I stare at the calendar on my phone for the fifth time this morning, as if the dates will magically rearrange themselves and show me something different. Maybe I counted wrong. Maybe work stress shifted my cycle. Maybe the universe is simply confused.

But I'm not.

My period is six days late.

Six.

That has never happened. Not to me. Not with my body that has always been annoyingly punctual-almost too punctual. So why now? Why this month? Why after everything has spun completely off its ...