My hands are shaking as I pick up the white plastic tube. The tile floor of the bathroom is cold against my bare feet. I squeeze my fingers around the skinny piece of plastic, blocking the results from myself.

I can’t quite bring myself to look at it, not yet.

I put the lid down on the toilet and sit down, then I pop up and check to make sure the door is locked.

For the fourth time. Rex has his own bathroom, his own wing actually. Even when he’s not sleeping at the palace, his parents’ ‘weekend house’ is freaking huge.

I like it here. A lot better than Auberge House, so weird and empty, especially now that my dad’s… no longer with us.

Right now, though, I’m beyond thankful for the privacy of Rex’s ensuite bathroom.

I sit on the edge of the claw foot tub and take a couple of slow, deep breaths.

“Just look at it,” I whisper to myself.

One, two, three…

I look.

I start to shake so violently that the test tube drops to the floor and breaks into two pieces.

I thought… I don’t know, maybe it was just stress. End of my final school term, my father dying…

Nope.

Pregnant.

I don’t cry. I’m too scared to cry. This is all happening at the worst possible time.

My dad’s dead, Mum’s out of her mind with grief and shame over what he did. I’m about to graduate upper forms, the big ceremony is just three days from now.

I feel sick. I taste bile in the back of my mouth.

My heart pounds, adrenaline flooding in.

How am I going to tell Rex? is the biggest question in my mind.

And then, we were so careful… we always used condoms… right?

I laugh out loud. I don’t even have the most basic answers about this, or about anything that’s going on in my life.

I hear a faint sound outside the bathroom. Rex, coming back from his quest into the wine cellar to find us a bottle of something to drink.

Like that, my moment of solitude is over. I have to talk to him, right now. That’s all there is to it.

I don’t have to make any decisions, not right now.

“Kitty?” I hear him call.

“Just a sec!”

I grab the broken pieces of plastic and wrap them in a piece of toilet tissue, then panic and hide the bundle in the bathroom trash.

I wash my hands and walk out. Rex is sprawled on his huge bed, drinking red wine straight out of the bottle.

“Want some?” he says, holding it out to me.

“No, no,” I say.

I feel a rush of nausea, suddenly, just thinking of all the wine we’ve snuck over the last few weeks.

I’m already the worst Mum imaginable, and I only just found out.

“You feeling alright, Kitty?” Rex gives me a look.

“Just… you know, worried. About graduation,” I blurt out.

I look around Rex’s room, at his collection of expensive guitars, at the posters of rock bands on his wall. Lately he’s been telling people he’s going to give up his future place in the monarchy, become a serious musician instead.

The new Thom Yorke, I believe I heard him say to his cousin Bram.

I sit down on the bed, careful to stay a safe distance from Rex.

Too late for that, honey, a nasty little voice in the back of my head tells me. Wayyyyy too late.

I bite my lip, wondering how the heck I’m supposed to talk to him about something this… huge. This is going to change both our lives, forever.

Part of me wonders… I mean, maybe it will be fine. Rex and I will have to get married, yeah, but… that’d be okay. We love each other.

Part of me knows that I’m being beyond naive.

The Savilles are in disgrace. The pregnancy is out of wedlock. We’re teenagers, not old enough for something this monumental.

“Hey,” Rex says, setting the wine bottle aside. “What’s up, Kit?”

I purse my lips and look at him, unsure how to start.

“What, um… what are you thinking is going to happen next year?” I ask, looking down at the bed as I trace a figure eight on the down comforter with my fingertip.

“What do you mean?” Rex shrugs. “We go to uni, duh.”

“Yeah, but what else?” I ask.

Please, please tell me something that will make me feel better, I beg silently.

“Well, me and Bram talked about starting a band, you know. If we both go to Royal College,” Rex says, laying back on the bed. “And I drew this wicked design yesterday for a tattoo…”

As he tells me about the drawing, my heart sinks.

“I mean, what about us?” I ask, cutting him off. “Like, you and me, together.”

“Oh, Kit…” he sighs. “I mean, I figure we just play it cool for a while. Even if we go to the same uni, we can’t like… tell people that we’re dating. My dad would have a fucking stroke, wouldn’t he?”

He chuckles. I look away so he can’t see the tears that are starting to fill my eyes. Rex isn’t fooled, though.

He sits up and grabs me by the waist, hauling me onto his lap while he nuzzles my neck.

“You worry too much, Kitty. The future is far off. We’ve got a lot of time to figure it out. In the meantime…”

His gentle nuzzling turns into a series of soft kisses. My traitorous body starts to respond, despite my emotional turmoil.

It’s always like that with Rex.

“Wait…” I say, pulling away.

“Come on, Kitten,” he says, giving me that dashing grin of his. “Have you forgotten who your secret boyfriend is? They don’t call me Prince Magnum for nothing…”

He grabs my hand and brings it down to his… hardness… and I snatch my hand back.

“Quit!” I yelp.

“Oh, are you really mad about this next year thing? You need to relax about that, Kitten. We have bigger things to worry about.”

He has no idea how right he is.

I brush away a tear and shake my head at him. It must be nice to live the charmed life, Rex Westwood.

“Let’s just go to sleep, okay? I have to sneak out super early,” I say.

Rex rolls his eyes and shrugs.

“Suit yourself,” he says, then he gets this goofy grin on his face. “I’d think you’d be nicer to me, knowing that we’re about to go off to uni. I’m going to meet loads of hot girls there, you know. Bet they won’t need so much beauty sleep.”

Somehow, I don’t scream at him. Somehow, I don’t burst into tears.

I just kind of go to that same place that I went when I found my dad’s body. A numb place, where it’s just… easier.

I lie down next to Rex, not even bothering to get under the comforter with him. I’m not planning on staying long.

This conversation has clarified a lot of things for me. Rex isn’t ready for this. I’m not either, but I don’t have a choice.

When it comes down to the basic facts, I love Rex like crazy… but I can’t trust him to have my back when this scandal breaks. Not in the face of his father. Or his grandparents. There’s no way he can protect me from their wrath.

I lie there in wait until Rex’s breathing is even and quiet. I sit up and look at him for a second, at his sheer gorgeousness. I want so badly to kiss him, just once more, but I don’t.

Instead I get up and grab my backpack, take the pregnancy test from the bathroom trash, and slip out onto the balcony. I climb into the tree and scuttle down it, all the time wondering…

What if I just fell… and this whole thing went away?

I feel ashamed of myself.

I manage to get a few blocks from the Westwoods’ house before I really start crying. I get on the tube and ride it home, and no one even stops to ask why an eighteen year old girl is sobbing her brains out in the middle of the night.

By the time I get home, I’m pretty cried out. Not that it matters; Mum’s not here. She’s at a rejuvenation spa or some such thing, I’m not exactly sure where.

Throwing myself on my bed is the only good thing I’ve felt all night. I lie there and wallow for hours, my mind whirring uselessly.

What am I going to do?

I can’t… get rid of it. I won’t. It’s mine and Rex’s, no matter what.

He can’t know about it, though.

No one can know about it.

How the heck am I going to pull that off?

God, if Mum finds out, she might make me get rid of it. Or she’d take it, like some bad Lifetime movie.

I can’t see any solution. There’s literally nowhere in Courtland that I can think of where no one will know my name, where no one will find out.

Wait…

I sit straight up in bed.

Nowhere in Courtland…

I scramble to get out of bed and pad over to my desk, flipping the desk lamp on.

There, on top of my laptop, is the stack of university acceptance letters I’ve gotten so far. For a lark, I applied to as many colleges as I could. More for bragging rights against my friends than anything else.

Sitting on top is my admission to Royal College. I’ve already filled out and signed the form accepting a spot there, but I haven’t mailed it out yet.

Waiting for Mum to get home and procure me some stamps, being silly.

I shuffle the stack. At the bottom are a handful of American universities.

I flip through a few, all recognizable as Ivy League schools. I haven’t even seen most of these places, but there’s one that I did visit on my trip to the States a few years ago.

“Where is it… where is it?” I mutter.

There, the last one in the stack.

“Brown University,” I say aloud, testing it out. “I go to Brown University. I’m Katherine, I go to Brown.”

I bite my lip. It seems drastic, but…

I could start over.

No matter what I decide, no one would know about the baby. Except I’d need to leave right away, not wait till the end of summer like everyone else.

I open my laptop and go to the Brown University website. I look around for a minute before I find what I need to see.

Ready For An Early Start? Begin Your Freshman Year Early, Take Summer Courses!

It’s almost too perfect. And no one will question it. My dad just died, Mum’s gone bonkers, it’s only natural that I would want to escape. Any normal teenager would do the dramatic thing, right?

I open a new email window.

to: [email protected]brown.edu

from: [email protected]jittermail.cou

RE: Admission

I’d like to formally accept my place at your prestigious university. I would also like to enroll in your early summer courses. Please call me as soon as possible to make all the necessary arrangements.

Sincerely,

Katherine Saville

I attach my phone number and then hit send before I can lose my nerve.

A way out. I’m saved, maybe.

I collapse onto my bed, wondering if I’m going to rock any boats.

Mum’s going to be flustered, at first. Truthfully, though, I think she’ll be relieved to have time alone to grieve and… work stuff out, whatever.

Dad’s gone.

And Rex…

Well, Rex is like a cat. He always lands on his feet, nothing ever seems to hurt him or even weigh him down. He’s going to be way better off without me, I’m certain of it.

In a way, I’m keeping the burden off his shoulders, I tell myself.

I close my eyes and finally start to drift. I need some sleep, for sure.

Tomorrow I start packing for my move to the States.