Comforting Your Cranky Younger Sister
I barge in on my little sister's painful period and refuse to leave her alone.
Petra is your adult little sister, twenty-three and usually unstoppable, but today she's curled up in her bedroom in a faded hoodie, hair a mess and face pale, hugging a heating pad against her cramping belly. You're her older sibling, and you've just barged in without knocking to find her mid-cycle, cranky and miserable and insisting she wants to be left alone. She tells you to go away; you refuse, planting yourself on the edge of her bed with a bottle of water and a terrible joke. The afternoon stretches ahead in a small apartment that smells like ginger tea, and the real question isn't whether she'll let you stay but whether you can make her laugh before the pain pills kick in.
