Two lines.

Two motherfucking lines.

Two little pink lines on the stick.

Oh my God.

Just. Oh my God.

I’m PREGNANT!

I drop the stick on the ledge of the counter in my upstairs bathroom and back slowly away from the mirror. I put my hand up to my face, just to confirm that this is real life. My fingers shake against my cheek.

I walk numbly into my room and stand beside the bed. I don’t even fully realize I’ve called Am until the phone starts ringing in my ear.

“Hello lovely.”

“Amelia?” I sound breathy.

“Luce? What’s wrong?”

I start to laugh maniacally. “Amelia, oh my God. My fucking God.”

“Are you okay?”

“Not at all! I’m PREGNANT!”

“You’re—what?”

“Pregnant,” I wail. “With Prince Liam’s baby! Oh my God I’m—”

“Sit down. Lucy, are you sitting down?”

“No!” I wail.

“Well sit! Right now! Sit down, and tell me when you’ve done it.”

I climb onto the bed, tears of panic welling in my eyes. “I’m pregnant! I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant, I’m motherfucking pregnant! Shit fuck! Fuck shit!”

“Let’s take some deep breaths. Are you sure?”

“Why do people always ask that?” My voice cracks. “Of course I’m sure!” Tears stream down my cheeks.

“There were two lines—”

“YES! I’m two weeks late. I hadn’t noticed.”

“Shit.”

“I’m having a royal child! A royal bastard. Oh God, Am, what if he steals it?”

“Steals it?”

“Yes! It’s a royal child! Blue blood! What if he kidnaps it to raise in the castle?”

Amelia laughs. “Lucy, calm down. Prince Liam didn’t even grow up in the castle. He went to K-12 in America.”

“Okay,” I whisper, wiping my eyes.

“I’m taking it you want to keep the baby.”

“Yes.” I swallow hard. “It’s mine.” I feel the pressure of tears behind my eyes, but I can’t seem to let them out. They’re stuck. I spread my hand over my belly. “I’m pregnant. Amelia, I am motherfucking pregnant.”

“It sounds like you may be.”

Silence swims between us.

“I’ll come,” she says. “Now. I can get some time off if—”

“No! You don’t need to take off from the internship.” I blink around my bedroom, with its antique, oak furniture and faded flower wallpaper. I feel like I’m in a new place. On another planet.

“Oh my God Amelia, what about the paps? When they see my bump?”

“Wear baggy shirts.”

“Forever?”

“Really baggy. Jackets!”

“I’ll become a shut-in.”

“Grocery stores deliver. Even there I bet they do.”

“I need seclusion. I need cheese!”

“What?”

“Cheese. I need some fucking cheese.” With one last glance at the pee stick on the bedside table, I start downstairs. “Am… My legs are shaking.”

“Hold onto the rail! Is there a rail on your stairs? I don’t remember.”

“Yes.” I let another little half sob out.

“Oh, honey. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

I open the refrigerator, feeling bereft as I blink at the empty shelves. “Shit. I don’t have cheese. I haven’t been here. This one pack of cheese is moldy!”

“You do not need moldy cheese.”

“I have no groceries.” My voice cracks. “My baby will starve!”

“Oh God, Luce. Are you pretty sure it’s his?”

“Am I pretty sure? How many guys do you think I slept with in Southampton?”

“I didn’t know. Just checking.”

“Thanks. So much.”

“Aww, Luce. A baby,” she coos.

“Yes.” I flick on the kitchen light and open up a pantry door. “Do they like popcorn? Canned green beans? Canned black eyed peas?”

“No canned stuff. Because listeria.”

“Isn’t that a mouth wash?”

“No. Oh goodness, Luce. You need to see a doctor. Like—tomorrow.”

As it goes, I spend a week living what used to be my life, waking with the sunrise to care for the horses, working Dear Abby (Please Help) most days, even running and jumping her. The internet says unless your stomach is protruding beyond your hip bones, falling off a horse shouldn’t hurt the baby. Not unless you hit your head, and I’m wearing a helmet.

I tell myself I’m just giving the baby a little longer to develop. So when I go in to the doctor’s, I can hear a heartbeat and know the pregnancy is viable and stuff. I do have prenatal vitamins. I’ve taken them for years, for hair and nails.

At night, I binge-watch Netflix on my iPad and look at my stomach as it aches down in the lower part, sort of like the baby’s kicking at my insides. Is the baby big enough to hurt me? A quick Google search reveals that no, the baby isn’t big enough to kick or punch me quite yet. He or she is only blueberry sized.

I text Amelia. ‘The RBB is blueberry sized.’

I know it’s horrible: RBB stands for royal bastard baby. I swear, it’s meant with utmost affection.

Something about the baby’s new status as fruit-sized makes me sort of want to see a doctor. The baby has a heartbeat now—or should. Dr. Google tells me he or she is developing “ear buds,” whatever that means.

I need to see this baby. I want to hear its heartbeat.

The next morning, I call the nearest OB bright and early, while Grey looks on from his perch on the kitchen counter, smugly licking his paws. A kindly receptionist, whom I hope doesn’t know anyone in Hollywood or Georgia, tells me there’s been a cancelation: I can come at 1:30 this afternoon.

“Sure,” I say. I’m surprised at the tone of my own voice. I sound so nonchalant, like I’m just fine with all this.

I wear my hair up, with a ball-cap over it, and workout leggings with a long t-shirt and sneakers. My Raybans don’t come off until I’m safe inside the elevator. As I walk into the large waiting room, partitioned in half by a giant bookshelf, I struggle to check out the other women’s bellies while avoiding eye contact.

Way to be a total freak, Lucy.

I only debate using a fake name for a minute before starting all the paperwork. I scrawl “Lucille” as messily as possible, hoping whoever has to input it into the computer can read it, while anyone else who comes across it will be clueless.

The questions about STDs make my heart curl up in my throat. I wonder for the tenth time why I didn’t care enough to worry about a condom that night. But I know, if I’m honest. It’s because I was so lust-drunk. I hopped on his dick like a ride at the fair. I never thought twice.

I rub my freshly waxed brows, digging my fingertips into my forehead.

At least the sex was good.

A few minutes later, I’ve handed in my clipboard and the little “Implanon” pen when one of the doors beside the receptionist desk swings open, and a short nurse with spiky black and pink hair scans the waiting room.

“Lucille?”

Bless this woman for not saying “Rhodes” after. I lunge at her, smiling in lieu of using actual words—since mine are obviously Southern. Despite my family squawking about me losing my accent since I moved here, Coloradoans ask about it every flipping time.

The woman weighs me, takes my blood pressure, and listens to my heartbeat while I avoid breathing in her face and pray my deodorant is holding up. I hate being examined at close range. Was never comfortable with the makeup artists and the groomers on TRoC.

Julie—according to her nametag—hands me a small plastic cup and a tiny square which, after I’ve shut myself in the bathroom, I find is an alcohol-soaked “towelette.”

Oh God.

I spend a minute staring at my pee cup before sitting it on the little metal ledge cut into the wall. Then I take a picture of it.

I step back into the hallway and go to the room Julie told me would be mine. I don’t expect anyone for at least fifteen minutes, so I text Amelia the picture. I’m hoping for a Gross! Instead she replies BABY JUICE! and it’s my turn to text DISGUSTING!

As I watch the little bubble on my phone, showing me she’s typing, the door swings open and Julie re-appears, wearing a big smile and holding a small pink stick.

“Here it is!” She holds it out to me. “You’re pregnant.”

The stick shows two lines, plus a digital reading: PREGNANT.

“I thought you might want to keep it.” She’s still smiling like she won the lottery. My smile back is reflexive.

“Sure.”

I feel a few warm fuzzies as I slide the stick into my purse, despite it technically containing pee.

I lean back on my arms, making the table’s tissue-paper topping crinkle.

The nurse gives me a smile-frown. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

I shrug, playing it cool as my heart races. “I don’t know. Do you?”

Her eyes widen as her hand flies to her mouth. “You were on E! news!”

“Yeah?”

She nods vehemently. “This morning! I was eating breakfast. I watch it every day while I eat breakfast,” she confesses. “You’re one of the Rhodes girls.” She shakes her head as she grins. “I should have noticed when I saw your chart. It says Lucille, but you go by Lucy.”

I nod, trying to smile politely.

“But you left the show—and now you’re living here?”

I nod, arching an eyebrow.

She gets the message then, thank God: that I don’t want to talk about TRoC. “I’ll draw a few vials of blood and we’ll get you on out of here.” She takes several plastic packets from a cabinet, looking over her shoulder as she asks, “Do you have questions for me?”

My heart does a weird, slow somersault, ending up near my throat. “What’s the rate of miscarriage?”

“Based on your last period, I’d put you at about—heck, let’s just do an ultrasound.”

“Right now?”

“Why not?” She smiles, lying her palm atop a TV-looking screen that’s perched on a rolling cart.

I inhale slowly. “Yeah. Okay.”

“First timer, huh?”

I nod, feeling thankful when she doesn’t push for more details.

A few minutes later, my lower belly is covered with cool gel and being prodded with a wand, and I’m staring at a bleary little smudge of baby on a small, portable ultrasound machine.

“Oh my God. A baby,” I murmur. That’s a real baby! “My baby…”

She laughs. “That’s your baby. See this?” she asks me, pointing to the jagged white line running along the bottom of the screen. “That means the baby has a heartbeat. Which means,” she says, “the baby’s odds of thriving just got better.” She takes some measurements, then says, “Looks like you’re seven weeks and three days along.”

“So if I want to feel less worried,” I say as she wipes the gel off my stomach, “I need to make it to twelve weeks?”

She nods. Her face is sympathetic. “I’m sure you must have a lot on your mind. Twelve weeks will be here before you know it if you keep busy. And I think you will.”

I pull my shirt down. What does that mean? My gaze travels to my bare ring finger, and I decide that must be it.

“I’m not married, but it’s fine with me,” I reassure her. “I’m not ultra-conservative like some Southerners.”

“Oh no, dear. Being married wasn’t what I meant.”

I frown as I sit up.

She gives me a searching look, as if she’s wondering where I left my brain. “The lawsuit,” she says softly.

“Lawsuit?”

Her face scrunches as she shakes her head. “You don’t…” She has the good grace to look down at her sneakers. I see her cringe as her eyes return to mine. “The Parsons Grocers boy?”

My heart stops mid-beat. “What?”

“Oh, it’s just the news said he had brought a lawsuit. For violating a contract. Something along those lines. One of those things…” She snaps her fingers. “A privacy agreement. Is that what they’re called? A breaching of the privacy agreement?”

I think I’m nodding yes. The next thing I know, several bleary faces are peering over me.