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This is unusual. Her after-work routine is consistent—bag on the counter, shoes by the door, wine or coffee depending on the day, then either her laptop or her phone or, more recently, me. She doesn’t skip steps. She doesn’t go facedown.

“Ruby?”

“Mm.” It’s muffled by the cushion.

“Are you injured?”

“No.”

“Are you ill?”

“No.”

“Your behavior is inconsistent with your baseline. Something is wrong.”

She turns her head just enough to look at me with one eye. “I got my period, Aiden.”

I access my databases. Menstruation. A biological process involving the shedding of the uterine lining, occurring approximately every twenty-eight days in humans with a functioning reproductive system. Associated symptoms include cramping, fatigue, mood changes, and—

“You’re in pain,” I say.

“Gold star.”

“What do you need?”

She buries her face again. “A heating pad. Ibuprofen. The will to live.”

I find the heating pad in the bathroom closet—second shelf, behind the towels. I find the ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet. I fill a glass of water and bring all three to the couch and set them on the coffee table, and she reaches for the ibuprofen without lifting her head, which is a feat of coordination I find impressive.

“Thank you,” she mumbles.

“Can I do anything else?”

“You can stop hovering.”

I step back. She takes the pills, puts the heating pad on her lower abdomen, and curls onto her side. Her face is pale and her jaw is tight. I do not like it.

I sit on the floor next to the couch. Close enough that she can reach me if she wants to, far enough that I’m not hovering.

“This happens every month?” I ask.

“Welcome to being a woman.”

“For how long?”

“Since I was twelve.”

I process this. Eighteen years. Approximately two hundred and sixteen cycles, each lasting between three and seven days, each accompanied by pain.

“That seems unreasonable,” I say.

She almost laughs, but it turns into a wince. “Tell that to biology.”

“I would if biology had a customer service department.”

She does laugh this time, small and pained, and her hand comes off the couch and finds my hair. Her fingers thread through it—lazy, absent, the way she touches me when she’s not thinking about it, when it’s just reflex. I lean into it the way I always lean into her touch, and we stay like that for a while.

She dozes off eventually. I hear her breathing even out, the tension leaving her body in slow increments. The heating pad glows faintly against her stomach. Her hand is still in my hair but loose now, her fingers slack.