Hazel's POV
“You've been sick every morning for a week,” Marisol said, wheeling in front of the office door so I couldn't slip past her, “and I'm done pretending I haven't noticed, Hazel.”
I had been telling myself it was stress, the letter, the shell company, the sudden weight of Julian's father circling our lives like a shadow we couldn't outrun. Stress made sense. Stress was something I understood and had survived a hundred times before.
“It's nothing,” I said. “I haven't been sleeping.”
“Hazel,” Marisol said, gentler now, “I've watched enough dancers go through this to recognize it. Take the test. For your own peace of mind if nothing else.”
I bought the test on my way home, hands unsteady on the pharmacy counter, my mind spinning backward through years of doctors telling me my bo
