[Sophie’s POV]

The apartment feels too small tonight.

The walls press in like they’re breathing, like they know what I’m carrying and they’re waiting to see what I’ll do about it. I’ve been pacing the same path between the kitchen and the living room for twenty minutes, my sock feet wearing invisible grooves into the hardwood.

The silence is suffocating, but the idea of filling it with music or television feels wrong—like putting a bandage on a wound that needs surgery.

I grab my coat and slip out the door before I can talk myself out of it.

The city at dusk is a different creature—softer around the edges, golden light bleeding into purple shadows. I walk without direction, letting my feet carry me through streets I’ve memorized without trying. The evening air is cool against my face, sharp enough to feel like clarity even when my thoughts are anything but.

My hand drifts to my stomach without permission. Still flat. Still unchanged on the outside. But everything underneath has shifted, and I can’t pretend otherwise anymore.

How do I tell them?

The question has been circling my mind for days, a vulture that won’t land. Every scenario I imagine ends in disaster. Adrian’s face goes cold with calculation, already running odds, already wondering if the baby is his or if he’s been made a fool. Cassian’s quiet withdrawal, that careful distance he maintains when he’s hurt and doesn’t want to show it.

I picture them in the same room, hearing the same words, and my chest seizes.

I’m pregnant. I don’t know who the father is.

The truth is simple. Eleven words. I could say them in five seconds. But those five seconds would change everything—the shape of us, the balance we’ve fought so hard to build, the future none of us planned for.

I stop at a bench overlooking the river, the water catching the last of the sunset in fractured orange and gold. A jogger passes without glancing my way. A woman pushes a stroller along the path, cooing at the bundle inside. I look away quickly, something sharp twisting beneath my ribs.

That could be me in a few months. Will be me, the thought scares me, but it’s also something that brings me peace at the same time.

The thought still doesn’t feel real. It floats somewhere outside my body, abstract and impossible, even though I’ve seen the test. Even though Cleo held my hand while I sobbed on the bathroom floor. Even though my body has already started changing in ways I can’t ignore—the exhaustion, the nausea, the way certain smells make my stomach revolt without warning.

I lean back against the bench and stare at the darkening sky.

Should I tell them together? Same room, same moment, same truth. It sounds fair. Democratic. The kind of approach that honors the unconventional thing we’ve built—no secrets, no favorites, no one finding out before the other and feeling betrayed by the delay.

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