We sit like that for some endless time. The scent of his body overtakes the scent of moss. He moves his hand faster and faster until there is a low mean moan and a shudder that shakes the desk in time. His face warps.

I PICTURE US IN THE FUTURE, MARRIED in the small chapel on the edge of town, me with no knot, his face warped with pleasure again.

IT IS SATURDAY, TWO DAYS WITHOUT seeing Jarred, each moment a desert.

I roll out of bed to go to the bathroom. A shock shoots through my veins when I find blood between my legs, a pool of it freshly staining my white cotton underwear. It’s a burgundy mark, scented like the Meat Quarry.

I run to my mother’s room.

“I’m bleeding,” I say, gesturing between the legs, mortified.

“We don’t have time for this,” my mother says.

She pushes a thick wad of cotton at me.

“Figure it out,” she says. “And you better watch out. Things are going to start changing for you now.”

In the bathroom, I mop the blood between my legs. I shove the cotton in the hole where I think it should go.

Outside, through the window, I can see my brother pushing meat toward the house, slick and red as wet roses.

◆The earliest recorded mention of the menstrual pad was in the 10th century

◆Hypatia, an Egyptian philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, was said to have thrown one of her used menstrual rags at an admirer in an attempt to discourage him

◆The first disposable menstrual pads evolved from a Benjamin Franklin invention created to help stop wounded soldiers from bleeding

◆Rags, soil, and mud are used for collecting menstrual flow by women in developing countries who cannot afford disposable pads or tampons

I CALL SOPHIA, MY ANGER DISSOLVED into need.

“I’m sorry,” I say into the phone. “I shouldn’t have blamed it on you. The words on my desk, I mean.”

“I’d never do that to you,” Sophia says.

And just like that, we’re made up.

“Something happened,” I say.

“Come over,” Sophia says.

AT SOPHIA’S HOUSE, WE HIDE IN HER room. I whisper it to her.

“I bled this morning.”

“No! You got it first?”

I nod. The cotton is still thick between my legs.

“What does it feel like?”

“It’s like being hurt, but the blood never stops.”

“I missed you,” Sophia says. “My mom has been treating me like shit.”

“I missed you too,” I say. “I think Jarred might like me again.”

THAT NIGHT, I BLEED THROUGH THE cotton and through my clothes. I wake drenched in the wetness of my own blood, the white of the mattress ruined.

DAYS LATER, JARRED KISSES ME IN THE empty hallway between classes. He presses his face hard against mine.

“I think I like you,” he says.