fiction for young adults

by Jessie Atkin

Biology

Mr. A is one of the good ones. After he reminds everyone that presentations begin that day, Alyssa asks to go to the bathroom. He doesn’t hem and haw, or interrogate her, or sigh, or even roll his eyes. He nods, and she leaves. It may have something to do with the fact that he’s the biology teacher.

Alyssa is ranked third in her class, and this matters to her in a way she never quite admits, because ranking is proof that her body hasn’t won yet. As she sprints to the bathroom, she wonders how she would rank if she were a boy. She knows that Gary Collins doesn’t ever have to worry about bleeding through his pants at the same time he’s worrying about recalling quadratic formulas or the most common trade goods on the Silk Road. He doesn’t have to learn the difference between alleles and genes while he’s also learning that his cycle isn’t regular, and flow is always a surprise. Alyssa’s only clue, whether it’s been weeks or months, is the punch in the gut of cramps that, the first time, she thought meant she needed her appendix out. Her mother had nodded and said her period had been just the same, and that Aleve usually worked better than Tylenol.

Shutting the stall door behind her, Alyssa wonders why a temperature of 100 can get you out of school for the day, but the same can’t be said of the feeling that you need to curl up on the floor and die. It probably has something to do with the fact that when the world was laying down the rules about what counted as legitimate illness, the only people allowed to be identified as doctors were men.

But men, Alyssa knows, are idiots. This, the girls’ high school bathroom, is the real biology class, and men steer clear. What is a period? It’s not actually the simple release of blood from a girl’s uterus once every month for five days. It’s not that pretty, that simple, or that timely. It is not anything like what those who have never had a period must imagine. It is not clockwork, it does not drain like water from a faucet, and it is not inconspicuous.

A period is not romantic blood, bright red and dripping from a slash across the palm. It is not dashing blood, the color of rubies etched across a gash above the eye. This blood is slow and thick and dark. There is no scar or Band-Aid. It is a dangerous lottery where you make bets with yourself on how long you can survive unnoticed.

The blood and the pain have always been something to hide.  

Alyssa thinks of the way princesses are always hidden away in towers. The kingdom knows she’s there, but the details are slim. They know she needs to be rescued, but it’s never 100% clear why she’s been hidden away in the first place. Why the mystery? Why all the silence?

Sometimes they admit the princess is being guarded by a dragon. A dragon someone must defeat to take the princess from her tower. But why is the dragon guarding her? Is she the dragon’s prize? As she is already the prize to anyone who can find her hiding place?

Perhaps it is merely that the dragon and the princess are one and the same, Alyssa thinks, and that is why she is hidden away. The kings, and princes, and knights don’t know what to do with the dragon. They know only the basics: that a dragon is a giant reptile, usually with wings, and often with the ability to breathe fire. But the details, the details would be much too complicated, they have all decided, so they leave the princess to figure it all out on her own, and, if she is able to conquer the mythical pain and terror, perhaps someone will arrive to take her from her tower. They will not ask why she was hidden away to begin with. And she will never be allowed to talk about any dragon in mixed or polite company.

Alyssa groans at the stain but gives thanks it has not seeped through her khakis where others might see. She will deal not with external embarrassment, but with internal disgust, as she spends the rest of the day knowing she is anything but clean. Her biology presentation would be impossible, instead of nearly impossible, if there were visible evidence that she is a woman.

She slips her supplies out of the left side pocket of her cargo pants. She’s never been the type of girl to carry a purse or wristlet, and certainly isn’t in a position to change habits; despite feminine needs, it would just draw even more attention.

She halts in her ministrations when she hears the bathroom door swing open. Even in the girls’ bathroom, she is not prepared to let anyone overhear her tearing open the products she needs.

“Ugh,” a voice groans.

“I mean, you got out of gym,” another replies.

The flow of the sink is audible. “Yeah, but how am I supposed to focus on a geometry test? Midol is not cutting it.” The sound of a candy bar wrapper echoes on the tile.

“Girl, you just power through.”

“Not letting us have snacks in class is cruel.”

The water shuts off.

Alyssa only breathes when she hears the bathroom door again swing shut, confirming, once more, her privacy.

She uses a tampon and a pad because even in only a few hours, she can sometimes bleed through, and she wants to prevent anyone from knowing about the day she is having, so she uses the pad as an extra shield. This is not a war or conquest; no one can know the battle she is fighting.

At the sink, she washes her hands and stares at herself in the mirror, making sure the current battle doesn’t show on her face, even as it stabs at her abdomen with what she imagines is a tiny exacto knife. She makes sure she can stand straight without wincing at every jarring cramp assaulting her gut. Just power through, she thinks.

“Took long enough,” Bobby Santos sneers under his breath as Alyssa returns to take her seat. Bobby Santos, who can barely maintain a C- average, even when the homework and the test date are honestly all he has to remember and prepare for.

“Some of us do take the time to wash our hands,” Anne Foster hisses.

“No interruptions, or you will lose points,” Mr. A barks as a reminder to the class.

Oliver, who is standing at the front of the room, returns to reading from the notecards in his hands in a bored monotone about Cystic Fibrosis.

Who needs a genetic disease when you’re already genetically female? Alyssa thinks as she hunches slightly over her desk in an attempt to get more comfortable. It feels as if her midsection is throbbing, and the only way to help might be to curl up in the fetal position. Still, she remains in her chair. She is grateful Oliver doesn’t have a slide deck, because that means she doesn’t have to fake sitting up straight to read it.

She wishes her cargo pants also contained Aleve. Or Tylenol. Or Midol, or Motrin, or generic ibuprofen. Alyssa wants to kick herself for not preparing even further, but the contractions of her uterus are kicking her already.

No interruptions, she thinks.

She thrusts her hand into the air.

Mr. A deliberately ignores her; his glazed eyes remain on Oliver.

Alyssa doesn’t stand up because she knows it will only make things more painful, but she does begin to wave her palm slightly to draw just a little extra attention.

Bobby snickers.

“Santos,” Mr. A snaps. “That counts as an interruption, and you don’t have many points left to lose.”

“I’m not interrupting, it’s her,” he jabs a thumb in Alyssa’s direction.

“Alyssa will wait,” Mr. A says.

“May I go to the nurse?” Alyssa says quickly, since the presentation has already been halted.

“You just left,” Bobby scoffs.

“Interruptions will cost you points,” Mr. A reminds Alyssa and everyone. “Those are the rules.”

“Please,” Alyssa says simply.

Mr. A hesitates. Oliver stands at the front of the room staring up at the ceiling tiles. Bobby laughs again. Finally, he nods. “This will be marked down on your rubric,” he clarifies. But Alyssa gets to her feet without comment as he turns to make a note in his grade book. She’ll lose more points, she knows, if she can’t even make her presentation today.

Despite her pain, Alyssa hurries to the nurse’s office and hurries back, because that is what is expected.

“Excellent timing,” Mr. A says, drawing all eyes to her as Alyssa comes through the door. “You’re up.”

She’s hardly had time to catch her breath, much less for the Aleve to kick in, but the system was not created to take any of that into consideration. Curling her toes in her shoes in a small attempt to fight the pounding in her stomach, she moves to her desk to retrieve her own notecards and laptop. She is nothing if not prepared.

Mr. A has nothing more to say as Alyssa’s slides appear on the projector screen. He has a fresh rubric in his hand, ready to score her for her “Research Presentation: Genetic Diseases.” She can still feel the phantom presence of the dry Aleve where it scraped down the back of her throat. “Hemophilia is a genetic blood disorder,” she begins, holding her cards in still hands and standing with her spine straight against any internal turmoil. Her uterus gives a punch, but Alyssa doesn’t flinch. That much she has trained for. She got the medicine she needed, and he will get the presentation he’s asked for, but Alyssa isn’t sure that anyone has learned anything today. She can feel Mr. A’s eyes on the back of her head from where he sits at his desk, grade book open beneath his palms. They still don’t know what to do with a dragon.

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Jessie Atkin is a writer of fiction, essays, and plays whose work has appeared in The Rumpus, HerStry, The Writing Disorder, Space and Time Magazine, and more. Her full-length play for young audiences, Generation Pan, was published by Pioneer Drama, and her debut board book, Oodles of Noodles, was published by Little Bee Books. She can be found online at jessieatkin.com.