“What’s Vital Organs?” Patty-Cake asked right before Mrs. Carly snatched a red lollipop out of her mouth.

“Lungs, heart, kidneys, brain,” Mrs. Carly said. “All the things we need to keep us running and alive.”

“What about that other stuff?” my old crush Tavares asked.

“What other stuff, Tavares?”

“That other vital stuff, down below the belt?”

His comments did little to shake Mrs. Carly or any would-be rioters.

“We will be looking below the belt—at waste systems and the like,” Mrs. Carly snarled. “Anything else you’re thinking about we probably already covered in Reproduction.”

“Well he ain’t never reproduced so he wouldn’t know that…,” Patty-Cake started, and the insurrection began.

In the midst of it, I decided the best way to break the ice would be to write Nakesha a note. I turned over my worksheet, pulled out a pen, wrote down, I’m getting my abortion girl, and held it at my side until Nakesha begrudgingly snatched it. I was waging that sympathy could settle our feud.

Well get it then bitch.

I was not amused by her stubbornness. Undaunted, I wrote back, fanning the last embers of our friendship, restarting the familiar rhythm we had shared in countless classes, where only our words scratched hurriedly in pen behind a teacher’s back could make the hour drone by.

You still mad at me?

Hell yeah.

I’m sorry. I feel like I’m losing my mind for real.

You lost it already.

You feel alright from that shot?

No. Couldn’t fuck nobody if I wanted to. Been through three boxes of pads already.

Damn. You on the rag now?

Hell yeah. Started that day and ain’t stopped since. Plus my stomach hurt.

See I told you you shoulda got the pill. Least your face coulda cleared up.

I wish I would have.

Least you got something. You don’t want to be like me.

I WAITED TEN minutes for her to pass back to me, but she didn’t. When the bell finally rang, she grabbed her things quickly and walked on ahead of me without waiting like she used to.