It was Saturday. Mariya was sat on her bed, crouched over clutching her stomach. She picked up her phone and called Jake's number.
"Hello," he answered after two rings.
"Jakeyyyyy," Mariya dragged on the 'y'.
"Yeah?" Jake responded.
"I feel like I'm dying and I need about every sweet you can imagine. Especially Cheetos. Will you bring me Cheetos?" Mariya begged, holding her side and uncomfortably shifting on her bed.
"Are you..uh..you know...is it that..time of the month?" Jake awkwardly asked, feeling slightly uncomfortable at the though.
"Yes and it hurts, like a lot. I'm having really bad cramps. Please come over, my parents won't mind"
Jake sighed and put on his shoes, telling Mariya he'd be there soon. After hanging up and grabbing his coat, he walked to the door only to be stopped immediately.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Um, Mariya's house," he answered his Mum, feeling no need to lie.
"Is your room clean"
"Yes, Dad made me clean it yesterday. Can I go now?"
His mum squinted her eyes, her hands on her hips, debating whether or not to let her son to go over to a girl's house for the fifth time that month.
"What exactly are you going to be doing at her house, hm?"
"Well, I don't know really. She called me saying she's it's her..uh..time of the month? And she asked me to go over."
Jake's mum's eyes widened, and she shooed her son out the door, slipping him a twenty pound note.
"Bring her some food!" She yelled out the door as Nicholas walked to the corner shop, deciding to bring Mariya a bunch of snacks and maybe some fries if has money left over.
As soon as he got to Mariya's house, he knocked on the door. It opened rather quickly, but to his surprise it was an older woman and not a teenage girl.
"Who are you?"
"Jake Brooke, miss. Uh Mariya asked me to come over.. I'm her friend" Jake felt weird saying 'friend' because friends did not hold hands, or cuddle while watching Netflix and he never brought any of his actual friends (that were girls) food while they were on their periods.
"If it's Jake let him in! I don't wanna get up!" a muffled voice yelled back. Mariya's mother stepped aside and let Jake in, showing him to Mariya's door. When she left, she kept the door the door cracked, only for Mariya to throw a stuffed bear at then door and close it.
"Hi," she weakly smiled.
"Hey," Jake saidnas he plopped onto Mariya's bed next to her. He dropped the BG of snacks on her left side, and grinned when she squealed at all the snacks he had brought her.
"I like, love you right now," she said as she opened up the first thing she saw: a giant bag of puffy cheetos.
As Mariya was eating the crisps, they watched The Walking Dead. Mariya kept making gross comments everytime there was blood splattered, and Jake decided that it was too much to see at that moment.
"Okay, there's nothing good on Netflix so now what?" Mariya asked as she turned the laptop off.
"Can we just talk?"
"Is this like that common whiteboy 20 questions thing?" Mariya asked, raising an eyebrow at Jake. He shook his head and began to start.
"Let's see, books or movies?"
"Books, definitely." Jake agreed, and Mariya asked the next question.
"Coffee or tea?" Jake ended up choosing tea, and Mariya scrunched her nose because she hated tea.
"How can you not like tea? It's the greatest thing to have in the morning. Well actually there are other things that are great to have in the morning, but tea is pretty great too.
Mariya slapped his shoulder at his little joke, and made him continue asking questions.
"This is the most important question I will every ask you. If you don't choose the right answer, we can't be... We cant associate anymore. Dogs or cats?"
Mariya placed her head in her hand and tapped her cheek with her index finger pretending to think for a really long time.
"Cats, duh!
Jake sprang forward and hugged Mariya, catching her off guard. He muttered something about her being perfect, before returning back to his position before. He reached into the bag and grabbed the bag of crisps he had bought for himself, just regular crunchy cheetos.
"You're basic," Mariya said while looking at the basic bag of Cheetos.
"What? These are the best. You can be like the puffy cheeto to my crunchy cheeto," and after this Mariya grimaced at the weird analogy.
"Please don't ever say that again," Mariya said, letting out a loud melodic laugh. Jake sat in amusement and they just continued asking random questions until it began to get dark.
***
Mariya and Jake joined summer school with their friends that year as Jake's school forced them to do so to help them with their GCSEs and Mariya joined to keep him company. Their classes consisted of 10-16 year olds, offering them extra tuition.
It was a Monday and they were having a boring lesson on maths, although their teacher considered this fun. Jake sat with Finley in the middle row and Mariya sat at the back with Findley's sister Emily. They were the same age and got on really well. Jake kept glancing back at Mariya, she looked so uncomfortable and nervous. He wrote a note saying:
Are you okay, you seem anxious?
He folded the paper up into a paper airplane and threw it across the classroom. It landed on the floor by her chair. She picked it up and unfolded it. She looked to his direction and gave him a small smile, nodding. He could tell something was wrong though, she seemed so jiterry and jumpy.
When the bell rang to signal that class had ended, everyone rushed out the door and into the corridor. Mariya was ahead of Jake and she had a large red stain at the back of her white skirt. So that's what was wrong, she was on her period.
"Mariya," Jake called.
She turned around and walked toward him.
"You might need to change, you've bled through your skirt.." He said in a quiet way.
Colour flushed to Mariya's cheeks. Jake felt pity for her. He took his coat of and wrapped it around her waist to cover the stain.
"Come, I'll walk with you to student services and you can call your Mum and ask her to bring over spare clothes."
When they got there, Mariya called her Mum and she said she couldn't bring clothes as she was at work. Jake took his gym sweatpants out of his pe kit and gave it to Mariya.
"Wear these, and you keep them," he said.
"Thank you!" Mariya said, smiling.
