Aryyah woke at dawn in Cletus's bed, careful not to disturb him as she reached for her phone on the nightstand; the blue light illuminated her face in the dark room, and she opened her calendar app with trembling fingers, knowing what she needed to do but dreading the answers she might find.

She scrolled back through the weeks, looking for the small pink dot she marked on days when her period started, and found it landing on September 18th; her cycles were usually consistent, twenty-eight days ...