2 Unawakening (part 1)

I opened my eyes to the sound of someone calling my name.

"Eve, wake up," she said as my eyes fluttered open and adjusted to the afternoon sunlight.

Her large brown eyes lit up at the sight of me. She looked younger than when I last saw her, and her stomach was swollen.

I looked at my hands, and this time, they were the hands of a young teenager.

"You're pregnant?" I asked her with a dumbstruck expression on my face.

She laughed. "Yes, I am, Eve. Does it not show?" she joked as she sat next to me under the alatiris tree, almost red with ripe fruits aplenty.

"How do you know my name?" I asked her with one eyebrow raised.

"We've met before," she said, smiling and still rubbing her belly. But Ana knew that a somber mood fell on her as if she had just remembered a dark memory. "This isn't your first journey to my time."

So I was going back again before this then?

"In your own time, are women expected to marry—?" she began to ask, but hesistated at the end.

"We're not expected to marry men to survive," I told her proudly. "I have a house and a job that pays well. I don't even have to settle with just one man if I don't want to."

At this, she gasped, her hand halted on top of her belly. "What if you got pregnant by one of them?"

I remembered where I had been before I went back to this and tried to rubbed my own swollen belly, which was flat in this body.

"We're given the choice," I said flatly, grabbing a handful of grass on either side of her.

"To do what?" she asked inquisitively.

"To do whatever we want to do," I said softly, feeling a slight pang of guilt at the way her tone of voice came out.

"That's good to hear then," she said, beginning to rub her belly again. "In this time, I'm not married. I got pregnant by unpleasant means, and I have to keep it."

"Why?"

"Father at the plaza church said that it was a sin to not want a baby. That all babies were gifts from God,�� she said, her voice cracking. "My tias are trying to arrange for me to marry the old man on Crispulo street. He's rich, and he can provide for me. He can save me and my family from public shame."

"But what do you want?" I asked her.

She stopped and looked deeply into my eyes. "I think I want to keep my baby, but I don't want to marry the old man. I don't think I'd want another man to touch me again."

I looked away, unable to bear the way her big round eyes bore into me. "Who's the father anyway?"

"I suppose a soldier. A dayo. I don't know," she said bitterly.

"Won't you feel alone?" I asked her, remembering how alone I felt when John told me that I was the only one who wanted our baby.

"Maybe, but this little one isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I don't think I'll be alone as long as she needs her mother," she said, looking longingly at her belly.

"You're brave for wanting this child," I asked her.

"Oh, I didn't want this child," she said nonchalantly. "Not at first. I was too young to have a baby. Still am. I'm barely 18."

"Then why keep it?"

"Women must really be very liberated in your time," she said with a laugh. "I don't exactly have a choice, do I? If I don't follow the social norms, I'd be cast aside onto the streets anyway. So I take what I can. At least I don't have to kill another life. At least this life inside me will love me unconditionally."

"Now it's alive, but what about months ago when it wasn't human yet, didn't you have a choice?"

She smiled at me and shook her head as the smile gave way to a frown.

I felt guilty for forcing her to answer. I remembered what my Lola Amor told me just a few moments ago, which made me feel a lot better.

"My Lola Amor always said these words to me when I felt really alone: You are strong. You are brave. You are loved…" I began.

She smiled at that.

"Amor is a pretty name," she said, rubbing her belly. "I'll name my daughter Amor then."

"What if it's a boy?" I asked her.

"I can feel it in my heart that she's a girl," she said. "But even if he's a boy, I would love it just the same. So Amor."

"But what if she asks who her father is?"

At that Grace stopped to think. "I don't know. Maybe I'll tell her that I made her on my own. I definitely don't want her to feel like she was made by violence."

I closed my eyes when she took my hand in hers and squeezed it.

"Are we related?" she suddenly asked. I opened my eyes to look at her big brown ones. I wasn't sure if I should tell her, but she didn't force me to answer. Instead, she smiled as if knowing already the answer to her question. "If I don't make it, will you tell my daughter that I've made my choice? That every decision I made, I made because I love them?"

Tears slid down my face. "Eve, you are strong. You are brave. You are loved…" she said back to me as a heavy weight pulled down at my eyelids.

And then, it was darkness again.