Catnip

You hobbled to the bathroom and threw on the overhead light as you reached behind yourself to push the door mostly shut. You winced at the brightness of the room, the light stinging your eyes as you felt your way to the toilet and sat down to go pee, hoping the rest of the blood can be disposed of into the toilet. Looking down at your sleep shorts around your knees, to your horror you found them soaked with blood, as though you hadn’t worn used any menstrual products at all. The patch was fresh, wet, and large, and as you stripped out of your shorts you had a terrible realization that with how closely Andrew had been snuggled against you, you must have bled on him.

Oh god you could have died from embarrassment.

You wadded up some toilet paper to wipe up the line of blood that had run down your leg and sighed to yourself in frustration over the whole situation. This had never happened before, and you’d definitely never bled so badly with your partner in your bed. Why did this have to happen in the middle of the night? Now you’d have to strip the bed and get new clothes to sleep in and if Andrew hadn’t completely awoken, you’d have the mortifying job of waking him to tell him what happened if he had blood on his boxers.

A soft knock on the mostly closed bathroom door startled you and you whipped your head towards it, surprise rattling through your chest. Andrew’s gruff but sympathetic voice came through the crack in the door.

“You okay?” You closed your eyes in mortification and doubled over on the toilet as though you could hide.

“Yeah,” You called out lamely, your tone flat. The fact Andrew was awake and had asked you that question meant he knew what happened. You wished the floor would open up and swallow you whole.

“Andrew I-” You sat up, starting to apologize, but Andrew cut you off.

“I hope these are okay.” Andrew said as his arm slipped through the crack in the door and you realized he was balancing a neatly folded pile of clothes on the palm of his hand, which he set on the corner of the bathroom counter right by the door. Only his arm entered the bathroom so you could maintain your privacy. You were stunned to a loss of words and left to stare at the kind gesture as Andrew retreated down the hallway without another word.

Other boyfriends in the past would turn their nose up at any mention of your time of the month or would make you feel shameful whenever the bleeding or symptoms got unmanageable. Andrew acted very logically instead, providing you with some clothes to change into in the privacy of the bathroom. Your embarrassment wasn’t totally gone but Andrew’s actions definitely soothed the pit in your stomach.

You spent the next few minutes focusing on cleaning up, getting out of your ruined clothes and wiping your skin with a warm, wet cloth to make sure your skin was as clean as you could get without taking a shower. You slipped on the new pyjamas Andrew brought you, including a new pair of underwear that you recognized as a stained pair you only wore during your time of the month. That small attention to detail had a grateful smile creeping its way onto your face. As you were getting cleaned and dressed, you could hear Andrew moving up and down the hallway periodically. Unsure of what he was doing, you replaced your menstrual products with fresh ones and finished getting dressed so you could investigate.

When you left the bathroom you noticed the light was on in the kitchen and you followed it down the hallway to find Andrew standing at the kitchen sink with the sheet from your bed. The sharp tang of vinegar reached your nose as you moved to stand next to him and you saw that Andrew was treating the stain on your sheet with white vinegar and cold water.

“Oh, Andrew you don’t need to do that. I could do that in the morning.” You said, your embarrassment rising back up into your stomach. Andrew shouldn’t have to deal with your mess. Andrew glanced at you, his hands dabbing at the stain with a paper towel.

“The stain is easier to clean if you get to it faster, it would have been tougher for you in the morning.” Andrew looked back down at the sheet and paused his patting to check his handiwork. He tilted his chin up in satisfaction and dropped the paper towel in the garbage before grabbing the stain remover spray off the counter. “You were busy with other stuff so I took care of it.” Andrew sprayed the sheet with good amount of the stain remover, completely oblivious to the gratitude that was soaring through your body. This was something you loved about Andrew, he just handled things without complaint or instruction because in his mind, it was the practical thing to do. Why would he leave things for you to do when he could just do it himself? Your mental load was practically nonexistent with Andrew.

“You can go back to bed if you want. I put new sheets on the bed and I already cleaned up the hallway.” Andrew said as he laid the sheet out on your dining room table to be dealt with in the morning. The last part of his sentence confused you and you took a step forward, following him to the table.

“Wait, what was wrong in the hallway?”

“There was blood on the floor.” Andrew stated simply. Your jaw dropped open as your mind went momentarily blank with shock. In your sleepy stumble to the bathroom you’d managed to leave a trail of blood that your boyfriend cleaned up for you. Oh god, what if he stepped in it in the dark? If you thought you felt shame before, this was tenfold.

“That-that’s never happened before, Andrew I’m so sorry you had to clean that up.” You dropped your face into your hands and groaned. You were too tired for all of this, it was 3am for goodness sake. You felt Andrew’s fingertips graze your elbows and you dropped your hands to find your boyfriend reaching for you gently, his eyebrows furrowed lightly in confusion.

“It isn’t a problem. You’re the one bleeding, you shouldn’t have to bend over to clean the floors or stand around removing the stain, you should be resting.” Andrew’s warm hands rubbed up and down your arms comfortingly and you let yourself fall forward into his embrace. You wrapped your arms around his torso and nuzzled your face against the bare skin of his chest as he pulled you close. Andrew was so thoughtful and caring and knew just what to say to make you feel better. His practically and calmness about the whole thing made you feel like you didn’t have to apologize for getting blood on his boxers, which you knew you did since he was wearing a new pair. Bleeding a few days every month was a part of your life and Andrew knew you didn’t have control over it, it wasn’t something to feel shame about.

You stayed in the hug for only a little longer before you decided that your bed was calling for you. You took Andrew’s hand and headed back to bed, shutting off the kitchen light as you passed it and declining Andrew’s offer of doing the stain treatment on your original pair of pyjamas. You could deal with it in the morning. Tucked into bed with Andrew, all snuggled up close to his chest, you released a sigh and tried to fall asleep. Unfortunately twinges of anxiety began to pull at your mind, disturbing your ability to drift off. Andrew could feel a slight tension in your body and he pulled back just enough to look at you.

“Are you okay? Are you in pain? I can grab the hot water bottle and some meds.”

“No, no, it’s not that, I-” You paused, unsure of how to say how you were feeling. You knew what you needed but you’d already disturbed Andrew’s sleep, which was a precious commodity for him, you didn’t want to make the rest of his slumber unpleasant.

“What?” He prompted. “Are you worried you’ll bleed a lot again?” And just like that, he read your mind. You nodded and Andrew got up immediately, leaving the room and returning quickly with a towel. Your heart soared at the continued expressions of familiarity and love from your boyfriend, how he showed he knew you so well and that he wanted you to be comfortable. You scooted over so he could place the towel down on the bed for you to sleep on top of.

As you got situated again with Andrew tucked behind you, his arms wrapped securely around as he held you close, you let out a sigh of relief and relaxed into his embrace. Andrew truly felt that your time of the month was no big deal and he was concerned for you rather than annoyed or disgusted. You hadn’t realized you’d been doing so much alone in your previous relationships, making your needs smaller and allowing your own mental and physical discomfort to keep your partners comfortable. Andrew showed you how backwards that was and that your partner should be caring for you, not making you feel worse about a natural part of your life.

You fell back to sleep easily in Andrew’s embrace, all your stress nonexistent now that you knew there was nothing to worry about.

dividers by @ cursed-carmine

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