You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott Page B

dreaded was, in Devon’s case, magnified a hundred times. So many years past the expected age, the anticipation had stretched thin, the dread deepening as Devon would talk about other girls who’d “turned,” their hips and breasts slowing them down, heavy and monstrous.
    Can you believe what happened to Michele McAlpine, Mom? She was so good, but look at her now. I feel so sorry for her, all that new flesh dragging her down.
    Whenever Katie asked Dr. Kemper, the BelStars’ favored pediatrician, about it, about what he called “delayed-onset puberty,” he’d assured her everything was fine and it would come.
    “You’ll be sorry then,” he said. “They all are.”
    But it had happened, and Devon held the tampon Katie handed her as if it were a loaded gun.
    “Do you need me to show you how to put it in?”
    Devon looked at her like she might die.
    Together, mother and daughter curled on Katie’s bed. Heating pad, half a muscle relaxant, Devon’s hands between her legs, Katie stroking her hair. It was what her own mom had done, one of the few motherly things she’d managed, her life so full of the tripwires of bad men and paycheck-to-paycheck living and now the slippery signs of early dementia at only fifty-eight, the result of a brain softened by margaritas and two bad marriages.
    “Oh, honey,” she said, her hand on Devon’s back, workout T-shirt stiff with sweat. “It’s okay. Everything will be fine.”
    “No, Mom,” she said, running her hand over her stomach queasily. “You know it won’t.”
    Katie did know. No matter what, it was a sharp slash into the center of your life. It changed things and you couldn’t pretend it didn’t.
    “Don’t tell Dad,” Devon said. “Mom, don’t tell Dad.”
    “Why not?” Katie said without thinking. Then adding, “I mean, of course. It’s private.”
    She knew it wasn’t possible that Devon might fear her dad’s disappointment, that he might see it only as the loss of that aerodynamic missile of a body, low, tight, no drag. An efficient machine. Devon knew her dad better than that.
    (“Oh,” Eric said when she finally told him. “Okay. Well. You sure? She’s so small.” Almost as if he didn’t believe her.)
    “I don’t want anyone to know,” Devon said. “Not anyone.”
    And moments went by, Devon descending at last into some kind of sleep, the telltale shift of her body weight.
    “No one ever tells you there’ll be so much blood,” she whispered, ebbing away.
    “How much blood?” Katie asked. “There shouldn’t be—”
    “No one ever tells you any of it,” Devon mumbled. “No one warns you.”
    “Baby, it’s nature. Your body.”
    “I made it happen,” Devon murmured, and she had to be talking in her sleep. “And now it’s forever.”
    Which was true, in a way.
    The next day, Katie had been unable to stop herself. So she repeated her most shameful act as a mother. Stretching across Devon’s bed, she dug for it, breathlessly. And there it was, though wedged much, much deeper: the I Heart Everything diary, Victorian-novel-thick, its velvety cover rubbed worn in spots.
    When she opened it, she saw it was no longer the training log it had been a year and a half ago but seemed filled with thoughts, feelings, phrases jumping out at Katie— so nervous! And next year, trig and there’s more homework than ever —but she unfocused her eyes, vowed not to read anything but the most recent entry.
    And there it was, dated the day before and written with silver Sharpie:
    It finally happened. I’m a woman. Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
    The pressure of the pen leaving marks on three pages to follow.
    And that was it.
    A complicated but palpable relief spread through her.
    To know that, deep down, Devon was just a teenage girl in the throes of her first period. A regular girl, with feelings, big feelings she couldn’t explain.
      
    It was late, and Teddy had finally left, but Katie could still hear Eric outside, returning