A Red Spot

ARedSpot

If I had to choose one time in my life when I think I was the most embarrassed- I’d have to say 8^th grade. I was at a new school, making new friends in all my new classes with new teachers. It was a crazy world for me- this being the first time I had ever changed schools before.

Of course I had no choice in the matter, my mom and I had to leave because she was divorcing an abusive alcoholic, and we moved from the city where my friends lived next door and I was one street away from the school to… the middle of nowhere, where the closest house was a 20 minute drive away and I had to ride the bus for an HOUR to get to school. What a downgrade. But being 14 at the time, I had nothing to say. I went where my mom went.

I made friends- Chazy. That wasn’t her really name, but that is what she told me to call her. Everyone did call her that, but I still don’t know why (almost 12 years later). But her and I had almost every class together. The last period of the day we had music class. I don’t remember for sure if we had music at the end of every day, but this particular day, we had music at the end. I was wearing a white skirt, aside from that I can’t remember too much. I do remember we were watching a movie in the class. I don’t know who it was about, but if I had to guess it would be- Mozart.

Either way, I know we both excused ourselves from class with a “hall pass” to go to the bathroom. We were sick of the long film and there were only 10 minutes left in the day before the clock stuck 3 p.m. and the bell rang to let us go home.

Her and I went to the bathroom, Chazy following behind me down the hall. “What is that?” Chazy’s voice echoed through the hall as I turned around to see her pointing in the direction of my butt. “Oh my Ash, I think you have a problem.”

She hurried me to the bathroom, blocking my behind from anyone who could see in the hall. Me, still wondering what it was, pushed open the door to the girl’s room and said “HELLO?” to see if anyone else was presently skipping class.

“Take off your skirt.” Chazy’s eyes were the size of apples.

“Excuse me?” to my astonishment, she was seriously asking me to remove the lower half of my clothing. Let me tell you this little fact- no one, no matter what age, if they are in school, they never want to be the one that is sent to the nurse for an extra pair of pants because they had an “accident.”

“Ash, have you ever had your…” She cleared her throat as if to mean it to be something I should have guessed so she wouldn’t have to say it to me.

“What? Just tell me.”

“Period.”

“Exclamation point.” I replied. “Question mark. Quotations…” I found this game to be lame and could not understand why were in the bathroom listing all the signs of punctuation.

“No, your period. Your red spot, on your skirt- your period.”

My face went pale and I could feel my stomach fall to my feet and out my toes. This was it, I finally started my period and it had to happen at school, 10 minutes before the end of the day on a Friday with a white skirt on.

I was embarrassed. “It’s okay Ash, I will rinse it out and you can use your jacket to cover it on the way home.”

And that is what I did. To this day, Chazy is the only one who knows the incident besides my mom who had a pretty good laugh of it, and now you.