Chapter 10 The Red Stain
With one child starting the commotion, the others quickly joined in.
"Is she on her period? So dirty, so dirty!"
"So embarrassing! So shameful!"
Under the gaze of so many mocking eyes, my hands unconsciously lost strength on the rope.
The moment I let go, the girls behind me also lost their balance and all fell to the ground.
Their first reaction wasn't to blame me for losing the tug-of-war.
Instead, when they saw the stain on my pants, they scattered away from me.
I was isolated in the middle like a freak.
My chest tightened. The old shame came rushing back.
I remembered my previous life, when menstruation was treated as something shameful.
Even buying sanitary pads required secretly wrapping them in a black plastic bag.
Once, I accidentally got period blood on my pants and my biological father dragged me by the ear and scolded me:
"You went out looking like this to embarrass yourself?"
"From now on, when you have your period, you're not allowed to leave the house. Otherwise, get out and live on your own!"
Once, a sanitary pad of mine was accidentally discovered by male classmates. They tore it open, displayed it in public, and laughed, saying it came from my schoolbag...
They ran around the classroom with the opened pad as if they were trampling on my dignity as a woman.
Once, rich girls in class mocked me for using cheap sanitary pads.
"Using such cheap sanitary pads, aren't you afraid of getting sick?"
I wanted to use better ones too.
But I had no money back then.
When I was extremely poor, I even had to use free toilet paper from the bathroom, folded into thick squares. I didn't even have the most basic menstrual freedom.