Period

All she had wanted was a quiet Saturday night. She was ten chapters deep into a mystery novel, and sinking deeper into her bean bag chair by the second.

That's when she heard the banging at her door.

It was tempting to ignore the sound. Perhaps she could have pretended she wasn't home, and they'd go away, leaving her to the final two chapters.

The knocker was persistent.

She placed her bookmark in her novel and forced herself out of the chair. It was a chore, having sunken in pretty deep. The knocker sounded to be running out of steam by the time she had reached the door. It was tempting to just grab a snack and retreat back to her room.

With all that incessant knocking however, she had grown curious as to what the visitor had wanted.

"Hi, my name is Soren, and my sister just got her period for the first time and please say you can help her, because I have no idea what I'm doing, and my dad isn't going to be home for another hour." He exhaled.

That was always going to be her first impression of him. A maniacal boy with saucer eyes begging her for a tampon. More than that really, because he hadn't the foggiest on how to use it, and there was no Youtube to just 'look up a video.'

"Sorry, but there's no way I'm going to demonstrate that to your little sister. Most I can do is babysit while you go to the store and buy her some pads. You can figure that out at least, right?"

He could not, and had to ask the pharmacist for help. What were all these options? Wings, no wings, thick and thin, overnight? His head was spinning. Growing up without a mother had not given him the knowledge to figure this stuff out.

He had come back home to find her braiding his sister's hair into two tight french tails.

"Gertrude painted my nails for me. Look, Soren!" She wiggled her fingers in her brother's face.

"We're twinsies," she echoed, pausing to show off her nails. They weren't as perfectly painted. He knew that his sister must have done them for her. This girl was sweet and patient, giving up his Saturday to help a stranger.

He set the bag on the table. "I'm jealous."

Those were words he shouldn't have said, pinned down by the girls as they painted him a sparkling purple.

That was a fabulous time for his father to walk in.

After confirming that she wasn't dating his son, and that yes, she was one floor up if they had any more questions, she left to read the final two chapters of her novel. But to be honest, she had lost all interest in the book. She had a new mystery to solve.

Who was this Soren boy? 

Hadn't that turned out to be the question of a lifetime.

When he was 17, he left for school in the city. They'd been dating for only a few months when he got accepted. It had been such a long shot that he hadn't even brought it up. He knew that she was the type to make him feel invincible, and right then he needed to feel vincible. That's what he had told her.

She had told him that taking the 'in' off the word didn't make it the antonym and that he was going to accept their acceptance. Because he was a strong man, and she knew he'd write her letters.

He did, and she wrote back. They smelled of her perfume, and his roommate would make fun of him for staying true to his girl back home when the campus was full of singles ready to mingle. College was supposed to be a time to experiment and get freaky.

"Man, you don't know Gertie. She's worth waiting for."

"Whatever you say, man." He snapped at the bracelet on Soren's wrist. She had made it for him the eve of when he left. Some girls did promise rings. Other girls, cute ones named Gertrude, made bracelets.

On her twenty first birthday, he promised to buy her a drink. They had swiped beers from the cooler at the block party the month prior, sneaking into the basement to enjoy their rebellion. This was going to be her first legal drink, his having come the week before.

On his birthday, she drank Pepsi.

That night they clinked shots.

When he took her home that night, to his apartment, she stayed until sunrise. More like sunrise, plus fifty minutes, because he had brought her breakfast in bed, buttered toast and orange juice, and she had to stay for breakfast.

It should not have taken that long to eat toast. 

She blamed her distraction of a boyfriend.

Somewhere in her late twenties the internet came out. It was followed by cell phones and smart phones, and well, there she was, in her thirties, accidentally sending a dirty picture to her mother.

It could have been worse, a lot worse. Sure, she was showcasing a lot of cleavage, and had her bedroom eyes coyly smiling at the camera, but she was wearing a shirt, albeit a camisole. And you could hardly see her naked butt in the background. She knew he could, because his eyes would be glued to that text as he calculated what route would get him home fastest, to squeeze a quick one in on his lunch break. 

It was only a sliver of skin.

'I'm horny.'

'Autocorrect, hungry.'

'Your father and I made lasagna for dinner. I'll bring some over so I can see that beautiful smile in person. Thank you for the pic!' Her mother wasn't the quickest typer, but she was a quicker driver than her boyfriend, who she had immediately called, freaking out. 

"I swear, I clicked your name, not hers."

"It's okay. I'm on my way home for lunch to see what exactly I'm missing out on. Love you."

There was a fifty fifty chance when she opened that door that her mother would be there. That meant that there was a fifty fifty chance she needed to put pants on.  

Thank goodness she put pants on. 

They both ate lasagna for lunch, and he excused himself back to work. Once her mother had left, she resent the pic, triple checking the name on her screen to make sure it said Soren. 

He came home early that night. Claimed sick on bad lasagna.

A pandemic hit a while later, and she found herself stuck at home with her boyfriend. They had been planning a trip to Europe. He had been planning on proposing to her.

It wouldn't be the same proposing on the couch between episodes of Twilight Zone. They felt like they were trapped in an episode, the world going haywire over toilet paper and disinfecting wipes.

She started reading her stash of mystery novels aloud to him. 

"I think the baker did it," he would say over their dinner. It was their anniversary, and he had brought out a flashlight, unable to find candles to light the dark room. They were eating canned corn and rice.

There was no way that would be as epic as Europe.

He stuck the ring into the drawer, waiting for the pandemic to go away.

"The baker, really?" she said back, mind wandering to that little black box in the drawer. She'd kept herself from being nosy and looking inside.

It took her another year to find out what was inside that box.

She said yes. Thirty yeses, one for every year she had to wait for him to pop the question, in the terminal of the airport, because he couldn't wait to cross the sea to ask for her hand in marriage.

After all, she wasn't the only one that had waited thirty years.

"Remind me to thank your sister when we get back home," she said, holding her hand up to the light.

"What for?"

"For getting her period and making you knock on my door, of course. What else?"

Man, was he glad he had knocked on the right door.

"As you wish, Mrs. Soren."