“I don’t want my period stopping,” another girl complained.

“Me neither,” I said, wondering where mine was.

A couple of skeptics had roused the entire group.

“Yeah, I don’t know about all this …”

“I don’t like the rag no more than the next, but damn, how else I’m gone feel like I’m a woman …?”

“And what you mean ’bout these hormones might make our hair fall out?”

“Shit, I done worked too hard on my head … I ain’t losing shit…”

“Forget yo’ head. What about cancer?”

“And blood clots?”

“And I don’t need to gain no more weight…”

“Shit, neither do I…”

Our impatient calm had disintegrated into a frenzy of chatter.

“Hold on everyone,” Rebecca said, with her arms spread out over us and her long, slender white hands sprawled wide to display the ice-blue rock on her wedding ring finger. “You can always go home and think about this. But keep in mind, there are risks with all contraceptives, even the pill.”

“Well, I don’t care,” I muttered as I gathered my backpack and signaled to Nakesha that it was time for us to get back to the lobby. “I’m sticking with what I know.”

“Word,” Nakesha agreed.

After another half hour of waiting, Nakesha and I finally went into our separate examination rooms. Luckily, my doctor was a woman. I knew all about them sticking their fingers up in you and stuff, I had already been through that one time when I had this nasty infection that was making me smell bad and Ma took me to her doctor. I just closed my eyes, thought about my favorite SWV song, and when I opened them it was over. The whole thing really only took five minutes. I came out and joined the other women in the sedate lobby with its calming salmon-colored walls. A playpen and baby dolls sat in a sunlit corner. A couple Black and brown babies who had just met played peacefully. One couple that looked about my age sat smug holding hands; who knows what they were there for. Parent, Baby, and Working Mother magazines lingered on the round glass table in front of me; the smooth neatness of the circle they made suggested they had not been read all day. We all sat quiet, save for those screeching babies who couldn’t be settled with quick knee thumps. Even the nurses worked in silence—filing rainbow-colored folders, entering data into computer screens, and filling out forms as if we were in a busy bank. I folded my arms, thinking about where I would hide my pills. Ma snooped in my drawers all the time. Then she got into cleaning moods where she dusted between the mattresses, so my bed was out of the question. For now, it would have to be my locker at school, and I would figure out what to do on the weekends.