Chapter 48: Over. Done with. Gone.

Taylor

I’m weeding the front flower beds when a text alert rings from my phone in my back pocket. My gloved hands are much too dirty to read it. I continue to rake the mulch and pull pesky weeds by the root. I wipe sweat from my brow with the sleeve of my T-shirt. Just a couple more feet of flower bed left before I can return to the cool air-conditioning inside.

With the last weed in hand, my cell alerts I have another text. I gather the bag of weeds, remove my gloves, and enter the garage. The bag of weeds I place in the garbage can and the gloves I return to the shelf. In the kitchen, I wash my hands and forearms and dry them before extracting my phone from my back pocket.

Kennedy: Well?

Kennedy: Aunt Flo?

Kennedy: Where are you? Period start?

Seriously? What happened to no added pressure? I remind myself she’s excited. Kennedy knows my periods are never predictable. I knew it wouldn’t start on the exact day the calendar predicted. My body never follows a twenty-eight-day or thirty-d