The next morning, I woke up feeling like shit. I felt sick, and I had no idea if it was legitimate nausea or if it was entirely self-manifested.

Late last night, after we left the studio, I’d had Flynn drop Seth back at his hotel. It was the first night in about a week-and-a-half that he hadn’t stayed over at my place, but I’d told him I was feeling shitty and needed to get some sleep.

He didn’t push it, giving me a sweet kiss on the cheek and telling me to call him in the morning when I felt better.

But now it was morning, and I did not feel better.

After we’d dropped him off, I’d made Flynn swing by a late-night drug store so I could grab myself a handful of pregnancy tests. Because sometime between Maggie arriving at the studio and the rest of us deciding to talk to Jesse and Brody about what we were doing, it had occurred to me, out of nowhere, that my period hadn’t come in a while.

In the car on the way home from the drug store, I pulled up the calendar app on my phone and figured it out. I was usually meticulous in tracking my cycle—whether I was sleeping with someone or not—though sometimes it got away from me if I was crazy-busy. Usually, I marked the day I expected my next period to start on the calendar with an X.

But this past month, I’d forgotten to mark it down.

As I totally fucking panicked, trying to remember when my last period was, it came to me. Midway through the very first week of auditions in Vancouver, before we headed down to L.A.; that was when my last period started. It stood out in my mind only because I’d been so caught up with the auditions that I’d forgotten about it, it had caught me unprepared, and I’d had to borrow a tampon from Maggie.

Relief washed through me as I realized what that meant. I hadn’t had sex with Ash since the week before the auditions started.

If I’d gotten pregnant, it had happened with Seth.

As Flynn drove me home, I’d let that sink in.

I’d counted the days on my calendar three times to be sure. I was pretty sure it was day thirty-five of my cycle, and normally my period started like clockwork on day twenty-seven. A day or two early or late was normal.

Eight days late was not.

As soon as I got home, I’d ripped into the first box of pregnancy tests, promptly peed on a stick—and just about threw up when the little pink line appeared in the window. I compared it to the instruction sheet, and rationally accepted the fact that the test was telling me I was pregnant.

However. These things could be wrong.

The instructions also said first morning urine was best. So I went to bed, went to sleep, and as soon as I woke up, I stumbled into the bathroom and peed on another stick.

This one adamantly agreed with the first one.

I checked the expiry dates on the boxes, even though I’d already done that. The tests were not expired. I’d followed the instructions. The pink lines stared me in the face.

This time, I did throw up.

Then I tossed the sticks in the garbage and went on with my day.

* * *

I was the last one to arrive at the church.

Brody had told us all to expect this day; that Liv and the producers were planning on filming a day of interviews and follow-up with the band, discussing where we were at and making some semi-final decisions about what was going on here. The network seemed to be getting impatient, pushing for us to close the deal on a guitarist.

Meanwhile, Zane, Dylan and I knew we had a different agenda in mind.

When we’d discussed it at the studio, Zane had seemed completely unvexed by the idea of having this discussion—the discussion about Seth—today, on-camera. Dylan had suggested that was a bad idea, and Seth had agreed. Myself, I hadn’t yet decided if the cameras would work in our favor or not.

But either way, by the time I arrived at the church, following the forty-minute drive to get here… I couldn’t deal with any of it.

I walked into the beautiful old church, Dirty’s jam space, our sacred rehearsal space, now crawling with film crew, and I almost fell apart.

I could not do this. Not with those pink lines floating in my head.

I felt borderline hysterical and wondered if there was some kind of hormonal surge at work. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry first.

Instead, I went straight over to the first person in my path, who happened to be Jesse, and said, “We can’t film this.”

He turned to me, and the look he gave me pretty much reflected back whatever crazy, wound-up vibe I was giving out. He grabbed my arm, like he thought I might fall over if he didn’t, and said, “Okay. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. We need to talk to you.”

His dark eyebrows twisted together. “Who does?”

“Zane,” I said. “Where’s Zane?” I started looking around, but the room was a blur of faces I couldn’t make sense of.

It occurred to me, as Jesse suddenly steered me over to a pew and sat me on my ass, that I was very possibly having a panic attack.

I was aware, dimly, of Maggie kneeling in front of me and telling me to put my head down. I did that. I folded over my knees, swallowing back a rush of nausea. I literally bit it back. I squeezed my eyes shut. For a terrifying second, I thought I was gonna projectile all over them.

I was aware, too, of a bunch of people being cleared out of the room. I heard the big doors at the main entrance shutting and someone throwing the bolt. It was quiet, deathly quiet when my head cleared. I realized the room had been spinning a little, and I opened my eyes.

I was still folded over my knees, staring at my sandals. They were gold. My toenail polish was sparkly turquoise. Next to my feet, I saw Jesse’s Converse, black with white soles and laces. They were clean and new. He’d never worn Chucks before. Not until he met Katie.

I just stared at his shoes.

I heard them talking over me. Zane and Dylan, explaining what we’d been doing.

Making music with Seth. The songs he and I had written.

The songs we’d been recording.

I heard Maggie, and she seemed to be defending us.

I heard Brody and I heard Jesse, but I was so detached from what was going on in the room, it didn’t even bother me that they clearly weren’t taking things well. At least, it didn’t bother me more than anything else I was feeling. My guts were roiling; I kept getting this salty rush of saliva in my mouth and swallowing it back, as I breathed in and out, slowly, through my nose, in an even, careful rhythm.

I was not going to throw up.

It was just too cliche.

Throwing up at home this morning—that was just nerves. A stress reaction to the results of the pregnancy tests.

Until my doctor told me I was pregnant, those tests could still be wrong.

But if I threw up now, in the middle of the day, out in public… how could I even try to fool myself that maybe I wasn’t knocked up?

All I could think about, while they argued over me, were the days on my calendar. Counting them off, one by one…

Five weeks. It had been five weeks since the start of my last period. Technically, that meant I was five weeks pregnant.

That was what my doctor was going to tell me.

You’re five weeks pregnant, Elle.

Congratulations.

Shall we book an ultrasound to confirm the date of conception, and you can meet your baby?

The voices around me were raised. I heard Zane and Jesse yelling, and then Brody. I felt a hand on me; someone was rubbing my back. It was Maggie, probably. The hand felt small and gentle, warm and full of strength.

At that point, I started to cry. I jumped up and ran for the bathroom to cover it.

Crying in front of everyone in the middle of all this shit was probably worse than throwing up. Throwing up could be attributed to random food poisoning or any number of things. Crying, on the other hand, was a dead giveaway that my life was spinning, suddenly and wildly, out of my control.

So I dove straight into the bathroom at the back of the church and purged my guts in private.

I’d never felt so fucking sick in my life.

Maybe it was just some fucking vicious flu, I told myself, or this was all some crazy hallucination. The pregnancy tests were just a dream.

But all the while, I knew I was kidding myself.