Kass
Kass lay down on her old bed, tugging the quilt up to her chin, still reeling from Kamille’s news. She could hear the strains of “Jingle Bells” coming from downstairs, and laughter, and the unmistakable pop! of a champagne cork.
What an awful Christmas.
Kass used to love this holiday, especially when her father was alive. When she, Kamille, and Kyle were little, he even dressed up as Santa Claus and pretended to come down the chimney. He and Kat would go crazy with the presents, the decorations, the food, everything.
Kat tried to keep some of the old family traditions going, like the funny notes from “Santa” in each of their stockings and the rice pudding with a single almond in it, on Christmas Eve. Whoever got the almond was supposed to be the next one to marry. (Last night, Bree was the winner, so the system was obviously flawed.)
But somehow, it just wasn’t the same without her father. No offense to Beau. But he was no David Romero.
And David Romero would have never allowed the likes of Chase Goodall to marry his daughter, much less date her. He had been so smart about people, with what he used to call his “bullshit radar.” He wouldn’t have fallen for Chase’s smarmy, all-American, nice-guy act the way Beau had. It was so painful, watching Chase sucking up to Beau and pretending to be interested in his ancient baseball stories.
Kass sighed.
She glanced around her old bedroom, which she hardly ever used anymore. It was very similar to her old-old bedroom back in their other house (the one she thought of as their “real” house); her mother had made sure to paint the walls of this one the identical shade of peachy apricot and arrange her belongings in exactly the same way. There were the trophies from her debate tournaments and ice-skating competitions. There was her National Honor Society plaque.
And there was her old dollhouse. She and Kamille used to play with it for hours: feeding their dolls, bathing them, putting them to bed. There was a nasty dent in one corner of the roof, from when Kamille had gotten mad at Kass about some stupid thing or the other and kicked it down the stairs. She and Kamille had fought about that for days . . .
Kass’s gaze shifted to her desk, to the souvenir snow globe from their family trip to New York City, and the photo-booth pictures of her and Kamille from high school, and the maroon USC mug filled neatly with pens and pencils.
Next to all that was the slender white box she’d bought at Rite Aid yesterday, when she’d realized that her period was late.
“Stop stalling,” she told herself, and got up from bed.
She knew that she was probably overreacting. Even though she was as regular as clockwork, period-wise, it was possible to be off because of stress and other factors. The last month or so had been sheer insanity, with exams and papers and catching up on holiday shopping (which she usually finished well before December—but not this year).
And, of course, the SHE.
But Kass needed to be sure. Now more than ever, since Kamille had decided to go and get herself engaged to her sleazy, two-faced BF.
Making sure there was no one in the hall, Kass took the box and tiptoed quietly to the bathroom next door, which she used to share with Kamille. Benjy seemed to have taken it over; there was a can of shaving cream and a razor on the sink, and tiny beard hairs all over the place. Plus a pair of rumpled black boxers on the floor. Ew. She locked the door, went over to the toilet, and sat down.
Kass pulled the instructions out of the box and read the tiny print once, twice, three times. She wanted to make sure to do this right. Pee on the stick? How was she supposed to pee on something so small? But, whatever. She pulled down her panties and positioned the stick. And started to pee. And stopped to inspect the stick. And started to pee again, stick in place. Was she doing this right?
Afterward, she did as the instructions said and placed the stick on a flat surface—i.e., the sink—using a clean tissue to keep it from being contaminated by Benjy’s disgusting little beard hairs. She checked her watch and started timing. Five minutes. Okay. While she waited she read the instructions once more, in English and in Spanish. She learned all about HCG, human chorionic gonadotropin, the hormone the test was supposed to measure in her urine. If she had a certain amount of it, the test would come out positive. Two thin blue lines. If she didn’t, it would be negative. One thin blue line.
“Kassie! Dinnerrrrrrrrr!” She could hear Bree shouting up the stairs.
“I’ll be right there!” Kass shouted back.
She glanced at her watch. Thirty seconds to go. Then twenty. Then ten . . .
Taking a deep breath, she looked at the white pee stick lying on the counter.
Two blues lines.
No.
There had to be a mistake. Kass picked up the stick and held it up to the light, shifting the angle this way and that.
There they were. Two solid, unmistakable blue lines.
“Kassie!!!!!”
Kass began shaking all over.