Somewhere between Dorval and Union, my stomach started to cramp. It was a sharp pelvic pain I had become accustomed to since I lost my birth control pills last month. Between my skirt, I pulled underwear to the side and checked for blood. Still nothing. I rested a lukewarm coffee on my bloated belly in hopes of easing the pain. Outside, telephone poles and tree clusters obscured open fields. The sun dried my face, intensifying the greasy feeling in my hair. I slid my phone out of my pocket with one hand and blocked the light from hitting my eyes with the other.

​

The Roommates had been littering the internet with flashes from their trip to Spain, and I had been following like a reluctant dog on a leash. They had left a month ago, and even then, it was hard for me to distinguish them from each other. The Roommates, as I saw them, were a collective. A group of six girls who lived in the same house and shared everything with each other — ideas, gossip, and advice. I enjoyed observing them, and now that we had graduated and moved out of our barely legal seven-room apartment complex, I watched them through the screen. A different but still valued experience.

​

Their skin had gotten tanner and their bodies thinner, but all six of them appeared in each photo. I wondered what their struggles were in Spain. If one had a bad day and wanted to stay home, would all of them stay in as well and waste a perfectly good night? I wondered this because I knew if I had accepted their invitation, I would be the one dragging down the fun with my need for a full eight hours of sleep and constant belly aches. I could never make it as a Roommate.

​

When we pulled into Union Station, I texted Mom. She told me she was waiting inside the terminal and sent a picture from the bench she was sitting at. I regretted texting her when I saw her. Knowing where she was lessened the impact of seeing her. 

​

It was year five of Mom’s remission from uterine cancer, but it still felt like she was dying whenever she hugged me. I could feel myself preparing for it to be the last one, even there in the train station.

​

“Are you okay?” She asked while hugging me, her hair covering the circumference of my face.

​

I pulled away, almost gasping for air. “Bad stomach.”

​

“Cramps?” She looked worried, and when I nodded, the look got worse. “I thought the birth control was helping with that.”

​

I chewed my lip. “Yeah, it was.”

​

Out of pride, or perhaps embarrassment, I didn’t tell her I had lost them. I knew she would make an appointment as soon as she could. She would drive me there and wait outside while I explained to my doctor that I had lost my prescription, and when I got into the car, she would ask me how it went. I would give a passive response and feel guilty, then maybe thank her for driving me to the doctor’s office when we got home. It somehow seemed cruel of me to force us to play that out.

​

“We’ll get you some ibuprofen for the car ride.” She picked up my bag.

​

With a large bottle of Gatorade, a jumbo pack of Midol, and a banana, Mom and I started our three-hour drive to Muskoka. The air conditioner had broken in the winter, so we rolled down the windows and let the wind hit our faces.

​

“Did you enjoy your month alone?” Mom asked once I set our destination on her phone. 

​

I shrugged and bit down on the banana. “It was okay.”

​

“Did you miss your roommates?”

​

I nodded. “In a way. It was nice to have the place to myself too.”

​

Mom smiled. “So, you don’t think you’ll work this summer?”

​

I twisted uncomfortably in my seat and twiddled with the seatbelt. “I’ve been working every summer since freshman year.”

​

“I think it’s a good idea,” Mom rushed to say. “You could even help your dad at the bookstore.”

​

I finished the banana and placed the peel into a trash bag on the floor. I hadn’t worked in the bookstore since high school and kind of missed it. It wasn’t much of a job, mostly just stocking shelves with travel guides, Canadian heritage books, and a few Stephen Kings. But when I worked nights, Dad could take Mom out to the movies. Back then, she had shaved her head and always wore a headscarf, but never a wig. They would come into the store after the movie, their fingers sticky with popcorn butter and ice cream. Mom would match her dress with her bandana, and Dad wore a pair of flip-flops that were falling apart. Dad would always make a joke when they came in, asking if I liked the owner or if I was thinking of selling the place, and I would always reply with something frothy but cutting — I was always trying to get a rise out of him. It’s weird, now, to think how close to death Mom was. Watching her laugh at Dad’s jokes, I never thought of it at all.

​

“Yeah, I would love that actually.”

​

Mom smiled and turned on the radio. She seemed content, but I always worried that she knew more than she let on, that she was waiting for me to admit to my total lack of self-awareness and fading ambition. I had always suspected they could read my mind. Despite my academic success, they never really pushed me. Maybe I could blame this on them.

​

“Aubrey asked about you the other day.” Mom turned down the music. “You know, she comes into the bookstore sometimes.”

​

Hearing Aubrey’s name always made me jump, but I pretended to barely remember who she was. “Oh, how is she?”

​

“Her girlfriend proposed to her.” She spoke casually, mimicking my façade.

​

I had already known because Aubrey had plastered the engagement online. They got engaged in February and were set to get married in August — a small wedding in her parent’s backyard. They sent e-invites to a Facebook group in lieu of actual invitations to ‘reduce the environmental impact,’ but it was clearly an attempt to rush the RSVPs.

​

“That’s nice.”

​

“Your father and I are going.”

​

“That’s nice.”

 

“She invited you.”

​

She did send me an e-invite with a very lengthy paragraph, but I never replied. I didn’t have the heart to open the message for three weeks, and even then, I only skimmed it before deleting the conversation.

​

“I forgot to reply,” I said, rubbing the tension that had begun to build in my neck.

​

“She said you’re still welcome to join. They’re making tons of food,” Mom said. “Her brother is going too — he just got out of jail.”

​

“I think Ben was in juvie.”

​

“Yes, well, he’s working at the gas station now and trying to get his GED.”

​

“He’s not back in school?”

​

“No, he’s trying to get his GED,” she repeated. She turned up the music.

​

We stopped talking, and I pressed my legs to my chest to soothe the pain. Aubrey had always been close with my parents. It wasn’t something I tried to stop after we broke up. Instead, it was something I hoped would fade after I moved away. I reckoned it was something bigger than my parents let on, but I was happy enough to feign innocence for my isolated weekly visits over the last four years. I never thought I would be moving back home, so I never thought I would have to confront it.

​

Before I fell asleep, I thought a lot about Aubrey, about her place in my life when I returned home, and if I deserved a place in hers.

​

I was still sleeping when we arrived in Muskoka. Mom pulled into the driveway, and my eyes blinked open. I could feel blood pooling in my underwear before I sat up. I quickly touched my inner thigh and saw bright red.

​

I pulled some napkins out of the glove box and stuffed them up into my skirt.

​

“You’re bleeding?”

​

My hands were shaking then, and I felt so weak it made me too scared to lie.  “I lost the birth control pills.” I wiped away matted hair from my face with bloody fingers.

​

“Okay, it’s no big deal. Just go get cleaned up. I’ll tell your father you’ll be a minute.”

​

 Mom got out of the car first, and I watched her hurry into the house. Cautiously, I got out, holding the napkins to my underwear. A dark red circle had formed on the car seat. I patted down a napkin and walked inside, holding my crotch.

​

Mom and Dad were talking in the living room when I entered.

​

“Sorry Dad,” I called out, limping to the guest bathroom. “I’ll see you in a second.”

​

Dad said something back, but I shut the door before I could hear. I put the underwear in the sink and ran the tap, watching light pink water sink down the drain. A thick clump of blood fell on the floor, and I hurried to the toilet.

​

Mom knocked on the door. “I have an extra pair of pants here,” she said. “Take your time.”

​

“Thanks.”

​

My head felt so light that I had to rest it on the wall, and my cheek sweat matted the varnish. The dark brown paint was new, and there was a small watercolour of two children kissing on the wall. It seemed like the type of thing Dad would pick up on the side of the road and hang on the wall as some sort of accomplishment. Although it never matched the décor, Mom always let him do things like that — bring trash in the house and call it redecorating.

​

I wiped the blood off myself and the ground before looking for a tampon. Despite lacking a uterus, Mom still carried boxes of tampons in the hamper. Something about that curdled a ball of guilt in my stomach so big that it pushed tears out of my eyes. I forced a tampon in and pulled on the grey sweatpants mom laid out for me.

​

I wrung the water out of my underwear and folded them up in my skirt, sticking them under my arm. My vision faded as I walked towards the living room, as if white light filled my head and covered my eyes. Blood pounded in my ears and a warm numbness rolled over my body before I hit the ground.

​

When I woke up, Dad had my legs in the air. He gave me a terrifying smile as he laid my legs back down. “Fainting for old time’s sake, huh?” He pushed down and wrapped his arms around me.

​

“Did you hurt anything?” Mom asked. I sat up and shook my head. Mom went to get us tea, and Dad helped me onto the couch.

​

“Why didn’t you get your pills refilled?” he asked as he flipped on the TV.

​

I pulled my hands over my face and pushed until palms dug into cheekbones. “Forgot.”

​

“Well, this will make you remember,” he said before clicking on the newest episode of Dateline. “Your mother loves this show.”

​

I laid my head against the cushion.

​

Mom came back with toast, tea, and my cellphone. The Roommates were spending the night on a yacht — standard stuff. I shoved my phone between the cushions.

​

I could tell that Dad didn’t like shows like this. He spent most of his time on his cellphone, his eyes scanning toward the screen at only the most dramatic parts. Mom, on the other hand, couldn’t look away. She loved it. Her face contorted in response to each twist and reveal, and her hand covered her eyes for the more gruesome parts. We talked about how the wife was unaware that her husband was a serial killer. Mom said she could tell if her husband could tell, and Dad said something that made me laugh. I fell asleep before the episode was over and woke up in the dark, covered in a heavy blanket. Pain penetrated from my pelvis, pulsating from the space inside my body to the space outside it. I took the two pills laid out for me and curled up, my feet sinking in the couch.

​

The moonlight peeked through the blinds, allowing only the shadows of things to be seen. Aubrey passed through my mind again, and I thought about how soon I would have to see her.