Time crawls painfully. You don't have much to look forward to these days. You spend thirty minutes a day with Gamzee. The Middle School library has more books to choose from, and you read a lot. Meulin lets you borrow her RomComs. But those are the only thing you really find yourself enjoying anymore.
You miss Dave and you hate that you miss Dave. You're not even sure if you would want to be friends with him again at this point anyway. He's made it clear that he doesn't actually care about you.
It's an overwhelming relief when summer comes. The downside is being unable to see Gamzee anymore. You never found out where he lives. You're not sure if you even want to.
Time slows down even more. All you really do all summer is read and watch movies. Sometimes Kankri and Meulin drag you out of the house with them, but then you're just this awkward third wheel that you know they're just taking pity on.
As much as you don't want to go back to you, a part of you is practically begging for school to start come August. You're so lonely and so bored.
On the bright side, both your dad and brother have gotten really good at calling you 'he.' Maybe not quite as good as most of the teachers at school are, but then, the teachers didn't live eleven years of calling you 'she' first.
You're full of mixed feelings when school actually does start up again. You try to tell yourself it'll be okay. If not, it's just one more year. One more year until High School, and then things won't be so bad, right?
You wait anxiously throughout the morning for recess. You hope Gamzee will be there. It occurred to you that you never asked what grade he was in. What if he graduated?
You're stomach turns happily at the first smell of cigarette smoke when you seek him out.
It takes him a second to register who you are, and you force yourself not to be too hurt by that. He's not exactly present. Again. You recognize now that the smelly stuff he smokes is weed. Shouldn't be that surprising if his memory doesn't work the best when he's stoned to hell and back.
Once he does remember you, he's slow smile returns to his face and he gives your hair a little ruffle.
During your last period you're assigned a seat next to this pretty girl named Kanaya. You decide you really like her pretty quick. It helps that she's here to distract you from the fact that Dave is also in this class (John isn't though. Ha.). It'll be nice to actually have a class with someone you enjoy talking to. Turns out she's also in your lunch period and you excitedly ask if you can sit with her tomorrow.
"Of course you can," she says with a nice smile. You try not to openly show how excited you are. It's been a whole year since you had someone to talk to at lunch.
Unfortunately, your eagerness for the class is ruined the moment the teacher beings having you introduce yourselves. She says to go in reverse alphabetical order to mix things up.
"Karkat can go first since she's last on the list here."
Your cheeks flush as a few of your classmates start giggling.
"Um, it's 'he'," you mutter awkwardly. You can tell the teacher is going to say something more about it but you quickly go on and finish introducing yourself instead. You can see the her debating with herself on whether or not she wants to say more on the matter, but to your relief, she moves on to the next person.
Kanaya looks at you curiously, before her eyes light up with understanding and her expression turns to sympathy. You desperately hope she won't bring it up. It's hard enough living in the wrong body - you don't have the energy to explain things over and over.
To your relief she doesn't, not even the next day at lunch. And, oh god, how you missed having someone to eat with.
Kanaya is really mature, much more so than you, though you suspect that she might act more mature than she actually is. She really likes fashion and the color green. When you awkwardly admit to her that you like romance, her face lights up and tells you that she does too. You eagerly ask her if she'd want to come over sometime to watch RomComs with you, and you nearly burst when she says yes.
When it's time to go out for recess, you eagerly ask her if she wants to meet Gamzee. She looks a little unsure, but politely says yes.
Unfortunately, you figure out pretty quick the two aren't going to get along the best. Gamzee is a bit surprised that you brought someone, and flat out says he misses you 'motherfuckin' alone time.' Kanaya tries to be polite, but you can tell she's really uncomfortable and eventually excuses herself to go meet up with another friend.
You deflate a bit and Gamzee leans heavily on you and says he likes you best and that you don't need any motherfuckin' girls. In the end you suppose having two friends who don't like each other is still better than only having one friend you only get to see less than a half hour a day.
Kanaya holds true to her promise and comes over that weekend to watch movies with you.
Your dad looks suspiciously close to tears and Kankri decides to be 'encouraging' by being the biggest fucking embarrassment in your life. Kanaya looks absolutely tickled by them.
You're not sure if it's because you're so happy to finally have someone back in your life again, or if it's because the movies Kanaya brought are really good, but you end up crying like a baby, and fuck, you're embarrassed, but maybe it's worth it in the way she leans against you and runs her slender hands through your hair.
What leaves you more than just a little perplexed, is how emotional you remain for the next several days.
Like, yes, you're happy to have a new friend. But. The fuck are you this moody about? Every teeny tiny thing has you flipping your lid or bursting in tears. It's embarrassing, and not at all what you expected 'teen angst' to feel like. Sure, you remember Kankri being moody - he still gets moody - but not downright bipolar.
And to top it off, come Thursday morning, you wake up with a pain low in your gut that you're not sure you've ever felt before. It's like someone has reached inside you and is tugging your insides, and with each tug your hit with an overwhelming wave of nausea.
You want to ask your dad if you can stay home but he's already gone to work. When you ask Kankri instead, his lips thin to a small line and says he isn't sure if dad would let him leave you home alone.
"Holy fuck, Kankri! I'm in eighth grade!" You yell, making your head pound and your gut clench unpleasantly. "You were babysitting me by this age!"
Kankri sighs and goes to get a thermometer. "If you have a fever you can stay home," he says when he comes back from the bathroom.
Of fucking course you don't end up having a fever.
You spend most of the day with your head pressed against your desk and wishing you'd at least been smart enough to take an Advil before coming to school. Even your hips ache for fucks sake. For the first time in your life you're actually tempted by Gamzee's offer to inhale some of his weed, but at the last second decide against it. The last thing you need is to end up in the hospital or some shit because of this and have the police arrest you for being high.
Not even Kanaya's soft hands rubbing your scalp during your last class helps distract you.
You glare at Kankri the entire bus ride home.
When you get home you go straight to the bathroom to take a piss and then down as many painkillers as possible without killing yourself.
When you yank down your boxers and plop down onto the toilet, you freeze.
Thick, goopy red-black globs of blood cling in strings across the fabric of your boxers, the bottom stained darker than the already dark fabric. There's a thin layer of bright red blood smeared across your thighs, and panicking, you hastily yank some toilet paper off the roll and start attempting to rub it off, but mostly you just end up smearing it, getting it into your ever thickening pubic hair, and fuck, fuck.
Your stomach heaves and you barely manage to get turned around fast enough to get your vomit into the toilet and not all down your front.
Once your stomach refuses to produce anything more, you lay your cheek shakily against the ceramic toilet bowl, hands shaking.
You stare blankly at the opposite wall of the bathroom, boxers still down under your folded knees. Your breath seems to loud, you can hear your heart beating in your ears (blood, blood). You try not to let the realization sink in. You try, you try.
But it doesn't come fast, slapping you across the face you'd always expected it would. It comes crawling, seeping into your core and then you're shaking and shaking and you feel the blood drain from your face (blood, blood).
Your breath hitches on the first shout of your brother's name as you push yourself up, clumsily yank your pants back up around your hips.
You barely hear your own voice as you call for Kankri again. Again, again. You barely feel anything as you clumsily collide into the sink, your fingers gripping the edge to hold you up. Everything is spinning, everything looks red (like blood, blood).
You don't know how many times you've cried your brother's name until he's forcefully opening the bathroom door, annoyed expression quickly dissolving into fear as he sees you draped over the sink.
"Karkat, what's wrong," Kankri asks, his voice squeaking in fear.
"I-" You stare sightlessly into the sink. You feel overwhelmed. You feel numb. You don't want to admit it, you don't want to think about it. Maybe it's not real. But when you hear Kankri shakily say your name again, and lay a hesitant hand on your shoulder, it all comes crashing in.
You hear yourself sobbing before you realize that you are. "I g-got my p-period!" you sob, and it sounds so stupid, so dumb and you feel ridiculous but you can't stop yourself.
You can't even be angry at the split second of relief that passes over Kankri's face before he's wrapping his arms around you and you're collapsing against his chest, breathing too fast, too loud.
"What do I do, what do I do," you sob against him. You feel him tense and he pushes you back far enough to look you in the eye.
"Okay, first, breathe," he says, his voice defaulting to his lecture voice and you have a feeling he's doing it to cover up how upset he really is. "Breathe."
You try. When you manage to get your breathing down to hitching breaths instead of borderline hyperventilating, Kankri tugs you back towards the toilet. "Okay, I need you to sit on the toilet so you don't stain your clothes, okay? Here, let me grab you a towel so you can cover up."
You nod dumbly and shakily pull your pants back down once Kankri hands you the towel and turns away. Once you're seated on the toilet with the towel covering you, Kankri begins walking nervously back and forth.
"Okay, so we'll need to get you some pads," he says, and you burn in embarrassment. "Do you have any panties anymore?"
"Fuck no," you sputter. Your guts tug downwards again and you think you can hear a glob of blood drip into the toilet bowl.
"Well, then we're going to need to buy you some," Kankri sighs, "Unless you're okay with using tampons?" The look on your face must reflect your horror because he lets out a dry, humorless laugh. "I didn't think so. All right, you're going to have to wait here I guess, I'm going to bike to the store and buy your supplies, okay?"
You let out a sort of half groan of agreement and lean back against the toilet seat as Kankri leaves the room. You let yourself focus on your breathing as you wait for him to come back. Your initial horror has receded, but is slowly being replaced by a suffocating sense of defeat.
It's not like you didn't know this would happen eventually, but some part of your mind had convinced you that maybe it wouldn't.
And now, you've got to brace yourself of half a lifetime of this, every month. And fuck, now you know why you were so moody and why your stomach hurt so bad. You dread going through that even one more time. You have a hard time comprehending doing it twelve times a year.
You rest your head back against the wall and close your eyes, a tear trailing its way down your temple.
It shouldn't be this overwhelming. But it feels like everything has changed.