She adjusts her mirror as she nears the street. “Up with what?”

“These stupid nausea spouts I’ve been having for like a month.”

She abruptly slams on the brakes, sending the car lurching to a stop. I shoot forward in my seat, nearly banging my head on the dash.

“What the hell, Lila?” I brush stray strands of hair out of my eyes and turn my head to gape at her. “What was that about?”

Her blue eyes search mine. “You said you’ve been getting sick to your stomach for like a month?”

I nod, confused. “Yeah. So? It’s probably stress or the flu. But don’t worry, if it keeps up, I’ll go to the doctor.”

She scans my outfit over. “And you’re wearing shorts when it’s nearly Christmas.”

“Okay, that is a little bit weird,” I agree with her. “But I’m so freaking hot all the time I can’t stand wearing anything warmer.”

A slow grin expands across her face. “Oh, my God, Ella!” She claps her hands and squeals, “You’re pregnant!”

I deflate like a balloon. “Are you fucking crazy! No, I’m not!”

She flinches from the sharpness in my tone but continues to smile. “Ella, I know you and Micha haven’t really decided to try having kids yet, but trust me, you show signs of being pregnant. I search the internet all the time for this stuff.”

“So what?” I squeak, sounding very unlike me. “Just because the internet says something doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“Okay.” She pauses then decides to tread forward despite my horror over the subject. “When was your last period?”

I stare at the ceiling as I mentally calculate. When I finally realize it was a little over two months ago, right before Micha and I had hot, sweaty piano bench sex, fear soars through me so potently I can barely breathe. How is this freaking possible? I mean, I’m on the damn pill. There was that week that I missed a few and had to start over, though. Fuck, I forgot about that.

I bite at my fingernails. Shit.

“Things have been so intense at the gallery I can barely remember to eat, let alone when the last time I had my period was,” I lie, unable to accept the truth.

Lila pats my hand. “Oh, Ella.”

I jerk away from her. “Don’t you ‘oh Ella’ me.”

She surrenders, her hands in front of her. “Okay, Miss Hormones.”

“Lila!” I whine as tears sting my eyes. “Stop with the jokes. I’m freaking out here.”

Her hands fall to her lap. “Sorry. What do you need from me?”

“For you to help me. Please,” I practically beg her, but for what, I’m not even sure. Something that will help me handle this.

She must understand me because she nods and then backs out onto the road. “Okay, help is on the way.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, telling myself to breathe. That it can’t be true. That it’s a mistake. That it has to be a mistake. Because I was never supposed to be a mother.

She steers the car toward the city. “To find out the truth.”

Life has thrown me a curveball that’s hit me straight in the face. My brain aches so badly I can hardly think straight, much less process my emotions. I honestly wish I couldn’t think at all, then maybe I wouldn’t have to acknowledge the reality in front of me.

“How accurate are these things?” I ask Lila as I stare at the five pregnancy tests scattered on my bathroom countertop. All show positive, that yes, there’s a human growing in my stomach. Each time I think about it, I want to throw up. Mom? I’m not a mom.

“Pretty accurate,” Lila says as she reads the back of the box. Once she’s finished, she hops off the counter and tosses the box into the trashcan. “Face it, Ella, I think you have a bun in your oven.”

“Ew. Don’t ever say that.” I frown at the stupid tests again. “Are you sure there’s not a small chance that all of them could be wrong?”

She shrugs as she checks her reflection in the mirror, wiping a dab of lipstick from her teeth. “There might be, but with five positives, I doubt it.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling the floor crumbling beneath me. “Now what do I do?” I whisper.

When she places her hands on my shoulders, my eyelids open. “You tell Micha.” She looks over my shoulder and at me in the mirror. “And then you two get to celebrate.”

Lila is obviously happy about this and thinks I should be equally as happy. She doesn’t know—doesn’t understand—my fear of being a mother. From the day Micha and I first started talking about having children, I worried I couldn’t be a mother. That, if I had a child of my own, I wouldn’t know what to do with it since my own mother never seemed to know what to do with me. I actually spent many years taking care of her until I was about seventeen, and she took her own life. Left this world.

And now I’m supposed to bring someone into this world?

“I think I need to get ready for the concert,” I mumble, offering Lila a fake smile when she narrows her eyes at me.

“Let me know how it goes,” she replies as she turns to leave. Then she pauses in the doorway and looks over her shoulder at me. “And, Ella, be happy. This is a happy thing, okay?”

My smile grows even faker. “Okay.”

Her smile seems as sad as mine, but at the moment, I don’t have the energy to pick us both up.