8. Harmony
HARMONY
Iwatch the sunrise creep across the ceiling and wonder if I’m ever going to sleep normally again.
This has been happening more lately. Some nights I wake up because the baby is pressing against something in a way that makes my whole body uncomfortable.
Some nights I wake up because I have to pee for the third time.
Some nights my brain just decides that four in the morning is the perfect time to review every major life choice I’ve ever made.
Tonight is worse.
I’ve been awake for hours, lying on my side with a pillow tucked beneath my stomach, listening to the quiet hum of the house around me.
My parents are still asleep down the hall.
The world outside my window is slowly brightening at the edges, and I feel exhausted in that deep, useless way where my whole body aches for rest but my mind refuses to unclench.
Am I going to be a good mother? Am I lazy for still living with my parents? Should I be looking harder for my own place before the baby comes, or is that pride talking?
And then there’s Lucas.
There’s always Lucas.
For months, I’ve told myself keeping him at arm’s length is the smart thing.
It was supposed to protect us. Protect the baby.
Protect whatever fragile version of friendship and co-parenting we were building after everything got complicated so fast. Trying to start a romantic relationship with the father of my baby after one impulsive night together felt risky enough.
Doing it while pregnant, unemployed, and living with my parents seemed like asking for disaster.
So I chose safe.
At least, that’s what I called it. But safe has started to feel a lot like pretending.
Because the last few months haven’t felt like just friendship.
Lucas goes to appointments with me. He knows which brand of crackers I can still tolerate.
He installed the car seat base way earlier than necessary because he said there was no good reason to wait.
He texts me after every shift, goes out of his way to have conversations with my parents, and keeps the ultrasound photos in a folder because I kept bending the corners.
He shows up for everything. And I keep acting like that doesn’t mean what it means.
The worst part is that I’m still wildly attracted to him. That should have faded. After all the practical conversations and doctor appointments and discussions about crib mattresses, surely the heat between us should have calmed into something milder.
It hasn’t. If anything, it’s gotten worse.
Now I know how he looks holding a tiny pair of socks in one large hand.
I know how his jaw tightens when I carry something heavier than he thinks I should.
I know the deep, focused sound of his voice when he’s trying to ask if I’m scared without making me feel fragile.
I know what it feels like when he stands too close and doesn’t touch me because I’m the one who drew the line.
My frustration finally pulls me upright. I reach for my phone on the nightstand, wanting to check the time even though knowing it won’t help.
My phone is still on silent from last night, and the screen lights up with a message from Lucas. It came in four minutes ago.
The message is simple, attached to a photo of the sunrise from somewhere outside his house. The sky is washed in orange and pale gold, the tops of the trees silhouetted against the light, and the whole thing is so pretty it makes my throat tighten.
Lucas: Saw this while I was getting ready. Thought you might like it when you wake up.
A fresh wave of emotion rises in me so fast I have to set the phone facedown on the bed.
My eyes burn.
The baby kicks.
I freeze, both hands going to my stomach.
There it is again. A firm nudge beneath my ribs, then another, as if the baby has an opinion about dawn and insomnia and their mother finally running out of excuses.
Our baby.
Lucas’s baby.
Mine.
Ours.
What am I doing?
The question lands with a clarity that cuts through every sleepless, anxious thought in my head. What am I protecting by keeping Lucas at a distance? My independence? My pride? Some imaginary version of life where nothing gets messy if I refuse to admit what I want?
My life is already messy.
It’s also full of him.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit there for a second, breathing through the sudden rush of nerves. Then I stand before I can talk myself out of it. My body feels heavy and awkward as I pull on pants and a loose sweater, but my mind is clearer than it’s been in weeks.
Downstairs, I move quietly through the dark kitchen, grab my keys from the hook by the door, and leave a quick note on the counter in case my parents wake up before I’m back.
The early morning air is cool when I step outside. The sky is a little brighter now, the sun slowly climbing, and town is still quiet enough that every sound feels magnified. My car door. The engine turning over. The soft crunch of tires on the driveway.
There’s almost no one on the road. A delivery truck idles outside the grocery store.
A man in running shorts crosses at the stop sign near the park.
Other than that, the town feels suspended, not fully awake, giving me the strange sense that I’ve slipped into a private version of morning meant only for people making life-altering decisions before breakfast.
By the time I turn onto Lucas’s street, my pulse is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
His truck is in the driveway. I pull up behind it just as the front door opens. Lucas steps out in uniform pants and a department T-shirt, duffel bag in one hand, keys in the other. He stops dead when he sees my car. For one suspended second, neither of us moves.
Then his expression changes. Concern hits his face so fast it nearly undoes me.
He drops the duffel bag on the porch and comes down the steps toward me before I even get my car door open. “Harmony?”
I step out, one hand braced on the car door.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. His eyes move over me quickly, checking my face, my body, my stomach. “Is it the baby?”
“No.” I shake my head too fast. “No, the baby’s fine.”
His shoulders loosen a fraction, but not all the way. “Are you okay?”
I look at him standing there in the early morning light, broad and solid and ready to handle whatever crisis brought me to his driveway at sunrise.
His jaw is rough with a day’s worth of beard.
His eyes are locked on me with that familiar, steady focus that has made me feel safe from the moment everything started falling apart.
“Lucas, I’m so sorry.”
His brow furrows. “For what?”
I take a deep breath. “For pushing you away.”
Lucas goes completely still.
“I thought I was doing the right thing. When I said we should be friends, I really thought that was the safest choice. Everything happened so fast, and then I got pregnant, and suddenly every feeling was tangled up with fear and responsibility and the baby and my whole life changing.”
His gaze stays on mine.
I keep going. “I didn’t want to mess it up. I didn’t want us to try this and have it go badly, because then what? We’d still have to raise a child together, and I was terrified of making everything harder than it already was.”
“Harmony.”
I shake my head. “I know why I did it. But I can’t keep doing the safe thing anymore when it doesn’t even feel safe. It just feels lonely. And stupid. And unfair to both of us.”
His face changes, something raw slipping through the control he always keeps so carefully in place.
My throat tightens.
“I love you,” I say.
For half a second, I can’t believe I said the words. Then I realize I’m not scared of them anymore. I’m scared of all the time I wasted refusing to say them sooner.
“I love you,” I say again. “I don’t know when it happened.
Maybe when you brought me ginger chews and pretended it was casual.
Maybe during the first appointment you came to.
Maybe when I watched you read crib instructions.
Maybe it’s been happening this whole time, and I was just too scared to call it what it was. ”
Lucas stares at me, swallowing hard.
“I want to be with you,” I say. “Not because of the baby. Not because it’s convenient. Not because it looks better or makes things easier. I want you. I want us. I’m sorry it took me so long to admit it.”
For one torturous second, he doesn’t speak.
Then he closes the space between us. There’s no carefulness in his face now. No holding back. No disciplined distance. His hand comes to the side of my neck and his mouth comes down on mine.
The kiss steals the rest of my apology.
I hold onto his shirt as he pulls me closer, mindful of my stomach but fierce everywhere else, and every lonely, anxious, self-protective thing inside me breaks open beneath the force of him kissing me back.
Lucas groans against my mouth, and I feel it everywhere.
His thumb strokes along my jaw. My fingers curl into the cotton over his chest. The sunrise warms my back, his body shelters the rest of me, and for the first time in months, the future doesn’t feel like something I’m trying to survive. It feels like something I’m reaching for.
And Lucas kisses me like he’s already there.