[Sophie’s POV]

Six months pregnant, and my body has become a foreign country.

I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, turning sideways to examine the curve of my belly that seems to grow more pronounced with each passing day. Maggie shifts inside me, a rolling sensation that’s become as familiar as my own heartbeat. She’s active today—has been since dawn, when her gymnastics woke me from a dream I can’t quite remember.

“You’re going to be trouble,” I tell her, pressing my palm against the spot where her foot—or maybe her elbow—is currently lodged against my ribs. “I can already tell.”

The apartment is quiet this morning. Adrian left early for his first official day at the consulting firm, nervous energy radiating from him despite his attempts to appear calm.

Cassian drove him, partly to offer moral support and partly because Adrian was too jittery to be trusted behind the wheel. I stayed behind, citing fatigue, though the truth is I wanted to give them this moment together—the two of them, navigating a milestone without me as the center point.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about lately. The way our relationship has evolved from two separate connections into something more triangular, more balanced.

Adrian and Cassian have developed their own dynamic, a friendship that exists independent of their shared love for me. I catch them sometimes, laughing at jokes I don’t understand, referencing conversations I wasn’t part of, building a bond that I didn’t orchestrate and can’t take credit for.

It makes me feel safer than anything else could.

My phone buzzes on the counter—a text from Cleo.

Coffee? I’m in your neighborhood and desperately need to complain about my sister.

I smile despite myself. Cleo’s drama is legendary, a never-ending saga of borrowed clothes and unpaid debts and the kind of sibling rivalry that makes me grateful I grew up an only child.

Come up. I’ll make tea since coffee is apparently poison now.

Pregnancy is a scam. Be there in 5.

True to her word, Cleo arrives exactly five minutes later, armed with pastries from the bakery downstairs and an expression of theatrical exhaustion that tells me I’m in for a lengthy venting session. She takes one look at my belly and her face softens into something approaching wonder.

“God, you’re huge,” she says, which is exactly the kind of greeting I’ve come to expect from her.

“Thank you for that affirming observation.”

“I mean it in the best way. You’re glowing and huge. It’s very maternal.” She sets the pastries on the counter and pulls me into a careful hug, her arms adjusting automatically to accommodate my new dimensions. “How are you feeling? Really?”

“Tired. Hungry. Mildly terrified about the fact that in three months, an actual human being is going to exit my body.” I waddle toward the couch, lowering myself with the graceless caution that’s become my default. “But also… happy. Genuinely happy. It’s weird.”

Cleo follows, settling beside me with her legs tucked beneath her. “It’s not weird. It’s normal. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? All the therapy and the communication and the learning to accept help—this is what it was building toward. You being happy.”

“I don’t know how to trust it,” I admit. “Every time things feel stable, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For something to go wrong.”

“Something will go wrong eventually. That’s life.” Cleo’s voice is matter-of-fact but not unkind. “The question is whether you’ll let that stop you from enjoying what you have right now. And based on everything I’ve seen over the past few months, I don’t think you will.”

I consider her words, rolling them around in my mind like stones. She’s right, of course—she usually is. The fear of future disaster has always been my default setting, the lens through which I view every good thing that happens to me. But lately, something has shifted. The fear is still there, but it’s no longer the loudest voice in my head.

“Adrian started his new job today,” I tell her, changing the subject. “He was so nervous this morning that he put his shirt on inside out and didn’t notice until Cassian pointed it out.”

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