The Late-Night Errand

When Elise moved into Daniel’s apartment, she thought she knew the shape of their life together. Two quiet years of dating had made him seem dependable, even gentle. They cooked in the same kitchen, argued over nothing important, and unpacked her books into his shelves as if the future were something they both wanted.

Then, one night, her period arrived early and hard. She opened the bathroom cabinet and found the last pad had already been used days before. Her stomach dropped. She bled heavily enough that leaving the apartment was out of the question; one wrong step and she’d stain her clothes before she even reached the door.

From the couch, Daniel looked up from his phone as she asked if he could run to the drugstore for pads.

“No,” he said at once.

Elise blinked. She had expected a groan, maybe a joke, not refusal.

“Why not?”

He didn’t meet her eyes. “I’m not buying those.”

The absurdity of it made her laugh, sharp and disbelieving. “The cashier is going to know they’re not for you.”

He only tightened his jaw. “I don’t want people seeing me with them.”

She stared at him. “So go to self-checkout.”

“No. They’ll think I’m some kind of…” He lowered his voice, as if the word itself tasted bad. “A try-hard.”

Elise’s laughter died. Heat climbed up her neck, equal parts anger and humiliation. “You’d rather let me bleed through my clothes than be seen holding a box of pads?”

He stood up, offended now, as if she had insulted him by asking. “You’re making it a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” she snapped. “If your masculinity is this fragile, maybe that’s your problem.”

Daniel’s face went cold. He grabbed his keys and stormed out, leaving the door to swing shut behind him.

Elise stood in the living room for a moment, breathing through the pain, then scavenged the bathroom for toilet paper and folded it thickly into a desperate, miserable substitute. She put on black pants and a long cardigan, then drove herself to the store anyway, embarrassed and furious the entire way.

After that, Daniel ignored her.

The silence stretched for two days before Elise finally asked him the question that had been gnawing at her.

“What happens if we have kids?” she asked quietly. “If I’m recovering from childbirth and need help, what then?”

Daniel didn’t even look up from his plate. “You’d handle it. People act like giving birth makes them helpless. It doesn’t.”

Elise felt something in her chest go still. “And if I needed help going to the bathroom? If I needed nipple cream, or anything like that?”

“That’s not my job,” he said. “You wouldn’t need all that unless something was wrong with you.”

The room seemed to shrink around his words.

Then he added, with a careless sneer, “And don’t start with that ‘man in the store’ thing. I don’t get why anyone would want to be born the wrong gender anyway.”

Elise looked at him for a long moment, not because she was trying to win the argument, but because something inside her had just broken cleanly in two. Not only had he refused to help her during one of the most ordinary, human inconveniences in the world; he had also revealed a cruelty she had somehow never seen.

Her voice came out steadier than she felt. “We’re done.”

Daniel laughed once, harshly. “You’re overreacting.”

“No,” she said. “I’m leaving.”

The anger hit then. He called her dramatic, then cruel, then a name she would carry with her long after the apartment was empty. Elise didn’t answer. She went to the bedroom, filled a suitcase and two boxes with the things that were hers, and transferred her share of the rent to his account before he could accuse her of owing him anything.

By the time she carried the last bag to her car, her hands were shaking.

She drove to her parents’ house without turning back.

There, in the quiet safety of her old room, she sat on the edge of the bed and cried for the relationship she had believed in, for the version of Daniel that had never really existed, and for the two years she had spent not seeing what was right in front of her.

But under the grief, another feeling slowly rose.

Relief.

She had mistaken his comfort for kindness. She would not make that mistake again.