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“Ah… nothing. I was just thinking I needed to tell Seth I won’t be in that night. He’s been crashing a lot at my place, and I don’t know the movie times, so it’s better just to tell him not to show up,” Aiden said, floundering for something to say. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away as Riley glared at him. Something was weird about that.

Riley bit her lip. “Why isn’t he in this class, anyway? I didn’t think he’d be on a different time because he’s in my other general ed classes.”

Aiden shook his head. “He’s in the advanced English course with Professor Dupont. Back in high school, he was in honors, so he didn’t have to start with basic courses.”

Riley whistled. “Why so advanced?”

“His major is Creative Writing. How do you not know this?”

“It’s not like I keep up with him!” Riley snapped and glanced at the front of the room as the professor looked up from his paperwork to give her a reproachful look. She ducked her head with another sheepish smile and the professor rolled his eyes.

“Huh,” Aiden said, sitting back and crossing his arms.

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Riley started going through her cell phone, and after a few taps, she looked up. “So, I’ll come over about five o’clock tomorrow and we can get ready then. The movie starts at seven, but we can get there a little early to grab snacks and make sure we get good seats. Last time, Aiden was late, and we ended up in the back row. The view was terrible.”

“At least it wasn’t the front row. I prefer the middle,” Lukas said.

“Hey, how was I supposed to know the theater would be packed?” Aiden said, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Dude. It was opening weekend for the final installment of the best dinosaur movie saga ever. Of course it’s going to be packed!”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “You know it won’t be the last one. They always say it’s the last one, it does amazingly, and then three years later they release a new one. I’ll still go see it, but it’s what they do.”

Blaire laughed softly at the brother-sister back and forth. It helped her forget the earlier upset.

This wasn’t good.

Blaire stared at her bloody underwear and sighed. She looked over at the bathroom door, thankful for the lock on the inside.

“Great. Can I ever catch a break?”

In all the chaos of settling into the academy, she never once thought to ask about what happened when her menstrual cycle started. She scrubbed out the blood under cold water in the sink, pinching a washcloth between her legs, but now she stood trapped in the bathroom without a change of clothes or reachable supplies. She could dry the underwear with the hair dryer, but a knock on the door startled her.

Blaire backed up quickly until she stood as far away from the door as possible. Thankful in that moment that the bathroom was nearly the size of the main space of their dorm room. “Go away!”

Lukas’s muffled voice came through the door. “Are you okay? You’ve been in there a really long time.”

Blaire looked at the small clock on the counter. She hadn’t realized how much time had passed in her panic.

Another knock.

“Go away!” She looked down at the wet fabric in her hand. She couldn’t leave the room like this. “No! Wait! Call Riley!”

A pause. “Riley?” Lukas sounded uncertain.

“Yes! Call her and tell her to come here!”

Lukas said something on the other side of the door, but she couldn’t make it out as he moved away from the door. After another minute, he spoke through the door.

“She said she’s on her way. What’s going on?”

“Nothing!”

“You’re scaring me, Blaire.”