I toss the crumpled empty tampon box into the trash, lining up the rest in a neat little stack.
Then I pause.
There are too many.
My hand hovers over the drawer as I do a quick count, then another. Straightening my back, I press a palm to my belly.
No cramps. No headaches.
No sore breasts.
No signs at all of my period coming.
But it’s been weeks—longer even.
I scramble up, grab my phone from the counter and open my period tracking app.
My hands are shaking now.
The last recorded cycle was nearly two months ago.
Just days before Pyotr died.
Pyotr.His name hits me like a slap.
My throat tightens, but I force myself to breathe.
Focus. That cycle came after the last time he touched me.
So if I’m pregnant now, it couldn’t be his.
It couldn’t,I reassure myself, blinking back the memory of our last night together.
The night he came to bed drunk after celebrating the Chiaroscuros’ destruction, I waited until he was asleep before I joined him.
But still, I feel the fear that knotted in my gut every time he turned his gaze on me like I was a possession, a tool for him to use.
A vessel for him to put an heir in.
No. No more of that. Miko ended that life.
He pulled me out of the hell I thought I’d never escape.
So, I can’t be pregnant.
At least not with Pyotr’s child…
Turning, I rip open the left-side vanity drawer, digging to the very back, where I remember shoving a spare test months ago—the last time I was late and panicking that Pyotr had gotten me pregnant.
My fingers close on the slim pink foil-wrapped stick. Tearing it open, I pull out the flimsy piece of plastic with its cap-protected test strip.
I already know how to use it, and I move on autopilot now, numbed by nerves as I move through a dense fog that clouds my mind.
It takes no time at all to finish the test, and I cap it, setting it on the back of the toilet as I wait for the results.
I don’t look at it. Not yet.
But I set a timer as the seconds stretch into an eternity. Then I start to pace.
