Jocelyn's POV
The blood pressure cuff tightens around my arm for the third time.
Dr. Reeves frowns at the digital readout, then manually checks with her stethoscope like the machine might be lying. Her expression when she pulls the earpieces free tells me it wasn't.
"148 over 94." She says it quietly, the way people deliver news they wish they could take back. "That's significantly elevated from your last visit."
"Is that bad?"
"For eleven weeks? Yes." She makes a note on her tablet. "Especially combined with your cortisol results from last week's bloodwork."
My stomach drops. "What about the cortisol?"
She turns the tablet to show me a graph with red zones clearly marked. My levels are well into the danger area—not hovering near the boundary, but solidly, undeniably inside it.
"Sustained elevation. Not acute stress response—chronic exposure." Her voice is clinical but her eyes carry something heavier. "Jocelyn, your body has been in fight-or-flight mode for weeks. Possibly longer."
"I've been managing."
"Your body disagrees." She sets down the tablet. "Let me be very clear. The fetus is developing in what we call a stress hormone bath. Elevated maternal cortisol crosses the placenta. It affects fetal development in measurable, documented ways."
"What ways?"
"Increased risk for preterm labor. Low birth weight. Developmental impacts on the baby's stress response systems." She pauses, holds my eyes. "And in severe cases, miscarriage."
The word hangs in the air like a blade suspended by a thread.
"But the heartbeat is strong…"
"Right now, yes." She pulls up the ultrasound on her screen. The baby, measuring perfectly for eleven weeks. Arms and legs visible. Heart beating steadily at 163 beats per minute. Completely dependent on me to create safe conditions for growth.
And I'm flooding its developing system with cortisol instead.
"What do I need to do?"
"High-risk pregnancy protocols. Modified bed rest—three days a week working from home, maximum four hours daily at the office."
She levels me with a look that says she knows exactly how realistic this sounds for a foundation director in crisis.
"No high-stress situations. And I'm serious about that, Jocelyn. Pre-eclampsia can escalate quickly. We're talking seizures, organ failure, emergency delivery."
She slides three prescriptions across the desk. Blood pressure medication. Low-dose aspirin. A prenatal vitamin with additional magnesium.
"I want to see you weekly from now on. We're monitoring closely." Then, quieter: "Tell your husband. Tonight. He needs to know what we're dealing with."
I nod, fold the papers into my bag. Walk into November air that feels too cold for the fire burning through my chest.
The subway ride home is forty-five minutes of mental rehearsal.
Me: Zay, I need to talk to you about the baby.
Too ominous. He'll panic before I finish the sentence.
Me: The doctor says I need to slow down a little.
Too casual. Minimizes what's actually happening.
Me: Remember how we said we'd be honest about everything? Well…
Better. Acknowledges the pact we made two days ago, the reconciliation that still feels fragile as wet paper. Frames this as partnership instead of crisis.
Except it is a crisis. And telling him makes it real in a way that prescriptions folded in my bag don't.
I practice the conversation three different ways. Each version sounds more inadequate than the last. By the time I climb the stairs to our apartment—seven flights, excellent exercise that I'm apparently no longer allowed to do—I've settled on directness.
Walk in. Sit him down. Show the paperwork. Face whatever comes next together.
Simple. Honest. Terrifying.
The apartment door opens on chaos.
Zayden's pacing the kitchen, phone pressed to his ear, free hand running through his hair in that gesture that means someone's made him furious.
"That's not what we agreed to," he says into the phone, voice sharp enough to cut steel. "The board can't authorize meetings I haven't consented to. Tell Marcus the answer is no—I don't care what he positioned as a recommendation."
Mia sits at the table doing homework, pointedly ignoring her father's agitation with the focused determination only a six-year-old can muster when adults are being dramatic.
He sees me. Expression shifts from anger to relief. Covers the phone. "Hey, beautiful. How was the appointment?"
The moment stretches. I could tell him right now. Hand over the paperwork. Watch concern replace relief.
But he's already stressed. Already fighting Marcus and the board and whatever new crisis erupted while I was sitting in a doctor's office learning that my body is failing the baby we just drew on the refrigerator.
He's been keeping secrets to protect me. I've been demanding honesty. And now I'm standing here calculating whether the truth will help or just add another weight to shoulders that are already bowing.
‘Tell him tonight,’ I decide. ‘After Mia's asleep. When he's not in crisis mode. When I can show him the paperwork and explain the plan and make it sound manageable instead of catastrophic.’
"Fine," I say. The lie slides out smooth and easy—the kind of effortless deception that terrifies me because it means I'm getting good at it. "Everything's normal. Baby's healthy."
Not technically false. The baby is healthy. I'm the problem.
Zayden smiles. Turns back to his call. "Marcus, the answer is no. Final. We'll discuss board protocols tomorrow."
He hangs up, pulls me into a hug. Cedar and coffee. The familiar warmth of the man I chose. The same man I just promised—two days ago, in his office, with an ultrasound photo in my pocket—that we'd stop protecting each other through silence.
"How are you feeling?" His hand finds the small of my back. "You look tired."
"Long day. Foundation stuff."
Another deflection. Stacking on top of the first like bricks in a wall I'm building between us—the same kind of wall I accused him of constructing. The same kind of protection-through-withholding I made him promise to stop.
The hypocrisy burns like acid.
"Go sit," he says, steering me toward the couch. "I'll make dinner."
Later, after spaghetti and bath time and Mia's bedtime story—three tigers go on an adventure, find treasure, come home safe—I sit on our bed with the prescriptions hidden in my nightstand and the doctor's words echoing through my skull.
‘Seizures. Organ failure. Emergency delivery.’
‘Tell your husband. Tonight.’
Zayden emerges from the bathroom. Sees me sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing.
"You okay?"
I almost tell him. The words are right there—high-risk, pre-eclampsia, modified bed rest—pressed against my teeth like a confession waiting to be released.
But he sits beside me and takes my hand and says, "Thank you for today. For coming to the foundation. For telling me to stop fighting their war."
And I can't. Can't take this moment—this fragile, rebuilt, hard-won moment of partnership—and detonate it with medical terminology and worst-case scenarios.
"Just tired," I say. "Growing a human is exhausting."
He pulls me close. Kisses my temple. "Then sleep. Everything else can wait until tomorrow."
I close my eyes against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, feeling the prescriptions in the nightstand drawer like a weight that will only get heavier with every day I don't speak.
Tomorrow, I'll tell him.
Tomorrow, when we're both rested. When the crisis has settled. When I've figured out how to say our baby might be in danger because my body can't handle what's happening to us without watching him break.
Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.
The lie I tell myself is the most dangerous one of all—because unlike the lies other people tell about us, this one I actually believe.