Nobody talking much. June’s notepad sits on the table, half-filled with questions and reminders — doctor this week, prenatal vitamins, tell Theo (9 days), tell parents? — the specific comfort of someone else helping carry the logistics of something too big to hold alone.

Sloane’s arm stays around me. Wren sits close on my other side, quiet but present. June finishes whatever she was cooking and puts a plate in front of me that I didn’t ask for and eat anyway, because apparently that’s what love looks like tonight — a plate of pasta nobody discussed, appearing anyway, because June noticed I hadn’t eaten and decided to fix it without making it a whole conversation.

I eat slowly, still catching my breath from the crying, still adjusting to the specific strange lightness of having said the true thing out loud in a room full of people who didn’t flinch away from it. Sloane refills my water without asking. Wren finds a blanket from somewhere and drapes it over my shoulders, the same practical warmth she brings to everything, and I sit there wrapped in it, eating pasta I didn’t ask for, surrounded by three people who found out ten minutes ago that my entire life just changed and none of them have looked at me differently since.

“Can I ask something?” June says, eventually, gentler than her earlier practicality. “Not a logistics question. A real one.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you happy?” She’s not looking at her notepad anymore. “Underneath all the fear and the timing and everything else. Is there a part of you that’s happy about this?”

I think about the question longer than I mean to. About the shell in my coat pocket. About Theo’s hand finding mine in every car we’ve ever been in together. About a house in Dorchester with two mismatched chairs and a woman who told me I don’t have to carry things alone.

“Yes,” I say. Quiet. Surprised by how true it is when I actually say it. “Terrified. But yes.”

Sloane squeezes me tighter. Nobody says anything else for a while. The candle’s burned down low in the kitchen, the cinnamon smell finally faded to something I can breathe around, and I rest my head on Sloane’s shoulder.

For the first time in six weeks, I don’t perform anything. I don’t manage my face, don’t calibrate my voice, don’t run the calculation of what this room needs from me before I decide what to say.