*Shortlisted for Gooseberry Pie’s 2nd Annual Writing Contest
Photo by Samantha Kennedy on Unsplash
by Katie Faigen
Maddy crouched to comfort the scraggly old cat hiding beneath the bed. Her tears hit the floor as blood filled her underwear for the first time, while the other fifth graders in the living room whacked a piñata and smacked their green-icing lips, the family’s Golden Retriever jumping and spinning and happily letting the kids hug him hard, his fur soft as a baby’s skin.
Maddy sat in her seat at the school assembly, the maxi pad between her legs holding globs of her insides and her secret. The younger children on stage were pretending to be Greek gods and goddesses—the little girl playing Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, huffed as the class weirdo playing Demeter, goddess of the harvest, danced off beat and didn’t care.
Maddy stood at her lower school graduation, the red dress she almost didn’t wear swaying in the spring wind. Mrs. East, the cool teacher who all the students secretly wanted to be their mom, held Maddy’s hand longer than she did the others as she gave Maddy her diploma, a gesture that said: “The good ones will be there whenever you feel like coming out from beneath the bed.”
Kate Faigen’s stories have appeared in X-R-A-Y, Flash Frog, HAD, and more. You can find her on Twitter @k8faigen.
