Chapter 19
HARPER
Harper was awoken by the sound of her alarm clock buzzing.
She rolled over and reached out to slap it off.
She felt exhausted, almost hungover, as if she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep the night before.
This was the second night in a row that had gone like this; it was the second morning she’d woken feeling so tired.
Harper was usually the kind of person who woke up before her alarm went off.
Mornings had always suited her. She didn’t understand what was wrong with her lately, why she had been so worn-out.
She dragged herself out of bed and directly to the shower, which she turned to a cooler setting than normal.
The chilly water did help to wake her up, but she still didn’t feel like herself.
Maybe it was because the wedding day was getting so close.
They were just about a week away now. Harper was pretty sure everything had been taken care of and that all aspects were planned for, but she found herself going through her checklists multiple times a day just to put her mind at ease.
It would have been easier if she still had Theo by her side.
This was a job that was a little too complicated for just one person.
If she had been planning an ordinary wedding, she would’ve had the help of the bride and groom.
She hadn’t wanted to bother Tara or Max, even though she was sure one or both of them would have stepped up had they thought she really needed their help.
But she didn’t need their help. She could do this on her own.
She could do it for her best friend. And she didn’t need Theo either.
She stepped out of the shower, feeling lightheaded and wondering whether she had made the water too warm after all. As she sat down on the edge of the bathtub, her stomach clenched and she realized she was feeling nauseous and maybe needed something to eat.
Heading to the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator, but nothing really looked good.
The sight of eggs turned her stomach. She reached for the orange juice and then hesitated, finding that it didn’t appeal to her either.
In the end, the only thing she could find that looked appetizing at all was a bowl of strawberries.
She pulled it out and went to the kitchen table to nibble on them.
She ate slowly, pondering the events of the past few weeks.
She had spoken to Theo only rarely since the night they had spent together.
Every time she thought about calling him, she found that she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
He had texted her a few times, and she always responded to his messages, but she found herself keeping her responses brief.
She was sure he had noticed the difference, because he had stopped reaching out as much too.
They had probably only spoken two or three times in the past fortnight.
And in the few weeks prior to that, they hadn’t had much contact either.
Harper knew it was all her fault. She should never have slept with him.
She had known when she had gotten into all this, when she had begun the wedding planning, that the best man, whoever he was, would be someone she couldn’t afford to get romantically entangled with.
She had hoped for fun with him at the wedding, but she had known that nothing serious could happen.
Of course, she hadn’t known the kind of man he would be.
She hadn’t known how resistant he would be to the idea of romance or marriage.
Not that she wanted to marry him, anyway.
It was just that that night had been so special.
Magical. Anyone would have wanted to believe that it was possible for the same thing to happen again.
It was the fact it was over so quickly that was eating at her. That was all. She would get over it.
Still, the physical exhaustion drained her and made it impossible for her to get away from her thoughts.
She couldn’t bring herself to go out of the house, or even to get dressed.
She found herself lying on the couch in a T-shirt and sweatpants, transferring strawberries one by one to her mouth and daydreaming.
Maybe she was coming down with the flu or something. Except that when she was getting sick, it usually began with a tickle in her throat. She had never experienced symptoms quite like these, and worry took root in the back of her mind. Should she see a doctor?
She flicked through channels on the TV. Her mind wandered, and she wasn’t focused on what was going on around her.
She didn’t even realize at first that she had stopped on a rerun of a familiar sitcom.
When she recognized it for what it was, she rolled over onto her side and allowed herself to be immersed in the world of the characters she knew so well.
It was an episode she recognized immediately. She wasn’t surprised they were rerunning it because it was a fan favorite — it was the episode where the main character gave birth to twins. Harper watched the plot beats play out. It felt good to look at something that couldn’t surprise her.
And then, without warning, something did surprise her.
She didn’t even realize what had done it at first. All she knew was that she felt a swooping sensation in the pit of her stomach, a sudden unease that she couldn’t explain.
Something was wrong and she knew it, but she didn’t know what it was or how she knew.
The camera panned back across the hospital room on the TV screen, and then she saw it — a sign on the wall that said, home remedies for morning sickness.
Morning sickness.
No. It couldn’t be.
But it could be, of course. Even though it seemed impossible, this was the way these things happened — you only had to sleep with someone one time. Of course she could be pregnant.
Pregnant with Theo’s baby.
She knew what she needed to do, but the idea of doing it was almost unthinkable.
She still wasn’t feeling well, and now, to top that all off, a fog had descended around her.
It was as if her mind had stepped outside of her body.
To get behind the wheel of the car would have been deeply irresponsible.
She reached for her phone, pulled up a delivery app, and placed an order for a home pregnancy test.
She finalized the order and sat staring at her screen, questioning whether this could possibly be real life. Surely, she was imagining things. She would get this test, she would take it, and when it was negative, she would have to laugh at herself.
She looked forward to laughing at herself, because right now she could barely manage to take a breath.
Harper lay back on the couch and stared at the ceiling above her.
She tried to center herself and to come to terms with what was happening.
She had always dreamed of becoming a mother.
But in her fantasies, it had never looked like this.
For one thing, there had always been a father.
She had pictured this moment a hundred different ways, but there had always been someone with her, someone loving and attentive and excited, holding her hand and promising her that they would go through the whole thing together.
Who was she going to go through this with now?
If her suspicion turned out to be true and she really was pregnant, could she call Theo?
It was the logical thing to do, of course, but he had made it clear that marriage and commitment were not things he wanted.
Was there any bigger commitment than having a child with someone?
What would he say if she were to tell him?
Harper’s phone buzzed in her lap. Maybe because she had been thinking about him so intensely, her first thought was that this must be a text from Theo.
Her heart leaped. Even though it didn’t make sense, she found herself thinking that he must have intuitively known what was going on.
He must have sensed that he needed to reach out to her right now.
She picked up the phone, feeling something akin to relief.
It wasn’t Theo. The alert had come from her delivery driver, letting her know that the pregnancy test had been dropped off outside her front door.
Harper lay there a moment longer, allowing her heart rate to return to normal.
She breathed deeply, struggling to calm herself down.
She had really believed that it was Theo.
And that belief had made her happy. She didn’t know quite what to make of that.
She was aware that she had been avoiding him for the past several weeks.
If she had really wanted to talk to him, surely she would’ve reached out during that time.
She knew she’d been the one to make the choice to distance herself, so why did she want to hear from him now?
Because she might be pregnant. That was why. Of course she would want to hear from the father of her child. If she really was having a child, that was.
And that was the question she needed the answer to. Whatever else was happening, whatever would come next, at the very least she needed to know the truth about this. She needed to know whether she was going to have a baby.
Harper forced herself up off the couch, went to the front door, and collected the delivery. The test was in a brown paper bag, and she carried it to the bathroom, took it out, and opened the box.
She had done this many times before in her life.
It took no effort, no attention. In a way, that was too bad.
It would’ve helped her to have a difficult task to focus on to keep her mind off of her worries.
She set the pregnancy test on the edge of the bathtub and sat down beside it to wait, turning over and over in her mind the question of what her life would look like if that test was positive.
She didn’t want to do this on her own. She wanted to do it with a partner. She wanted to do it with a partner who loved her.
But just because the situation wasn’t ideal, did that mean she didn’t want it?
Her mind shied away from that thought. If there was a baby, she would be keeping it. She had always wanted a baby, and if this was the universe’s way of making that dream come true, even if it was not what she had pictured, she would accept that.
Time was up. She turned back to the pregnancy test and picked it up.
The little blue lines in the window were so small. Smaller than her pinky fingernail. And yet at the same time, they were monumental.
Harper’s life was about to change forever.
She couldn’t tell Theo. She knew that much right away.
Maybe she would be able to tell him eventually, but the wedding was only a few short days away.
They had done so much work to make it perfect.
The focus should be entirely on Max and Tara, and if this pregnancy was made public, everyone would be talking about it.
Tara would always have to remember her wedding day being upstaged by this.
Harper’s news would wait. She could take her time deciding, and perhaps she would talk to Theo about it when the moment came. But that would be after Max and Tara’s wedding.
Until then, she would just have to keep it to herself.