Rose gets her first period when she's eleven years old, around noon.
She takes it in stride. Her mother has peppered the house with informative, cheerful books about growing up and puberty since around the time she was capable of reading, as well as a number of medical textbooks with extremely numerous and large pictures of what STDs do to the human body. She's not going to be playing the expected role of the naïve child who thinks she's bleeding to death and runs to her mother to be laughed at. Eleven is younger than she expected, but she knows it's well within expected variation. There aren't any pads and she doesn't want to mess around with tampons for what she knows will just be some light spotting, so she wads up some toilet paper and goes on with her day. She expects that after a few months she'll need to tell her mother, but she's at least going to avoid any mocking first period parties.
Her midsection feels a little achy, which she puts down as the cramps she's read about. She doesn't bother taking any painkillers.
Rose can't believe people make such a fuss about this.
The next morning, it feels like someone's stabbed knives into her stomach, or maybe that she should try stabbing knives in - it can't possibly make it feel worse. She pulls back the covers and finds her pajamas and bed look like they belong in a horror film. She didn't know there was that much in her.
Menstrual blood, Rose recites to herself, or more accurately menstrual fluid, is primarily composed of uterine lining, which happens to be a similar dark red color to blood. There is some very slight actual blood loss, around the order of a teaspoon - or was it tablespoon? - during the course of a full cycle. It is referred to as bleeding simply because it shares visual similarities. It is not really blood on her bed. It is a perfectly natural process and she is not dying.
She yanks the covers back over when she hears footsteps.
"Are you feeling okay?" her mother asks with her usual sickening mockery.
Rose fakes a cough. She doesn't have to fake the rest of it. "I feel a little under the weather," she says. "Headache." She accepts the aspirin her mother offers.
Luckily, her mother's never been much interested in actual, unironic housework, so it isn't too hard to sneak her bloodied sheets and pajamas to the washing machine and run it without alerting her. She ducks into the bathroom for more painkillers - the aspirin doesn't seem to have done anything - and layers more paper in her underwear.
She gets back to her room just in time to pretend she hasn't moved when her mother appears to force actual authentic chicken soup on her. There is a piece of parsley floating on it.
Rose intends to get back at this by pretending to enjoy it and complimenting her mother on how her concern is matched only by her cooking ability, but her stomach rolls and she can barely manage to eat a third of it. Adding insult to injury, her mother immediately dashes off to produce some sort of sweet gingery drink promised to settle her stomach. Rose grits her teeth and sips at the delicious concoction until her mother is satisfied and leaves.
Her period will be over soon. This is just her first one, and she can't imagine there's much left after how much was on the sheets. She'll probably be fine in an hour or two.
In an hour and a half, she's back in the bathroom, rereading the suggested dosage on the pill bottle and wondering how bad liver failure would actually be. She's sure her mother's is in no condition to donate, so she'd be spared that, and perhaps the weeks of mocking attentiveness, hospitalization and possible death would be worth it. The surgery at least can't be worse than this.
Her planning is interrupted by a sudden wave of nausea and she rushes to double over at the toilet. Then she keeps vomiting, or at least trying to despite the fact her stomach is quite demonstratively empty. After ten minutes, it seems over, and she stumbles back to bed. She lies there wondering how much of the pills were in her stomach at the time, and if that means the total amount in her bloodstream is lower than it would be and she can take more.
