Page 63 of The Broken Keys

“Just catching up on some stuff. I’m swamped and needed some time to get organized.” I lean back in my chair, grateful for the distraction. “What’s up?”

“I’m checking in to see if you want to go to Pilates after work today.”

“Maybe, but I’m working from home,so…”

She sighs like she knows I’m going to decline her offer. “Well, maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Why?”

“My period finally ended yesterday, and I was only inviting you out of guilt. It was brutal this month. I’m in no mood to work out. Seriously, it was the worst one I’ve had in ages. Heavy cramps, and oh my God, the acne. Like full-on teenage breakouts. I looked like I was sixteen again.”

I freeze. “Your period?”

“Yeah, it was awful. It lasted like seven days. Why do our bodies hate us?” She laughs, then her tone shifts. “Wait, didn’t yours just end, too? You’re usually only a few days before me.”

My heart hammers. “Um...yeah. It was rough.”

But even as I say it, something jagged slides down my spine.

When was my last period?

“Livianna? Are you still there?”

“Yeah, sorry. Just...distracted.” I’m already swiping over to a new screen on my phone, pulling up my ovulation tracker app while keeping Quinn on speaker.

“Are you okay? You sound weird.”

The app opens. The screen shows my cycle stuck on a week before I was supposed to ovulate. The date is frozen in time.

Noooo. No, no, no.

“Quinn, I’m fine. But can I call you back? I need to handle something.”

“Sure, but?—”

I hang up before she can finish, my fingers fumbling as I force the app to close. I restart it, my hands trembling so badly that I nearly drop the phone.

The app loads. The little calendar populates.

And there it is. Clear as day.

I’m two weeks late.

“Fuck.” The word comes out in a whisper.

I count backward through the last month, my mind racing. Jaxon and I have been together many times since my last period. And we didn’t use protection. The app said I was safe, that I wasn’t ovulating yet, and that we had time.

But how long was the app frozen?

How long was I relying on bad data?

The exhaustion. The nausea over the past couple of days. Being lightheaded. The way my body feels heavy, strange, and not quite my own.

“Fuck.” I stand up so fast the chair scrapes against the floor. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

I pace across the kitchen, pressing the heels of my palms to my temples. This can’t be happening. Not now. Not when everything is already falling apart.

But the signs are all there, aren’t they? The bone-deep tiredness that made me sleep until nine. The way everything smells wrong. The fog in my head that I’ve been blaming on emotional exhaustion.