By eight, I’ve built a list. Coffee. Fatigue. Soreness that isn’t from walking or tension or the particular kind of stiffness that comes from sleeping in a place that doesn’t belong to you. A tenderness in my breasts I noticed yesterday and immediately filed under inconvenient bodily nonsense.
And my period is late.
I don’t write that down. Some facts become more dangerous when given ink.
I stand, too quickly. The room tilts, not dramatically, not enough to send me to the floor. Just enough to suggest that gravity has briefly reconsidered its priorities. I sit back down.
“Ridiculous,” I say aloud.
The word lands flat in the room. It doesn’t fix anything.
I count backward. Not days. Days are soft. Elastic. Too easily misremembered.
Events. The first encounter in his study. The confrontation that wasn’t meant to become anything else. Papers scattering. His hand at my throat. Not tightening, just there, an assertion more than a threat.
The second, after my uncle’s offer. The moment I chose to stay and then proved it in a way that removed all plausible deniability.
The shower. The corridor. The service door.
The night at Alessandro’s desk…
I stop there. The room goes very quiet.
No. Too early.
Impossible… except not.
Unlikely, except my body has never once consulted probability before causing trouble. I know enough biology to be irritated by it. I also know enough family strategy to understand that a woman in my position cannot afford uncertainty inside her own blood.
Uncertainty is leverage, for someone. If not me, then him.
The thought settles with uncomfortable clarity. I don’t panic; panic is inefficient.
I stand again, slower this time, testing the balance of the room before committing to movement.
It holds. Barely.
The walk to the bathroom feels longer than it should. Not because of distance, but because of awareness. Every step is something I notice now. Every shift in weight. Every subtle misalignment between intention and execution.
I close the door behind me. Lock it. Not because it will stop anyone. Because the act itself matters.
The test is already there.
Of course it is. Placed on the counter beside the basin, still in its paper wrapping, clinical and unobtrusive. Teresa didn’t comment on it. Didn’t acknowledge it. But she has left it within reach, which is its own form of communication.
Should I be worried?
Do I have the time to be worried?
I reach for it. The paper crinkles softly as I unfold it. The object inside is small. White plastic. Lightweight. Almost insultingly simple for something that can alter the structure of a life.
The instructions are folded inside. I read them once. Then again. Not because I don’t understand. Because this is a ritual, and rituals demand attention even when they are ridiculous.
Three minutes.
Three minutes is an obscene amount of time. Wars have started in less. I do what’s required. Set the test on the edge of the basin.
Then I wait. I stand in the center of the bathroom with my arms crossed, shoulders tight, pretending my heartbeat isn’t behaving like a man with bad news outside a locked door.
