Emily had arranged for a rental car to be dropped off at the Connecticut hotel so we could drive to a doctor with a small private practice. No taxi drivers, no big client pool to wag their tongues—the fewer people who knew, the better. But I was silent on the way there, and as we walked down the hallway to the office, my legs slowed as my thoughts ran amok. An abrupt realization: I really wasn’t sure about this at all.

“I think it’s this way,” Emily said, walking ahead of me. She turned toward me and cocked her head. “Do you still want to go in? We don’t have to, you know.”

I was glad she didn’t hold any judgment in her voice. I’d wondered why Cassidy had hired on a pet-sitter as a full-time employee with travel perks, but Emily seemed to be a person who was there as support, without any extra opinions.

Her face blurred as my eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know. I don’t.”

“If you’re not sure . . .” She grasped my hand. “Let’s go back to the car.”

“No. I need to do this.”

“Meredith, you have a choice. You always have a choice. You don’t need to do anything.”

I nodded, sniffling, wiping my nose with the back of my free hand.

Emily continued, “If you’re not sure, we can sit and talk about it. But probably not in this hallway.”

“We’re already late,” I sniffled.

“You can reschedule.”

“We’re driving to fucking Pennsylvania next. I don’t know anything about Pennsylvania. You think they’d do abortions there? There’s a time limit on this thing—before you know it, it’ll be too late.”

I felt her soft hands grasping at my shoulders. “I’ve signed many NDAs so I can’t say anything in particular, but I can find a way for you to get the care you need even if you’re in Egypt. So if you want to consider this a little more, we can leave.”

I nodded again and she steered me back to the car. I climbed into the driver’s seat, teary at first and then sobbing, making no move to start the ignition. Emily’s cell phone rang but she dug around in her bag and silenced it, leaving the call unanswered. Leaning over the wheel, tears and snot dripping onto the leather, I warbled, “This is my punishment, isn’t it. This is what I deserve for being a slut, breaking up Grant’s marriage. And his house . . .”

“Okay, first, you’re not a slut. And while everyone shat on you for dating the guy, he was the one who was in a marriage and chose to cheat, which people don’t ever mention but it is the bigger fault, I think.” She rubbed my back, and added hesitantly, “And you definitely shouldn’t bring a child into this world if you think that it’ll be a punishment.”

“I don’t think I can have this baby. But I also don’t think I can get rid of it. Even if it was his.”

“Does Grant know about it?” she asked.

“Grant?” I felt a momentary shock of confusion and realized she didn’t know. No one did. “It’s not Grant’s.”

“It’s not?”

“It’s Decker’s.” My voice cracked. Saying it out loud made it more real. It was the first time I’d voiced it and the truth echoed in my ears, making them hum.

The shock was evident in Emily’s voice. “Decker? Noah Decker? The director from the ‘Prime’ music video?” I looked up and saw her confusion, her thinking to any and all tabloid photos and reports.

But there wouldn’t be one, would there? It was not a date.

“Pretty sure.” I balled my hands into fists and clamped them against my eyes. “I can’t stand that video and I can’t stand that song. I can’t stand to see him. I can’t hear his name. Every time, it makes me feel sick.”

Emily was quiet. My tears had subsided, but my nose was still runny. I rooted around in the back seat for a tissue.

“He hurt you?” she asked softly.

My silence was enough of a confirmation.

She blew out a breath. “I know it’s hard, but maybe you could tell someone—report it—”

“No,” I said, shaking my head emphatically. “No! I wish I could shout about what he did to me, but I know it’ll just make everything worse. If it’s public, it’ll be my fault, and I’ll just be an even more public slut than I am already.” I sniffled. “I’m telling you only because, well, you’re here. And you’re legally sworn to secrecy so you can’t open your mouth to anyone. Not even the other Gloss girls.”

“No one? Not even Cassidy?”

I pressed my lips together tightly.

She sighed deeply. “Oh, honey. I totally understand your position, but I hate that it’s like this. He’s the one who should be ashamed, not you.”

I shook my head again, wiping away more tears with the back of my hand. “I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to be a mother,” I whispered. “Just . . . not like this.”

I SAT DRINKING my third cup of coffee, cradling the cup with both elbows on the counter. My head was splitting.

I thought about the last time I’d seen Cassidy. I ran into her once—just once—about five or six years after she’d left. We hadn’t talked since the group broke up, though not for my lack of trying. Yumi and Rose both held a residual grudge about the way she’d left us high and dry, and the tour had petered out after Australia. Without Cassidy, Big Disc considered the extension unnecessary and had framed it as a postponement, until Cassidy “got better”—and I was secretly relieved that I could nurture my daughter without a huge spotlight on my changing body. I remember reading gossip sites at the time as everyone conjectured that Cass was secretly working on a solo album and was going to resurface in due time. Instead, of course, Rose tried her hand at the solo thing and, while one of her singles reached acceptable levels on the charts, she sat nursing her pride after one lackluster album.

It was one of those rare moments when I was in between projects—I think my lipstick line hadn’t come to fruition, but my cookbook had already bombed—and I had extra time to spend with Soleil. The first thing she did when we were on our way to the park was to throw her toy out the car window. So we went to Target to get her a new one.

I was kneeling down on the floor as she had a meltdown, even though I showed her the toy in its box. Sighing, I removed all the packaging and thrust the doll into her hand. She stopped sobbing immediately, brightening as her fingers felt all the familiar plastic limbs.

When I got to my feet and glanced up, there was Cassidy, an aisle away, eyes skimming a shelf laden with stuffed zebras and manatees. Tugging on Soleil’s hand, I guided her forward until I closed the gap between Cassidy and me.

“Hi,” I said cautiously. Her eyes flicked over to me but she didn’t say anything. “Did you want help picking something out?” Like it was the most natural thing in the world, us shopping together.

“No, thanks,” Cassidy said.

Her first words to me in five years were a dismissal.

With a jolt, I realized she was too thin. She was in jeans and a hoodie, but the wrist reaching out and, finally, taking the manatee off the shelf was attached to a claw of a hand, tendons in sharp relief.