Ruby hadn't left the bathroom in about half an hour and Luke was starting to get impatient. Seriously, the kid was thirteen, what could possibly take so long? They had to be at his parents' house in ten minutes. And they lived twenty minutes away with no traffic.
"Ruby." Luke knocked on the door for the fifth time. "We really need to go--"
"I know." She called. "Just give me a minute!"
Luke stood there for a moment, hearing her breathe in and out slowly. He thought her voice sounded shaky, like she was freaking out about something, but he had no idea wht she could be freaked out about. It was still morning.
"Are you okay?" he asked tentatively.
"Fine!" She squeaked back, but then quickly added, "I'm not fine, I'm panicking big time right now."
Luke hesitated. "Do you want to open the door?"
"No."
He was completely clueless at this point. "Okay, well I can't help you from here."
"I'm almost positive you couldn't help me anyway." Ruby paused then opened the door to look at her dad. "It's a girl thing."
"Which girl thing? There seems to be a lot of those." He asked, leaning against the door way.
Ruby took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut. "My period started."
Awkward was not a strong enough word to describe what Luke felt at that second. He took a step back, glancing around himself and crossing his arms. "Oh."
"Yeah, oh." Ruby hesitated. "All we have is toilet paper"
Luke nodded, still not looking at his daughter. This was not something he ever thought he'd be prepared for and he was right. "Right, you can't use that for, um, this." He scratched the back of his head. "We don't really have time to stop by the grocery store, we're already late." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I-I'll go next door and see if our neighbor has one." He turned and stumbled down the hall and out the front door, knocking on the door of the college girl across the hall.
She opened the door and smiled brightly. "Hey, what's up?"
The words blurted out before Luke could think straight. "Ruby has her period." She gaped at him for a second and then bit down on her lower lip to keep from laughing. "It's not funny."
"Oh, trust me, I know." She held up a finger to signal she'd be back and rushed into her apartment. She appeared a second later with a bag of pads and a bottle of pills. "If you don't have ice cream, get some as soon as you can." She handed the items to Luke. "And peanut butter and oreos. Don't ask, just do."
Luke handed them off to Ruby without a word until they were safely in the car and on the way to lunch. "How are you feeling?"
"Irritated, hungry, crappy, emotional, which one do you want?" She crossed her arms and curled up in her seat. The cramps weren't unbearable, especially with the medicine, but they were nowhere near unnoticeable either.
Luke tightened his grip on the steering wheel and cleared his throat awkwardly. "I know it sucks that you're stuck with me to help deal with... girl stuff, but I hope you know that I'll suffer through it all, okay? No matter how awkward and uncomfortable it gets."
Ruby reached out to pat his hand. "Thanks, but I won't put you through all of that. You have a general idea. We can keep it need-to-know when it comes to stuff like this."
Luke let out a breath. "I can deal with that."