My classes didn’t start until later, so I took the time to sleep in a bit, catch up on the time I had lost. I had to admit, some of the time I had laid awake at night I had been worrying about our relationship and what we were going to do now that we had been caught. When Alec had told me that the kid in the corridor had run to the Dean of the Psychology Department, I had been sure the relationship would be over. Before we had ended the conversation on the phone, Alec had assured me that we could get around this, but I wasn’t so sure.

I got into the shower, washing my hair before I got ready to go to class. I still had a bit of time to kill, when I got a text. It was from Beth.

Please, help me.

My blood ran cold. I dialed her number and pressed my phone against my ear. She answered on the first ring, sounding hysterical.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I… I’m so sorry to bother you… I think my period started.”

I relaxed immediately. This was not life-and-death. All she needed was someone to be a mother to her, and she had reached out to me.

“Where are you, school?”

“No… I should be, but when that happened, I freaked. I’ll send you a location.”

I hung up, grabbed my handbag and jumped in the car. My phone beeped with a GPS location coming through. I turned my car in the direction she had sent me.

When I arrived, Beth was in the bathroom of a rundown diner. Of all the places to come to… But I understood that she was panicking about it. I couldn’t imagine what it had to be like to go through something like this without a mother. Mine had been there with me, helping me when I had started my period, hugging me in congratulating me on becoming a woman.

“Beth?” I asked, walking into the ladies’ room. “It’s Isobel, honey.”

“I’m in here,” she said from one of the stalls and unlocked it for me. I pushed the door open carefully. Beth sat on the toilet, pants around her ankles, face streaked with tears.

“Oh, honey, don’t worry about it.” I kneeled in front of her and found a pad in my handbag. I showed her how to open it, putting it on her panties, making sure that it wouldn’t move. When we were finished, I turned around so Beth could finish up. When I heard the toilet flush, Beth cleared her throat. I turned around.

“Thank you,” she said without making eye contact.

“Of course, anytime,” I said. “Us girls have to stick together through these things.”

Beth looked at me for the first time, her eyes a little more trusting, now. She had her father’s eyes I realized. Gray like a cloudy sky, full of emotion.

“I skipped school,” Beth said, scratching her head. “I don’t know what to do now.”

I shook my head. “How about, I go with you back to school and explain to your principal what happened?”

“Isn’t that weird?” Beth asked.

I shook my head. “She’s a woman, right? She’ll understand. We’ve all been through this.”

She thought about it for a minute before she nodded. “Okay,” she said, hesitantly.

We walked to my car, and Beth got into the passenger seat, doing up her seatbelt. I drove the short distance back to school and walked into the building with her. We stopped at the Principal’s office where I explained to the woman, an elderly grandmother type, what had happened. She was very understanding, promising that Beth would not be punished for this, provided it didn’t happen again. Beth agreed, apologizing for handling it wrong before she went back to class. I stayed behind in the Principal’s office.

“Can I have a word with you?” The Principal asked.

I nodded, sitting down again.

“Beth is a very special girl,” she said. “Are you very involved with her?”

I hesitated before I nodded. I didn’t know if my relationship with her counted as ‘very involved’. But she’d called me. To me, that counted for something.

“It’s important to me that Beth has a woman figure in her life to lean on,” the Principal said. “I know that she grew up without a mother, and in her teenage years she’s going to need someone to look up to, to turn to.”

That was a lot of pressure. To meet someone’s daughter because I wanted to have a fling with him was one thing, but being someone that said daughter could look up to, turn to, see as a mother figure of sorts, was a whole different story.

“Beth is definitely a wonderful child,” I said. “I have no experience being a mother, but I’m more than willing to be there for her when she needs someone to lean on when she needs a friend.”

I hoped that was enough. The Principal nodded, smiling. “That’s all we can try to do,” she said. “Even when we are mothers ourselves.”

We smiled at each other, and an understanding passed between us. I didn’t know exactly where my relationship – or whatever it would be with the allegations at the university– with Alec would go, but I would be there for Beth, even if it were just as a friend no matter what. I knew what it meant to need someone and if Beth needed someone like me who was I to say no? Maybe I was taking on a bigger responsibility than I knew what to do with, she wasn’t my problem after all, but I felt very flattered that she had thought of me in a time of need. I wanted to be the kind of person she could rely on, long-term.