I Think She Started Her Period by Amber Krieger
“she didn’t know it would be so wet. So red”
Fiction by Amber Krieger
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I found some underpants, her dad said into the phone to her mother who was living far away. Two pairs worn together, wrapped round and round the crotch with paper towels, a crusted rust-colored wad she couldn’t pull apart. I found some underpants hidden in the trash, he said. Two months ago, the sticky wetness between her legs, like a punishment she didn’t know to expect. She knew what it was; she’d read that book they’d all passed around in 3rd grade. But she didn’t know it would be so wet. So red. So unstoppable. I think she started her period. Her father thought he was whispering, but he was not. He paced the dining room, tangling the phone cord round his body, stretching out the coils, while she listened from the hall. Last month, she’d finally confided in her friends. Jess had screamed in the girls’ bathroom, You’re a woman now! Jess didn’t have her period yet. She was the first of her friends. She was ten. Jess had parents who talked to her about bodies and sexuality, called this a sacred event. She didn’t want to be sacred. Her other friends understood. They smuggled her product, lumpy pads the length of her forearm, a couple stolen from each of their moms. Slipped into book bags, filling a purse. There were never enough. The hungry river poured out of her. Devoured her kid undies. In time, she would learn to hide them far from home. Flush them down toilets, slip them between gutter grates, bury them in the cemetery down the hill.
But first: I found some underpants, her dad said into the phone he’d stolen away from her so he could confess. She hid in the hall and watched his body unclench, heard the soft release of his breath as, on the other end of the line, her mother took away his shame.
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Amber Krieger's writing has appeared in Juked, Silk Road Review, B O D Y, Carve Magazine, The Adirondack Review, and elsewhere. She does other things under the name Amber Keller, including hosting Late Night Library's Late Night Debut podcast and riding around town with her six-year-old on a very large bicycle.