Did You Get Your Period?

CHAPTER ONE.

Shweta's brown eyes could always be mistaken for black. The large, shapely eyes that she had inherited from her mother; the one feature that Shweta prided on. The rest of her, she wasn't very proud of; a firm mouth that had gotten her into more fiery arguments than she would've liked, an inquisitive nose that twitched and itched when she came across a questionable statement. These questionable statements were usually from the headmistress of her high-school, who had taken her inside the office and exclaimed in utter exasperation more than once. Shweta, this is not a correct way for a girl to behave! As far as Shweta was concerned, there was only one way for a girl to behave and that was exactly how she wanted to.

And that was what she had done.

Behaved exactly in the way she had wanted to without a single thought for the consequences that may follow. But now that the consequences were well upon her, she couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of regret at having done what she did. And the immediate guilt at having felt the regret.

This was only because, the jeans that fit her perfectly weren't as perfect today. Her stomach seemed to bulge out slightly, her thighs seemed larger than they ever had. The keenest observer wouldn't have noticed these differences but paranoia had distorted Shweta's assesment of her image.

Sweat glistens on her hairline and she looks at the mirror; panicking more with every passing second. Just three minutes ago she had been happy; just about as happy as a clam. But now precisely a hundred and eighty-one seconds later, nausea has gripped her and her face turns paler with every passing second. Was this nausea because of fear? Or was it because there was a possibility; a teeny, tiny possibility that she was pregnant? Seventeen, almost eighteen-year-old and soon to be a mother? What would her mother say?

Fear is gripping her, it's tentacles wrapping around her and convincing her that doomsday is not very far off. She looks down at her cellphone calendar, willing it to change the dates. To somehow miraculously align the dates so that she wouldn't be late. But the app stays the same, the pleasant green background with little daisies not even flinching at the slightest.

Late, the word haunted her so. She was three days late to her otherwise prompt and very punctual twenty-eight-day menstrual cycle. She was late and right now it felt as though very soon her own name might have the word 'late' attached to it if her family were to find out. Late Shweta, who was late. But she had to tell somebody or else she would lose her mind.

Only solution, she thinks as she looks at the phone.

She calls her best friend.

Of all the things that could interrupt her afternoon siesta at three-thirty, Riddhi hadn't imagined that it would be her hysterical best friend screaming about things that Riddhi couldn't believe was true. This better be a joke, Riddhi thinks as she scampers out of her bed and runs towards her steel almirah. It is a faded green steel almirah covered with stickers and temporary stick on tattoos that came free with the one-rupee toffees. But for now, Riddhi neither admires her artwork from when she was a twelve-year-old nor does she frown at it like she usually does. Not even the peeling, yellowed hello kitty sticker manages to make her cringe. She flings open the creaky old cupboard and grabs the first pair of jeans she gets. She almost falls over the pile of books on the floor, as she scrambles out of the room simultaneously trying to pull her hair into some semblance of a ponytail.

"Ma, I'm going to Shweta's house." She yells out; hoping her mother doesn't switch on her overprotective mode.

Luckily for her, her mother is too engaged (almost moved to tears) by the movie playing on the television screen. It's called Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum (Literal Translation: Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sadness). Riddhi's mother is an otherwise practical and alert lawyer but today she has melted under the warm brown-eyed gaze of the Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan on the television screen. It reminds her of the good old days, she says.