Time & Tide - Original Wattpad Version

Chapter Twenty-Three: In Which Jessie Reads

I woke feeling antsy when Miss Brown lit the lamp. I scrambled into my day clothes, feeling a bit squirmy and wishing I hadn't dreamed quite so much about kissing Margaret while sharing the bedroom with another person, then followed Miss Brown into the kitchen to make bread and start tea. I paced for a bit, feeling like I wanted to go out for a walks, or... or a run, or something. I finally felt fit and whole enough to go do something, and spring was properly sprung even though it was still cold in the mornings. I wanted to go move, so I said I'd be back in half an hour.

She seemed okay with it, because with one hand there really wasn't a lot I could do until it came time to slice and assemble and pour. I put on my jeans for the first time in a month. They were tight around the inner thigh, the press of canvas against my ass and calves was weird and wonderfully familiar and strangely new all at the same time. I put on the tee-shirt, the Converse trainers, pulled my hair back with a piece of string, and lifted my leg to stretch against the bed frame.

One I was warmed up, I moved quietly through the kitchen and out the servants door. I didn't much care what Miss Brown thought of my attire or my activities, but the less gossip among the other households the better for the Goodenough's reputation, and I wasn't the kind of house guest who was a jerk about that.

I jumped up and down on the path in the garden, testing my body, finding the sore spots, and where I would need to stretch more later, relishing the feel of rubber and concrete and the barely-awake world spread out for my taking. As I moved, I began to settle, feeling at home in my own skin for the first time since I was pulled from the water.

I don't know if it was because I had finally opened up to Margaret, told her the truth, or if it was because I had finally accepted it myself. There was, as far as I knew, no way to pull a Marty McFly and get back to the future. I admit I hadn't even really looked for one, but it was the 19th Century and any famous scientists that I knew of weren't even born yet. Where would I start? How would I start? And what if everyone thought I was crazy? What if I was locked up?

No, what I had, here and now was... well, ironically, good enough. And for the first time, I think I was really, honestly, truly okay with that.

I turned right out of the Goodenough's garden and began by walking swiftly downhill. I breathed carefully, in my nose, out my mouth, feeling the crisp morning air replace the foggy sleep feeling, sweep away the cobwebs. I wanted mint toothpaste and a proper brush, but I would clean my teeth with the chalk and twigs when I got back into the house.

I would probably need to sponge myself off with the cloth and pitcher Miss Brown kept in the room, too. Already I was starting to feel the perspiration bead against my forehead, at the back of my neck, sliding down the hollow my spine to the dip against the back of my jeans. I pushed myself into a light jog. Jogging in denim wasn't ideal, hot and inflexible, but it was still better than jogging in muslin.

God, this feels great. Why wasn't I a jogger in my last life, when it was acceptable?

I turned left at the bottom of the hill, away from the market street and the prying eyes of early morning shoppers, the barrels and baskets I would had to dodge. The street was flat and the paving stones as even as possible, which I appreciated, and I turned up the jog into a faster run to feel the fantastic burn in the tops of my thighs, protesting from so many months of disuse. At the end of that street I turned left again, heading back up hill, pushing my head down to give my pumping arms more momentum. I had purposefully put the uphill challenge in the middle of my route, wanted something to push me without it hitting too soon or too late to allow me a proper warm up or cool down.

The breeze fluttered my bangs back, despite their best effort to curl onto my forehead, plastered by sweat. I felt the skin under the evaporating water goose pimple for a brief second, tightening with a delicious little 'ah!' feeling, then spreading out as it registered how hot my blood was, how hard my lungs were pumping.