I have ovulated. Yay me.
What a thing to announce via blog, right?
So now, in the words of the PA, we wait for a period or a positive pregnancy test. Thanks for pointing that out, kimosabe.
Excerpt:
I woke in the night with the most profound feeling of displacement I had yet experienced. It was the sheets that threw me, the lingering, chemical smell of fabric softner and cotton, the worm, smooth feel of them. I could smell the old wood smell of the attic, hear the fan that was whirring away in the window, trying to pull the cooler air in from the night outside.
I woke and couldn’t remember which life was real, or what part of it had been a dream. It was like falling backward into the dark, nothing to hold on to. I was ageless, without location, without guidepost. It was as though I belonged in no world at all.
With a gasp, I jerked upright, my hair falling into my face. Ceallach was deeply asleep beside me, a sheen of sweat on his chest, his bandage rising and falling with his breath. His long legs were all tangled up in the sheets. At the sight of him, my heart thumped back into place.
It was hot. I threw the sheet off, went to the bathroom. I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself. My face was older. It had broadened out somehow, firmed up. I looked more confident, more capable. There were faint lines between my eyebrows and across my forehead. I raised my eyebrows, watched the lines deepen.
I thought, in two years I will be thirty years old. It was unbelievable to me. My entire twenties; just gone. Wiped out. I looked at the backs of my hands. They looked the same, but the skin was tanned golden. My whole body was tanned this gorgeous gold color, as if the sun in that world had shown right through my cheap clothing.
I washed my hands. It was marvelous to me, the smooth, bubbling rush of cool water, the lavender scented soap. Turning out the light, I padded over the creaking boards, crawled back onto the mattress.
When I fell back asleep, I dreamed. In my dream, I was standing in my parent’s kitchen, my back to the door. I held a spoon in my hand. It was, I realized with a start, a rubber tipped baby spoon. Looking down, I saw the silverware drawer was open. It was spilling over, a bristling dangerous looking tangle of knives, forks, prongs.
In that moment, I realized I wasn’t alone in the room. I felt a great dread. I didn't want to turn around. When I did, Duana stood on the other side of the kitchen, by the stove. She stood as still as a statue. She held a butcher knife.
I opened my mouth to scream and woke to Ceallach’s hand sliding across my ribs, his breath in my ear. My body was shaking, the sheets were sweat soaked.
“Hush,” he murmured. “Sweetheart. It was a dream.”
