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“Come on, come on…”
Swiping left and right, Anne searches the cabinets of the dark house for what she’s looking for. She bumps her head on the top shelf when the click on the light switch alerts her that she’s not alone.
“Anne?”
She doesn’t want to explain it. It’s bad enough when she wakes up in the middle of the night and realizes that she’s stained her sheets, and soon after realizes that she has to snoop around what was basically a house of strangers to look for bandages and some clean rags because it’s the middle of the night and she doesn’t want her newfound found family to wake in the morning and find blood on her sheets. She had stuffed the nearest available cloth she could find, which was a piece of sleeve she had torn off from one of her hoodies, down her pajama pants and ran up the stairs in search of anything resembling fresh, clean rags and some disinfectant and soap. Now, she’s caught head mid-snoop inside one of the family’s cabinets as the family’s patriarch stands paused in the kitchen doorway, having been awoken by the commotion he heard moments prior. Snooping is never as quiet as you need it to be. Anne looks towards Hop Pop, desperately trying to find an excuse that’ll explain the whole situation to him.
“I can assure you…it’s not what it looks like.”
“Uh huh .”
There’s no time to explain, however, as the chair Anne is standing on gives out from under her, and she has a whole separate need for those bandages now.
—
“So,” Hop Pop dabs some rubbing alcohol onto Anne’s brand new knee wound. “Would you like to tell me what exactly you were doing rummaging through my cabinets?”
“I was–ow! I wasn’t stealing anything if that’s what you’re asking!”
“I wasn’t.” He pours some more alcohol onto the cloth he uses. “But now I’m concerned that that might’ve been what was on your mind.”
“It wasn’t!” Another dab. “Ow! Give me that.” She yanks the cloth out from Hop Pop’s hands and tends to the scrape herself. It’s not the bleeding that she wants to tend to at the moment but the bigger issue will have to wait for now. Hop Pop lets her have her way. He watches for a while as she stubbornly holds back a wince every time the cloth touches her wound. Finally, he decides to readdress the situation.
“Look, Anne. I have two children that I care for, two children that I would be terrified to have anything happen to if I had ever done anything as foolish as bring a strange creature into my home without knowing what that creature was capable of or what its intentions were.”
Right. Creature . Because that’s all that she was to them. She doesn’t bother hiding her next wince. It’s not like they’d care anyway.
“But I can tell that’s not what’s happening here.”
At that, Anne stops and looks up.
“Anne, I know fear when I see it. And I know that there’s something you’re hiding, something that I can tell is really bothering you. But I can’t help you if you can’t tell me what that thing is. So can you tell me, Anne, what it was that you were doing in my kitchen in the middle of the night?”
She sets down the cloth. She goes to tell him the truth, what’s really the problem they should be tending to right now, but stops. This isn’t some little problem she can just easily bring up and have Hop Pop take care of and get fixed. This isn’t late night cravings, or a flickering mushroom lamp in her room, or a bad stomach ache (although that will come later). It’s her period , and she’s not sure if he’ll understand. It would be bad enough trying to explain this at home, and this was in another world where she wasn’t even sure if the local inhabitants would understand what menstruation was. She’s nervous.
“I..I’m…” She gulps, trying to swallow her discomfort. She looks to Hop Pop for comfort and finds patience in his eyes. Taking a deep breath, she tries again.
“I’m bleeding.”
Hop Pop’s eyes widen. “Did you get hurt? Is it severe? Here, let me have a look–”
“No!” The volume in her voice startles him.
She tries again. “I-I mean…it’s not that kind of bleeding.”
Sensing he might’ve encroached on a personal boundary, he moves back, giving her some extra space. Waving his hand, he motions for her to continue. “Go on.”
“I’m…bleeding, but I’m not hurt. It’s, like, a human thing. Once a month, I bleed from…” she fidgets, “...a private area. It lasts for a few days and then goes away on its own.”
Hop Pop nods, seeming to keep up. “And you’re in no pain whatsoever?”
“None. Although I’ll probably end up with a really bad stomach ache in a few hours. Cramps, ya know.” She makes a noncommittal gesture.
“And this happens every month?”
“Yeah, sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t think I’d be staying here this long.” A moment of silence passes over them.
“Well, while I must say this wasn’t what I was expecting I would be dealing with when I brought you in, I can’t say that I’m not prepared to deal with some blood and what was it, cramps?”
“Yeah.”
“I have some herbal tea stocked up somewhere that might help with that. As for the bleeding, I’ll have to do some digging but I’m sure I can gather up enough clean cloth to last you the next few days.” He stands, already on his way to look for the supplies. “Is there anything you’d need?”
“Well, I…might need some soap. I…” and she’s unsure how to say this, but, “...I stained my sheets.”
He nods. “Right. Bring those right on up and toss them into the tub upstairs. I’ll get your tea and cloth ready and get to cleaning those next.”
“Hop Pop, you don’t have to. I–”
“You rest, Anne. I’ll take care of things up here. You said you’ll be hurting in a little while and I want to make sure you have everything you need before that happens. You leave the heavy duty stuff to me. Focus on taking care of yourself for now.” And with that, he ushers her away and turns to set the kettle on.
She doesn’t know what to say. She was expecting a slew of curious yet intrusive questions, or to have her problems shunned or belittled, or to at least be reprimanded for staining her sheets. And yet nothing came. It was just…
“…Hey…Hop Pop?”
He turns from the sink to face her. “Hm?” Her fists ball in her shirt from secondhand nervousness…
“Thanks.”
…and relief.