Tears on a Toilet Ginger hadn’t told anyone. Not Jake, not her mom, not even Yoko who might have been easier to tell than either of the other two because Yoko wasn’t invested. But she’d kept it to herself. She’d had a bad feeling when she’d seen the faint plus sign, but had written that off as nerves related to telling Jake and wondering how bad he’d react to the news. So she’d put off telling him, hoping a good opportunity might arise where she could frame it as a good thing and not something that might end up destroying their easy relationship.
But now she was menstruating, and that meant there was no news to tell after all, and she just felt shattered instead of relieved.
“Ging?” Yoko’s voice asked, accompanied by a light knock on the restroom door. “You okay in there?”
“No,” she answered, and it came out cracked, nearly a sob.
“Let me in.”
Ginger had shared a tent with Yoko everyday she was home since she started at Sonora. There was no modesty between them. Ginger used her wand to unlock the public bathroom stall without getting up from the toilet.
Yoko slipped inside and latched the door again. It was a tight fit with two grown women in the stall, but they managed. “What’s wrong?” She saw the blood stained underclothes. “Cramps?”
Ginger shook her head and the tears started falling. “I thought I was pregnant,” she whispered.
“Oh, honey,” Yoko breathed back, and squatted down next to Ginger, wrapping her arms around her cousin, enveloping her in love and warmth, despite the awkward and non-ideal location for such a heart to heart. “You cry as long as you need to.”