Before I get into it: I'm going to buy a fancy digital test and check tomorrow which is 10dpo. I know nothing is 100% but am looking to see if others have had this happen / what the general thought is

I took a cheapo test this morning... I could make myself think that MAYBE I saw a shadow so I decided to use one of my more expensive tests that I swore I would reserve until closer to my missed period. This is a target brand early response test. The line showed up within the time frame, it's as dark as I'd expect 9dpo, and another test from this batch gave me a normal negative when I had a scare. As you can hopefully see (line much more obvious in person) the line is perpendicular instead of parallel like the example. Is this garbage or is there hope?