The field behind the dorms wasn’t much — patchy grass, one net with a ripped corner, and more squirrels than goalposts — but it was ours.
The kind of space that didn’t care who you were, just whether you showed up.

Jess showed up first, in her oversized hoodie and beat-up sneakers, carrying a soccer ball under one arm like she knew exactly what she was doing. Claire and Maya followed, laughing about something I didn’t catch. Their voices carried on the breeze, easy and warm, like the past week hadn’t been chaos.

I already had my hair tied back and cleats laced, the itch in my legs impossible to ignore. I hadn’t played since tryouts. Not really. Not like this.
Not without fear trailing behind every step.

“Okay, Riley,” Claire said, tossing her backpack down by the bench. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

“Don’t hurt her pride,” Jess teased. “She’s already got team trauma.”

I gave her a look. “You’re the one who kicked the ball backwards during gym last semester.”

“Strategic chaos,” she said, deadpan.

We played two-on-two. Me and Maya versus Jess and Claire. No refs. No drills. Just laughs and trash talk and a ball that somehow kept rolling into the bushes every other play. Someone's playlist played faintly from a portable speaker near the bench — Blur, then Alanis, then some cassette tape with half-warped sound.

Maya scored twice. I only got one — but it felt good.
Not because I was perfect. But because I was playing. Moving. Sweating. Laughing.
And maybe… healing.

We collapsed on the grass afterward, breathing hard, limbs sprawled across the sun-warmed dirt like we’d just played in the World Cup.

“I missed this,” I said, pulling my hair tie loose and letting the breeze hit the back of my neck.

Jess groaned. “My shins are going to sue me.”

“You didn’t even run that much,” Claire said, rolling onto her side.

“Excuse you, I moved with intention.”

Maya snorted and leaned back against my legs. I let her stay there, even when sweat stuck our skin together. It felt… good. Familiar. Like a part of me I hadn’t lost after all.

We shared a water bottle, passed around a granola bar Maya found in her backpack (possibly from last month), and talked about nothing.
Music. Weird professors. The vending machine conspiracy on floor three.
The sun was warm on our faces. For a second, life felt ordinary again.

I leaned back on my elbows and then it hit me all at once.

Not like pain — not right away.
More like this weird, warm pressure low in my belly. A drop. Then another.
And then the unmistakable, icy panic of something’s not right.

I sat up fast.

Maya turned. “Hey, you okay?”

I didn’t answer.

I was already standing, already backing away from the group, one hand pressed awkwardly against the waistband of my shorts.
My heartbeat had gone wild — too fast, too loud. My breath came shallow.

Claire raised an eyebrow. “Riley?”

“I— I need to go,” I said, voice tight.

Maya saw my face and was on her feet immediately. “Hey. Hey, what is it?”

“I think—” My voice cracked. “I think it started. I thought the doctor said I had a month. I thought—”

She stepped closer, her voice soft. “If I am thinking of what’s going on, I believe they also said… or less.”

Everything inside me spun.
My skin felt too tight. My lungs, too small. This wasn’t just a moment.
It was a line.
A line I couldn’t uncross.

Maya reached out and took my hand.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Come on. We’ll figure it out.”

I blinked fast. My throat burned. I didn’t want to cry here. Not now. Not with Jess and Claire still watching from the grass, starting to realize something was wrong.

“Can we just… go?” I whispered.

Maya nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

She didn’t let go of my hand the whole way back.
Not once. Not even when we reached the dorm steps and someone passing gave us a second glance.
Because in that moment, I needed something steady.
And she chose to be that.

****

The tile was cold under my bare feet, and the hum of the flickering fluorescent light made my skin itch.
I stood there frozen in front of the sink, arms crossed tight, like I could hold everything in if I just clenched hard enough.

Maya locked the door behind us.
The sound echoed slightly in the otherwise empty bathroom — a soft click that felt heavier than it should have.
No one else was in here — just rows of stalls, beige and dented, and the faint scent of cheap hand soap and that odd campus bleach-lavender mix they used to “sanitize” everything.

She moved gently, not saying anything yet, just waiting.
I leaned back against the counter and finally let out a shaky breath.

“I didn’t think it would happen. Not yet. Not like this.”

Maya opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her bag hit the floor with a soft thud as she knelt and rummaged through it, hands moving with quiet purpose. She came back with a pad, handing it to me without a word.

I stared at it like it was from another planet.
The pink wrapper crinkled faintly in my hand — foreign, loud, too bright.

“I don’t even know how to…” I trailed off.

“It’s okay,” she said, kneeling slightly to help adjust the waistband of my shorts without asking. Her hands were gentle, practiced, like this wasn’t weird or awkward — just something she knew how to do.
“I’ve got you. It’s like wearing a slightly cursed sticker at first, but you’ll get used to it.”

I laughed — sort of. More like a choked hiccup. “This isn’t funny.”

“No,” she said, meeting my eyes. “But if I don’t make it a little funny, I’ll start crying with you.”

That nearly did me in.

I ducked into the stall and changed as best I could, trying to keep my hands steady, trying not to look at anything too closely. The pad felt bulky, foreign, like I was wearing a secret I couldn’t un-know now.

When I came back out, Maya was sitting on the edge of the counter, legs swinging. Her sneakers tapped lightly against the cabinet below, and she didn’t say anything right away. Just waited.

“I feel gross,” I muttered.

“You’re not.”

“I feel… like I don’t even know my body anymore.”

She reached out and tugged me gently between her knees, wrapping her arms around my waist. Her embrace was solid, grounding — like she was building a space around me that nothing else could break through.

“You’re learning it,” she said quietly. “And it’s learning you back.”

I laid my head on her shoulder.
The fabric of her shirt was soft against my cheek, warmed by her skin.
She smelled like sunscreen and that faint powdery scent her laundry always had — something familiar, something safe.

Maya didn’t rush me.
Her hands stayed on my back, steady and warm. Just there.

“I didn’t think I’d feel so…” I started, but the words tangled.

“So what?” she asked gently.

“Small,” I whispered. “Weak. Like everything that made me me just… bled out with it.”

Maya pulled back just enough to look me in the face. Her fingers found my jaw, light and careful.

“You think this makes you weak?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel like I’m supposed to be strong, like I’m supposed to be brave, but all I want is to curl into a ball and disappear.”

She leaned her forehead against mine.
Her breath was soft and steady, her closeness quieting something that had been screaming inside me all day.

“You’re bleeding and still here. Still showing up. Still learning how to be in this body when the world keeps shifting under your feet,” she said softly. “That’s not weakness, Riley. That’s survival.”

The tears I’d been holding in finally spilled over. They came slow at first, then fast — warm streaks across my cheeks, more relief than collapse.

She didn’t flinch. She wiped them away with her sleeve and kissed my cheek — not like she was trying to fix me, but like she wanted me to know I didn’t need fixing.

****

We didn’t say much on the way back to our dorm room.
The hallway felt too bright. Too loud.
Someone was laughing behind us, the slap of flip-flops echoing down the tile, but it all felt like background noise from another life.

By the time we stepped into our dorm room, I didn’t even bother kicking off my shoes.
I crossed the floor, climbed onto my bed, and curled into the blanket like it was armor.
I tucked it over my head, even though the room wasn’t cold.

I didn’t want light.
Or noise.
Or the smell of someone’s popcorn from down the hall.
I just wanted to disappear.

Maya didn’t ask questions.
She didn’t try to pull me up or talk me out of it. She just sat at her desk, quietly moving aside a notebook and clicking the desk lamp off so the room dimmed to something gentler. The soft glow from the hallway light slipped under the door in a thin line — the only thing left illuminating the space.

I could feel her watching, though. Her presence was steady — like gravity, like breath — even when she didn’t say a word.

My chest ached. Not from cramps, not entirely. It was heavier than that. Bigger. Like I’d been cracked open and filled with wet cement.

I felt hopeless.

I buried my face deeper into the pillow. The tears came again, silent this time, sliding into the cotton.
I didn’t try to stop them.

Maya came over without a word and crouched beside the bed.
Gently, she lifted the hem of the blanket and helped me slip off my shoes, one at a time.
Her fingers brushed my ankle, warm and careful, like she was afraid I might shatter.

Then she sat down beside me, the mattress dipping just enough to remind me I wasn’t alone.

I shifted, eyes still puffy, voice raw. “Can I ask you something?”

She looked down at me and nodded.

I swallowed hard. “Do you think I can… get pregnant now?”

Maya didn’t answer right away. Her brows pulled in slightly, but not out of shock — more like she was bracing for the weight of the question.
I rushed to explain, my words trembling.

“I know it sounds dumb, but… when I was little, I always thought I’d be the one giving someone else a baby. Not… not the one who—”
My voice cracked.
“Not the one carrying it. I just didn’t think that was supposed to be me.”

A tear slid across the bridge of my nose. I didn’t wipe it away.

Maya didn’t flinch.
She reached down and gently tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, then kept her hand there, steady against my cheek.

“It’s not dumb,” she said quietly. “It’s not dumb at all.”

I closed my eyes, and for a second, I let myself imagine a version of the world where this body made sense to me — where nothing had ever felt out of place.
Where I didn’t have to keep relearning how to exist in my own skin.

I shifted under the blanket, curling in tighter, like maybe the smaller I got, the less complicated everything would feel.

“I just…”
I put my hands up to my face.
“Dear God, Who Am I?”

Maya looked down at me, her expression softening like something in her heart cracked open.
I hadn’t meant to say it out loud — the question that had been echoing in my chest for weeks. Maybe for years. But once it was out there, hanging between us, I couldn’t take it back.

Maya slid her hand from my cheek to my shoulder, grounding me with her touch.

“I don’t know the answer,” she said gently. “But I don’t think God made a mistake.”

I blinked at her, surprised.

She leaned forward a little, her voice quiet but full of conviction.
“Riley… maybe this isn’t a curse. Maybe it’s a gift. I mean—”
She hesitated, choosing her words.
“You could experience something most people never will. One day… if you wanted to… you could carry life. That’s not a failure. That’s a miracle.”

I let the silence settle for a moment.

“You think this is a miracle?” I asked, my voice trembling, a bitter edge behind it I didn’t mean to put there.

“I think you’re a miracle,” she said simply.

And somehow, that hurt even more than it helped — because I didn’t feel like a miracle.
I felt like a question with no answer.
A story with too many drafts and no clear ending.

But I didn’t say any of that.
I just reached for her hand again under the blanket.
And Maya gave it to me without hesitation.

Maya didn’t move.
She stayed there beside me, thumb gently brushing across the back of my hand like she was syncing her heartbeat to mine, like she could hold me together with something as small as touch.

I stared at the ceiling, eyes glassy.

“You really believe that?” I asked softly. “That this isn’t some kind of cosmic screw-up? That I didn’t just… get lost between two blueprints?”

Maya gave a quiet laugh — not because it was funny, but because the weight of it was too big for silence alone.
“Riley, the world is full of screw-ups. People destroy things every day, on purpose. But this? You? No. You’re not one of them.”

I looked over at her, and she met my gaze head-on — steady, certain, no flinching.

“You didn’t get lost,” she said. “You’re being found.”

That cracked something inside me.

It wasn’t loud. Just a quiet shift, like the thawing of ice under spring light. But it was enough to let one more tear slip free.
And then another.

Maya reached forward and wiped it with her sleeve again.

“You’ve always been Riley. You’ve always been you. This doesn’t erase the person you were. It just… layers her. Makes her more.”

I bit my lip, nodding slowly, but the knot in my chest didn’t unravel all at once.

“Do you think,” I whispered, “if we ever had a baby… it would be okay? That people wouldn’t just see me as… confused or wrong?”

Maya leaned in and kissed my forehead — slow, deliberate, warm.

“I think if we ever had a baby, that kid would grow up knowing exactly what it means to be loved.
And nothing else would matter.”

I closed my eyes.
Let myself believe her for just a second.
Let myself breathe.

The blanket still felt like armor.
But Maya felt like home.