The realisation came out of nowhere and punched him in the gut. It was supposed to be that time of the month but he felt none of the onset of the regular symptoms. This was bad, Quill thought.
The panic bubbled from his gut into his throat, coming out as a stress burp and then moved into his head. He felt dizzy. He walked over to where he kept his medicine box. He got the test, walked to the kitchen and used a knife to slice the plastic wrapping open. Methodical. He took the test-stick out, went to the bathroom and peed on it. He put it on the bathroom sink, started a timer, stepped out of the bathroom and began to pace.
A horny bandaid to cover a deep wound of loneliness. Cthullu reaching out his tentacles into the cosmic void, hoping yet knowing that no appendage, tendril or cilia will meet its own. A fading Renaissance mural begging to be plastered over with the facade of a Jesus-monkey. Take your pick of the visual metaphor. Feeling either one of those at this time of the month would have been normal. Regular. But he didn’t feel that this cycle. He was late.
Quill kept pacing.
This was a bad time for this. This was going to change his life. Was he ready for this? He wringed his hands together. But maybe, it wasn’t the end. Maybe the test would be negative? Or even if it turned up positive, it might be a false positive. How accurate were these tests anyway? Ninety-eight-per-cent, WebMD said.
Quill kept pacing.
Would he tell her if it was positive? Of course he would. She had a right to know. And also a right to say no. Which is what he expected her to say. She’d specifically asked him to not to be careless. On the very first date. That she didn’t want an accident like this.
How could he have let this happen? Carelessness. His regular methodicalness gone awry in the face of that tiny gap in her teeth, those big glasses, those cheekbones. He shouldn’t have let her stay over so much. He shouldn’t have let her cook for him. He shouldn’t have bought something for her birthday. Most of all, he should have known something was up, because last time, he had noticed her feet — something he had never done before.
Fuck, Quill thought and then stopped pacing.
The timer had gone off. He stepped back into the bathroom and picked up the test-stick. Three blue lines on it.
Just to confirm, he checked the instructions page in the box. “LoveTest for Emotionally-closed-off Individuals,” the title screamed helpfully.
One line on the pee-stick meant nothing. The control line. Everything was fine. Dandy.
Two-lines was infatuation. From the Greek Fates, also found in the English word fatal. Deadly.
Three lines would mean he was smitten. Like how God smites.
Quill let out a deep sigh and texted Sofia.
“I took a love-test. It says I’m in love with you. We should talk.”
He waited for her reply.
An anticipation pregnant with dread-hope.
