Shiv gets her first period at the age of 12. She has learned about such things at school, it's not the Stone Age, but nothing could have prepared her for the shock of the real thing. Shaking in the bathroom, for the first time she wishes she lived with Mom instead of Dad.
After contemplating her best options, she goes and knocks on Kendall's door. Angry rap music is blaring out of his bedroom. "What?" he yells over the music.
"Can you come out here, please?" she yells back.
Kendall turns the music off and yanks the door open. "What is it?"
"I need you to go to the store for me," she says, getting straight to the point. "I got my period."
To his credit, Kendall doesn't laugh or go ewwww like Roman undoubtedly would, but he does go slightly pale. "Oh. Okay. Uh, what do you need exactly?"
"I don't know. Just look in the aisles, see what you can find. And get me some painkillers."
"Okay. Okay, I'll go now."
Shiv waits in her bedroom as Kendall goes out. He returns a half hour later with a range of products, which he smuggles into the house like he's carrying drugs past armed guards. "Here you go."
"Thanks," she says, looking through the paper bag. Kendall has bought half the pharmacy, by the looks of it. She won't need to go shopping herself for a while.
"Not a big deal," he says. "I said I was buying them for my girlfriend. I think it made me look sensitive."
Shiv rolls her eyes and returns to the bathroom. They don't mention it again, although Kendall apparently tells Roman at some point. "Oh, so that's why you've been such a bitch lately," is Roman's only comment.
…
Shiv looks at her phone in bed and contemplates calling Kendall again. They haven't seen each other in person since the day she definitively chose Tom and her unborn child over her original family. She knows from Roman that Ken is still alive, at least, but he won't return her calls.
She absently feels her stomach, getting bigger by the day. She has Connor, and Roman has been surprisingly supportive, attending appointments with her while Tom is busy running GoStar, but she needs all her brothers around her.
She presses call and, when she gets Kendall's voicemail again, loses her temper completely. "This is stupid, Kendall," she spits. "Are you going to ignore me and your niece or nephew forever? Why don't you fucking act like the eldest boy?"
She slams the phone down, then checks to make sure that she's actually ended the call. She's just drifting off to sleep when she hears her phone ping and stretches out to see a message which just says Fuck you Shiv.
She shrugs, then smiles. It's a start.
