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I was jogging now, pretending to ignore the side-glances and gestures. But my legs were beginning to tremble. I couldn’t take it. It was only my first day at Freeman.
This had to be a dream.
“Kathlee-een,” I heard a familiar voice call. Vivian. I waved her off, hoping she’d get the memo that I wasn’t in the mood to talk. “Catch!”
Something smacked my butt.
“What the hell?” I muttered, whirling around.
A tampon lay on the ground in front of me. I looked up. Instead of Vivian, Luna stood a yard away in the company of Jason and Eric. She must’ve adopted Vivian’s voice like a fucking bird call. Jason was bent over in laughter. Eric hid his smile behind his hand, staring right into my eyes. I looked back at the tampon.
It all clicked.
I twisted around to look at the back of my shorts, and there it was. A big, red splotch of blood.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I seethed. My cheeks flushed, and I started backing away from them, trying to tug my shirt down over the stain. But it was huge, so there was no point in trying to cover it up. Gritting my teeth, I looked back up to find Luna sobbing with laughter, phone out, poised toward me.
“Very funny,” I yelled at her, not caring that a few people turned their heads to watch the drama.
If someone—especially a girl—ever caught me bleeding out the back of my pants, I’d expect them to exhibit a little female solidarity and kindlytellme, not turn it into some pre-teen joke. Was that too much to ask?
I turned around to speed-walk back to the dorm building and took the stairs back up to my room. Keeping my head ducked down, I managed to avoid more stares. Finally, I was able to shut the door behind me for some privacy. Vivian was sitting up on her bed, scrolling through her phone.
“Morning,” I said, in a forced little sing-song.
To my relief, she didn’t look up as I strolled across to my side of the room and began rifling through my duffel for a new pair of shorts.
“Hey,” she replied after a long moment. Obviouslyhungover.
I managed to kick off my soiled shorts, pulled out a new pair and fresh underwear, then felt around in my bag for some pads.
Something in my bag caught my eye.
I reached into the bag and lifted out a pair of skinny jeans. The back of it was stained bright, period-blood red. I took out another pair. Stained.
And another. And another.
“What the fuck?” I whispered, dumping out the entire contents of my bag onto the floor. All of my pants, shorts, skirts, were stained red at the back, as if I’d sat into puddles of red paint every day of the week for the past year.
Paint.
Dropping the clothes to the floor, I turned to look at Vivian. She was watching me, her hand covering her mouth. She snickered.
“Did you do this?” I asked, more shocked than angry, as if the fact that she was capable of doing anything like this wasn’t processing in my brain.
Ofcourseshe’d do something like this.
“It’s just a joke, Kathleen.” Vivian fell back on her bed,hiccupingin laughter. “It’sketchup.”
“Just a joke?” I said softly, then put on a tight grin. I crossed my arms. “These are the only clothes I have. Youknewthat.”
“Relax,” she said, hopping off her bed. She rushed over to me, grasping my shoulders. “We were drunk, okay? We got some fries and stuff after the party and had all these leftover ketchup packets. We thought you’d find itfunny.”
“Well, I don’t,” I said, raising my voice, and broke away from her hold. “This stuff’s never going to come out.”
Did this girlhavea brain?
You don’t just take someone’s only spare change of clothes for three whole months and dump a gallon of condiments over it.
