Jas turned back to the kitchen, but, inexplicably, all pangs of hunger had vanished. She still found herself baffled by Jac's attitude sometimes. So what, she dropped a contact in the bin? There was no need to take it out on Jasmine. If Jac didn't want her around, then she shouldn't have invited her to stay.

Giving up on breakfast (Jac could even ruin food – who knew?), Jas ran the deepest bath she'd had in a long time, pulled her hair into a messy bun, and climbed in. The water was that temperature where it's so hot you have to ease yourself into it slowly, to adjust, like the opposite of a cold swimming pool. It was that temperature that meant that when she raised a leg out of the water, it steamed gently. It was perfect.

Jas lay there looking round the bathroom for a while. She'd clocked a load of plastic trains that obviously belonged to Emma, and found herself momentarily approving of her sister for not forcing gendered toys onto her. She looked at the Johnson baby shampoo and soap, and opened it to smell it. She clocked the row of expensive skincare and perfume bottles on the shelves above the sink. Chanel No 5, Chloe, Lancôme, La Mer. And she clocked an open cupboard door next to the toilet with a box of Tampax spilling out of it.

And right then, at that moment, Jasmine realised that she hadn't bought tampons in a while. She realised that she couldn't actually remember the last time she'd even needed them. Her heart seized with a sudden shock of fear, and even in her steaming hot bath, she felt something cold run down her spine.

Pregnant.

Pregnant? Could she really be pregnant? Jasmine screwed her face up in the effort to recall the last time she'd had sex (it should not be that difficult - clearly she was doing something wrong, she thought wryly) and realised with a jolt that it was a good few months ago.

With none other than Oliver Valentine.

Jasmine jumped up out of the bath, scrabbled for a towel, and called into work.

"Hi, Bernie, yeah it's Jasmine, look I'm really sorry but I need to take a sick day, I'm feeling awful. I think it must be Norovirus…yeah absolutely, 48 hours, of course….thanks Bernie."

Hanging up, she dropped the phone onto the bed hurriedly, pulled on a pair of jeans, an old Nike sweatshirt, and some pale pink Superstars, and left the house.

She stopped short at the end of Jac's driveway. She had no idea where she was; she was unfamiliar with Holby at the best of times, and this was an area she'd not visited before. She had no idea where the nearest pharmacy was.

Jas sunk down onto the kerb and dropped her head into her hands. This was ridiculous. There was no way she could be pregnant. She had no money, no time. She was on the pill for Christ's sake!

An elderly man walked past Jas, and stopped short at the sight of a messy looking girl with her head in her hands, sitting on the pavement in a very respectable part of town.

He gave her a sharp tap with the end of his walking stick. Jasmine jumped out of her skin.

"Er, excuse me?"

"You're sat on the pavement." He frowned down at her "We don't do that round here. I'll have to inform the Neighbourhood Watch, and then just you wait."

Jasmine stared at him. He really was very old. Tissue paper skin, flat cap, brown corduroy trousers, old man shoes. He reminded her of her grandad towards the end of his life; permanent frown, never satisfied with anything, always arguing with Paula.

Jasmine stood, pointedly ignoring the man, and brushed the dirt from her jeans, before turning back to the house and let herself in. She kicked off her shoes in the hallway and walked through to the kitchen, perching herself on a stool at the island. Right there in front of her was Jac's Macbook.

Jas reached over and slowly pulled it towards her. She flipped it open, saw that Jac's password filled in with the automaticity she'd been hoping for, and hit the enter key.

Jac's web browser popped open, showing her emails. Jas contemplated having a read to see what was going on in Jac's life, but then decided against it. The last thing she wanted was Jac thinking she'd snooped on her.

Jas opened Google and then sat waiting for it to tell her what to search for. Am I pregnant? Pregnancy Symptoms. Pharmacy near me. Most accurate pregnancy test. On and on she searched.

It was as Jas was scanning the maps page that she'd opened to find the nearest pharmacy that it occurred to her to check Jac's bathroom. Hadn't she had that pregnancy thing that wasn't a pregnancy, just before Christmas?

Jas shut the lid of the laptop and bolted up to the bathroom. She checked each cupboard individually, before getting to the back of the one nearest the door, the one that seemed to be reserved for eczema cream and baby wipes. Sitting at the back was a slim pink and white box. Jas pulled it out and checked the date. There were a couple of months until it officially expired, so Jas peed on the stick, in the way she'd seen people do on TV and in hospital a thousand times before but had never done so herself, and waited.

She waited longer than 3 minutes. She waited almost 10 before she pulled herself together and looked for the lines.

Two of them, clear as day. Pregnant.

Fuck.