Still in Its Box, Vancouver

The packaging had been on the nightstand for three days before she touched it. Not opening it — just moving it from the bag to the surface, where it sat sealed in its matte black box, its corners still sharp, a thing that had been waiting longer than she had. Rain hit the window in the particular way Vancouver rain did in April, not dramatic, just continuous, the glass going silver with it, and she lay on her side watching the box the way you watched something you hadn't decided about yet.

Six weeks since the papers. Eight weeks since the house. Two years since she'd bought this, slid the receipt into a coat pocket she never used, told herself the occasion would arrive. The occasion had arrived in the wrong direction.

She was wearing the underwear she slept in — pale grey cotton, washed so many times it had gone tissue-thin — and she was aware of it the way she hadn't been in years. The specific press of the waistband against her hip. The way the fabric lay flat across her when she didn't move, and then didn't, when she shifted her weight onto her back and felt it settle differently. A small thing. She noticed it.

That was new. Or old. She couldn't tell anymore.

She reached for the box without deciding to. Her left hand stayed flat on her stomach, over the hem of her sleep shirt, while her right pulled the packaging closer. The cardboard was cold from the night air in the room, and where it met the inside of her wrist the contrast was sharp enough that she held still for a moment, just feeling that. Cold edge. Warm skin. The rain kept going.

She sat up and broke the seal.

The sound she made when she opened it wasn't planned — a short exhale, almost nothing, but it left her mouth before she could keep it. Not at the object. At herself, maybe. At the fact that she was here, in her own bed, in her own apartment with her name only on the lease, doing this on a Tuesday in April while the city went grey outside.

She set the box back on the nightstand, the packaging open now, the contents visible.

Her hand returned to her stomach. Her thumb found the waistband's edge without looking. She pressed it lightly — not moving it, not yet — just feeling the thin cotton go taut under the small pressure, the warmth already there beneath it, more warmth than she'd expected. Her thighs were together, had been together, and she was aware of that now in a way she hadn't been a minute ago.

The rain. The open box on the nightstand, its corners no longer sharp.

She let out a breath, longer than the one that went in, and her thumb stayed exactly where it was.