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.
CHAPTER 20
HARPER
“It’s my wedding day!” Tara gushed. “Can you believe the day is finally here?”
“Stand still,” Harper said with a smile. “I can’t fasten up the back of this dress with you dancing around all over the place.”
“Oh, I can’t help it!” Tara said giddily. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for this day to come for a very long time. You know, it was starting to feel like Max and I might never get married. Like we might just be one of those couples that live together and raise our children together and spend our lives together, but that marriage wouldn’t be a part of that. I had sort of resigned myself to that, actually. And then he proposed, and I just couldn’t believe it. Romance isn’t dead after all.”
“Romance is very much alive,” Harper agreed, but she felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She was happy for her friend, of course. She was thrilled about all the wonderful things that were happening for Tara, and she was overjoyed to see Tara’s dreams coming true. Nobody deserved a little magic more than her best friend. But at the same time, it hurt to knowthat that magic wasn’t going to be real forher. Harper knew that she was going to be the kind of person Tara had been describing. She would have her baby and raise it herself, and that would be a beautiful thing. But marriage would not be part of the equation. That dream was dead on the vine.
“I wonder how the guys are doing,” Tara said. “I want to sneak over and see them.”
Harper laughed. “You know you can’t do that,” she said.
“Well, I don’t see why not,” Tara said stubbornly. “I know it’s not traditional for the bride and groom to see one another before the wedding, but what about my relationship with Max has been traditional so far?”
“Tradition has nothing to do with it. You can’t go see him because I’m not going to let you do that. You deserve to have that big moment where you walk down the aisle and he sees you for the first time in this beautiful wedding gown. I want you to see the look on his face when he sees how magnificent you look right now. We aren’t going to spoil that.”
“Okay, you’re right. I know you’re right. I’m just looking forward to that moment.”