2011

I've experienced this the last few years, but sometimes I don't even feel comfortable, I just feel nothing.

Awww please continue curious to see Jamie new life with his mommy and daddy having playdates in the park with Leo 

A soggy Fit Right Brief 

Chapter Sixty-Six: Paul woke up drier than he had any right to be. For a full three seconds he lay still, eyes on the ceiling, doing the internal diagnostics he’d learned to run before he let himself hope. No damp chill, no heavy sag, just a faint, neutral warmth. His hand slid under the sheet. The Step In was puffed a little, but not in that defeated, waterlogged way. Barely used. His skin, for once, didn’t feel betrayed. See? his brain said immediately, seizing on it. You can do this. You’re not broken. You just had a bad couple weeks. That’s all. The relief came first. Then the anger, hard on its heels, because if this was possible, what the hell had the last month been? He dressed faster than usual—fresh Step In, jeans, and then a retro Orange Dan Merino Dolphins jersey. In the mirror, he looked like any tired senior. No one would know that under the denim he’d won a silent, stupid victory against his own body. Proof, he told himself, buttoning. If you try hard enough, you don’t need all this crap. Bryan was at the stove again, bare feet, Jags hoodie, spatula in hand. Lilly hovered by the island with her phone, hair scraped into a ponytail that said slept badly but pretending otherwise. “Morning, honey,” she said as he came in. “How’s your tracker reading today?” He poured himself a cup of hot water before adding in some instant hot chocolate mix too fast, the hot splash nearly kissing his fingers. “I don’t need a mood ring for my bladder,” he snapped. “I’m fine.” The words hit the air sharper than he meant. Something flickered in Lilly’s eyes; she smoothed it away with a practiced half-smile. “Okay,” she said lightly. “Then I’m glad it’s a boring morning.” Bryan slid eggs onto a plate, trying for casual. “Hey, Atticus,” he said, “you ready for opening night practice later? I was thinking—” “It’s Jem,” Paul cut in. Flat. “Atticus is Leo.” Bryan froze for the barest blink. The correction landed like a slap to a man who’d been trying so hard to get all the details right. Then he huffed a little laugh, smoothing his features. “Sorry, Mister Finch. Jem. Got it.” Guilt pricked under Paul’s ribcage. He ignored it, stabbing at his eggs like they’d offended him personally. They ate in a strained approximation of their old rhythm. Conversation skated over safe topics—rehearsal, Halloween, the weather pretending to be fall. Underneath, the little fractures spidered out: his clipped answers, their careful tone, everyone pretending they weren’t all holding their breath over the same invisible thing. In the History hallway, lockers slammed, someone’s Bluetooth speaker leaked a hook from a Halloween playlist, the scent of cheap fog machine fluid clung to a group rehearsing a haunted-house walkthrough. Paul shoved his bag into his locker, doing a slow, secret check-in. Tracker: green. Bladder: quiet. Step In: a faint presence, not a threat. “Look who’s already in his Serious Face,” Mitchell announced, appearing at his side like an overexcited labrador in a letterman jacket. He bumped Paul’s shoulder with his own. “Bro, it’s Friday, not the SAT.” Paul’s body jolted. The jostle was nothing, really—but the sudden, instinctive clench it triggered felt huge. “Can you not?” he snapped, louder than the space deserved. He slammed his locker door harder than he had to. “Seriously. Just… stop.” Mitchell’s hands went up. “Whoa. Okay. Touchy.” Zach leaned around from the neighboring locker, hair a mess, grin already in place. “Easy, drama club,” he said. “Save it for the stage.” Paul’s jaw clenched. “Whatever.” Internally, he winced. They were doing the same stupid morning bit they always did. He knew that. He also knew none of them were walking around with a piece of medical tape and plastic as a reminder that their body had officially joined the ranks of Things That Break Young. The unfairness of it sat hot in his skull, with nowhere to go but out through his mouth. “Seriously, you good?” Mitchell tried again, softer. “I said I’m fine,” Paul muttered, already walking away. By mid-morning, the anger had nowhere left to burn but sideways. At his locker between classes, his wrist buzzed—a gentle haptic reminder from the tracker. Yellow. Suggestion: maybe go. He checked in. Bladder: there, but not urgent. Class: five minutes away. Bathroom line: already three deep. You don’t need it, he told himself. You’re not a toddler. You’re a senior. Use your brain. He held it. He made it through the period, then did go, timing it like a mission between bells. The Step In was barely damp. His stream was his own idea, not his body’s betrayal. It was such a small, stupid thing. But his chest swelled around it. See? the voice said, triumphant. If you stay on top of it, you don’t need any of this. Trackers. Trainers. Regression. It’s all overkill. That logic was paper-thin and he knew it. He clung to it anyway, folding it around himself like armor. The final bell released a wave of bodies into Halloween. Orange and black accessories, improvised fangs, hints of costumes peeking from under hoodies. Someone had rigged a Bluetooth speaker to blast “Thriller” on loop. He was halfway to the lot when Amber jogged up, backpack bouncing. “Hey, Finch,” she said, slightly breathless. “Couple of us are hitting that bonfire thing at Zach’s cousin’s place tonight. You in?” His heart did a weird double-beat. “Who’s ‘couple of us’?” he asked, pretending it was casual. “Me, Leo, a few kids from chorus. Zach’s coming later. Mitchell’s probably there already eating all the chips.” She rolled her eyes affectionately. “You know. The usual horde.” This was it. Marcus was still on his Chicago trip. No golden boy in the way. A driveway, a firepit, music, maybe a blanket, maybe her shoulder. “Yes,” his brain said. “Yes, absolutely, yes.” “My—uh—my dad’s got something planned,” his mouth said instead. “Like… family thing. I should probably… be home.” Her face flickered. Then she forced brightness over it. “Ah. Got it. Well, it’s not the last party in history. Rain check?” “Yeah,” he said. It came out thin. “Rain check.” She bumped his arm with her knuckles. “You were great today, by the way. Seriously.” He nodded, throat tight. He watched her walk away toward a cluster of friends in thrifted witch hats and fake blood, and the gap between what he wanted and what his body allowed yawned wider than the parking lot. By the time he slid into the back of the Range Rover, the anger had shifted targets. It was still there, hot under his ribs—but now it aimed in all directions. At his stupid bladder. At his parents. At his own cowardice. At a universe that waited until now to pull this.   Halloween night bled around the edges of his bedroom door. Downstairs, the TV hummed; somewhere down the street a party thumped faintly, bass blurring with the sound of distant laughter. His group chat pinged again and again—costume selfies, cups raised to the camera, blurry footage of someone dancing terribly on a picnic table. Amber sent a picture of herself in a scarecrow costume, eyeliner smudged just right, straw hat tipped. Wish you were here, Jem, she wrote. He stared at the screen until his vision blurred. Then, carefully, he set the phone face down on his nightstand. “Everyone’s busy tonight,” he’d told Lilly when she’d knocked earlier. “I’m just gonna chill.” “You sure?” she’d asked from the doorway. “Yeah. It’s just… a night. I’m tired.” She’d held his gaze for a long, measuring moment, then nodded. “Okay. I’ll be downstairs if you change your mind.” He lay on his bed, not changing his mind, not doing anything else. Not drinking. Not texting. Not moving. If he didn’t laugh, he wouldn’t leak. If he didn’t drink, he wouldn’t need the bathroom. If he didn’t go anywhere, nothing could happen. If he shrank his world small enough, maybe nothing inside it could break. The problem with shrinking your world is that it leaves you alone with yourself.   Lilly almost didn’t go. The text from Harley had pinged late Friday: Hey Miss L! Any chance u wanna grab coffee this weekend? Wanna talk about… everything. And show u something. The “something” had made her stomach drop. So had the row of heart emojis. Lilly chose a coffee shop that felt neutral—no memories attached. Exposed brick, Edison bulbs, latte art. Saturday mid-morning buzz. Harley blew into it like a weather system. Shorts, sneakers, an oversized cream sweater slipping off one tan shoulder. Copper-red curls piled on top of her head, freckles bright against pale skin. She carried a tote that looked like it could hold a small child and a stack of textbooks at the same time. “Miss L!” she called, spotting Lilly in the corner. “Oh my God, hey.” They’d only met once, really. At the door with that first delivery. It still felt like she’d known this girl for years; that was part of why it unnerved her. “Hey,” Lilly said, standing. “Thanks for coming.” Harley ignored the offered handshake and went straight for a hug, arms strong, bracelets cool against Lilly’s back. She smelled like citrus body spray and espresso. “Thank you for meeting me,” Harley said, sliding into the chair opposite, bracelets clinking. “I know you’ve got a ton going on.” “That’s one way to put it,” Lilly said dryly. They ordered—Lilly a black coffee, Harley a caramel iced thing with extra whipped cream “because I worked a double” and a muffin the size of her face. “So,” Harley said, tearing her muffin into neat little bites. “You said you wanted to talk about… stuff.” “Stuff,” Lilly repeated dryly. “That’s one word for it. Blackmail is another.” The word sat between them like a third cup. Lilly’s jaw tightened. “You took a lot of pictures that day.” Harley nodded. “Yeah. I did.” She reached into her tote, rummaged, and pulled out a small, clear plastic case. Inside, a memory card caught the light. “This is all of them,” she said, pushing it across the table. “Everything from the pier. Including the… you know.” She wiggled her fingers, not quite saying the word. Blood roared in Lilly’s ears. “You held onto this for weeks,” she said, voice low. “And now you’re just… handing it to me?” Harley’s mouth quirked. “You say it like I was lurking in the bushes,” she said. Then, more seriously, “Look, yeah, I could’ve sold that set ten different ways. I could’ve built a whole channel off that vibe. Messy, vulnerable, all that shit the internet eats up.” Lilly’s hand curled around her mug. Harley giggled. Actually giggled. “Oh my God, relax,” she said, shaking her head, curls bouncing. “I’m nineteen, not a Bond villain.” Lilly’s eyes flashed. “You left a thumb drive full of my son’s worst day in our mailbox,” she said. “You literally have the power to humiliate him—and me—whenever you want. Forgive me if I’m not finding this cute.” Other patrons glanced over. Harley’s shoulders dropped a millimeter. “Okay,” she said, voice softening. “Fair. I’m sorry. That was… not my smartest move. I just… I thought you’d want the files. And I overestimated how chill that was as a delivery system.” She tapped the memory card with one chipped nail. “That’s why I brought this. There’s no cloud backup. No copies. You snap that little guy in half, it’s all gone. Poof. I promise.” “How do I know that?” Lilly pressed. The part of her that had sat in brand-boardrooms and watched people spin narratives for a living refused to just… trust. Harley met her stare without flinching. “You don’t,” she said. She reached back into her tote and produced a neat little folder. References. Names, numbers, email addresses. Former clients. A printout of her cleared background check. “But you could call my last three clients and ask if I’ve ever posted anything without their say. I meant what I said—nothing freaks me out. I was nannying for a family last year, their ten year old girl had seizures on and off, like, full drop attacks? You learn fast not to panic when a body does something unexpected.” Lilly’s chest tightened. “He’s not a “child”, she said quietly. “He’s almost eighteen. This is… medical. Not…” “Not play,” Harley finished, nodding. “I get that. I really do.” For a heartbeat, something flickered in Harley’s eyes—an interest that was more than academic. Then it was gone, replaced by earnestness. “And I—like—I’m not rolling in cash, you know?” Harley said, shrugging. “I’m doing classes at FSCJ, working part-time, trying to get my early childhood cert. But I can’t keep doing both so I gave up my classes to focus on funds. But you should know kids or anybody with needs, care are my thing. Always have been. But I also know care is work. Real work. If I can help and also, like, pay my car insurance? Win-win.” Lilly thumbed through them. The page was full of phrases someone like her couldn’t help but read in brand-speak: dependable, calm, great with meltdowns, intuitive. Harley watched her closely. “Look,” she said, leaning forward, voice dropping. “I saw your face at the pier. You looked… overwhelmed. I don’t want that for you. If you need an extra set of hands, you don’t have to do this by yourself.” Lilly’s throat thickened. She looked down to cover it—and Harley slid something else across the table. A small, clear plastic case. Inside: a memory card. Lilly’s pulse kicked. Her eyes met Lilly’s, guileless and not. “I don’t want leverage. I want trust.” The dev in Lilly’s brain that had built a social media career from nothing counted a thousand ways this could be manipulation. The mother in her saw a nineteen-year-old offering her control over images that could ruin her son’s peace. “Why?” Lilly asked. “Why would you give up content like that? You’re a creative. You make a living online. That kind of… story… is gold to some people.” Harley’s jaw tightened, just enough to notice. “Well you could take the risk that I’m telling the truth because I actually give a shit.” She leaned forward, bracelets clinking. The playfulness remained, but there was an undercurrent now, something darker and hungrier.  Lilly exhaled. Long, slow. Harley pounced gently on the opening. “Let me help,” she said. “You don’t have to hand me the keys to the castle. Start small. Let me come over for a single afternoon when you do need the help. If it feels wrong, you say so, and I’m gone. No drama. No hard feelings.” She grinned, some of the earlier playful brightness returning. “And in the meantime, I get real experience for my early childhood program. Like legit experience for my portfolio. I can tell my professors I’ve seen more than daycare tantrums and sticky fingers” Lilly pressed her fingertips to the rim of her coffee cup. She thought of Mindy’s office, of the notes, of Kim’s certainty. She thought of Thursday night, rocking a nearly grown boy until he unclenched enough to sleep. She thought of the way her inbox hummed with brand demands, deadlines, content calendars. “You’d let me be there?” she asked. “Work in my office, pop in and out?” “Of course,” Harley said. “You think I want you to just toss me the baby monitor and bounce? Uh-uh. We’re a team. We check in. We adjust.” Again, that faint flicker of something else under the surface. Desire to care, yes. But also another type of desire that seem to draw Harley further, something unnamed at the moment—something that Lilly couldn’t see not yet. All she saw was eagerness and a kind of ferocious helpfulness. Lilly rolled the memory card between her fingers. It was ridiculous, the amount of power in it. One snap, and whole possible futures vanished. One misstep with this girl, and new problems would bloom. “You’re very persistent,” she said. Harley shrugged, unapologetic. “I know what I’m good at,” she said simply. Lilly flinched. “Don’t misunderstand,” Harley added quickly. “I’m not judging. You’re doing everything you can. But sometimes ‘everything’ includes calling in reinforcements.” It was almost exactly what Kim had said, weeks ago, standing in Lilly’s kitchen. Different vocabulary, same message. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “That’s all I can promise.” Harley’s grin returned, bright as noon. “I’ll take ‘think about it,’” she said. “And, uh, maybe don’t wait too long? Kids like him… they burn through rope fast.” Lilly’s stomach turned at the phrase kids like him. Harley clearly meant it as shorthand for kids with extra needs. It still scraped. They parted with another hug—Harley warm and firm, Lilly only half-present. She wasn’t ready to explain why part of her wanted to say yes, and part of her wanted to throw every camera in the house into the canal. Chapter Sixty-Seven: While Lilly weighed cards and offers, Bryan stood in their kitchen with a chef’s knife and a knot in his chest. Sunday’s plan had been his idea—day-after-Halloween picnic, someplace quiet by the beach. A little normal that didn’t involve clinics or clipboards. He chopped carrots into coins, laid out herbs, made a mental list: roast chicken, quinoa salad, grilled zucchini, fruit. Food had always been his desired love language. Recipes were the way he said the things he didn’t know how to phrase. But he wasn’t the greatest at it but he could at least do a picnic lunch. “Hey, kiddo,” he called. “You wanna help me plan this spread? We can do that honey-lime dressing you like.” Paul stood at the fridge, door open, staring like he might fall into the milk shelf. “Nah,” he said. “Do whatever.” His voice sounded wrong—hoarse, frayed, without the spark that usually lit when they talked about flavors, plating, the perfect bite. “You okay?” Bryan asked. “Just tired.” He left the fridge without grabbing anything to drink and drifted into the living room, sinking onto the couch. Batman: The Animated Series flickered on the screen, color and shadow. He pulled a throw pillow to his chest and stared at it like it might hypnotize him into forgetting his own body. Bryan watched from the kitchen across from the bar top. “He loves food,” he murmured to himself. “He loves planning.” He opened the fridge again. Carrots. Kale. A bag of apples. Mindy’s voice, firm in his memory: He’s been compensating for so long he’s running on fumes. Hydration isn’t optional now. Neither are nutrients. He dragged the juicer out from under the counter and set it up. Chopped carrots. Cored apples. A handful of kale. The machine growled to life, shredding and spinning and turning everything into bright orange-green liquid. When he had a small measuring cup full, he reached automatically for a glass. His hand stopped halfway. Past the living room entrance, he could see Paul’s profile. The slump of his shoulders. The too-still way he sat. The boy who used to bound into the kitchen asking, “What’s for dinner?” now hollowed out by trying not to feel anything at all. Kim’s voice joined Mindy’s: “Regression isn’t giving up. It’s giving him somewhere safe to land so his system can reset.” He set the glass down. Walked down the hall to the master bedroom. Opened the gym bag Kim had left like a care package for a future no one had quite admitted yet. The adult-sized sippy cup sat on top, light green plastic patterned with the same Safari prints as the trainers and diapers—little elephants, lions, soft jungle shapes.Bryan picked it up. It felt ridiculous and necessary at once. “Okay,” he told the empty room. “Be his dad. Not his buddy.” He filled the cup with ice and juice in the kitchen, snapped the lid on, shook it once. In the living room, Batman’s gravelly monologue filled the silence. Paul didn’t look over until Bryan was almost in front of him.Then his gaze dropped to the cup, and his face closed like a door slamming. “No,” he said instantly. “No way.” Bryan didn’t waver. “You haven’t had more than a few sips of anything since yesterday,” he said. “You’re exhausted. You’re dizzy. You’re thirsty.” “I said I’m fine.” “You’re not,” Bryan said quietly. “Look at me.” Paul stubbornly kept his eyes on the TV. “Paul,” Bryan repeated. “Look at me.” He did. The anger there was more fear than fury, if you knew what to look for. “I’m not a baby,” Paul said, jaw clenched. Bryan crouched, bringing himself level. “You’re my kid,” he said. “And right now your nervous system is throwing a tantrum. This—” he lifted the cup slightly— “is not me punishing you. It’s me giving your body a break it clearly needs.” Paul’s throat worked. Behind the anger in his eyes, there was raw, aching confusion. “Why can’t you just let me handle it?” he whispered. “Why do you have to… take everything?” “Because,” Bryan said quietly, “you’re handling it by starving and dehydrating yourself. That’s not handling. That’s drowning slowly.” He sat beside him and, before Paul could scoot away, slid an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in. Not hard, but not negotiable either. Paul’s body resisted for a second, muscles taut. Then the tired hit. The last two days of white-knuckling, of holding everything in—in every sense—caught up with him. Bryan nudged the sippy’s soft spout toward his mouth. “Just try,” he murmured. “Two minutes.” Bryan said softly. “You need it. This is what that looks like right now. You can hate me for it. You can glare. You can call me names under your breath. You’re still going to drink.” He guided the sippy’s soft spout toward Paul’s mouth. Paul pressed his lips together, one last micro-stand. Bryan waited. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “You’re not getting out of this by glaring me to death. You need what’s in here. The rest is pride, buddy.” The word pride landed like a pebble in his chest. His jaw loosened, just a fraction. Bryan slipped the spout past his lips. The first swallow was bitter with humiliation and kale. The second was mostly apple. The third carried something else: his body realizing how thirsty it was. He squeezed his eyes shut. Bryan’s arm tightened, warm and solid. “This isn’t to hurt you,” Bryan murmured into his hair. “This is me helping. This is what help looks like right now.” Batman’s gravelly voice filled the quiet between them. The cup emptied slowly, each suck a tiny surrender that tasted more like relief than Paul wanted to admit. By the time the juiced mixture was gone, the weight in his limbs had shifted. Less buzzy, more heavy. He yawned without meaning to and sometime between the credits and the next episode, the pacifier made its way into his mouth. Bryan didn’t even remember reaching for it; it was just there on the coffee table Paul must have had brought it down with him. Bryan felt the moment his son’s body gave up the fight and leaned fully against him. He settled the throw blanket over them both and hit play on the next episode, hand gently rubbing circles into Paul’s upper arm. It felt, startlingly, like parenting the way it had been before everything went sideways. A boy. A cartoon. A cup in his hand. Being needed. Within minutes, Paul was asleep, his breathing evened, the pacifier bobbing gently. Lilly opened the front door to the sound of the TV and the smell of juiced kale faintly clinging to the air. She rounded the corner and stopped. On the couch, Bryan sat with his head tipped back, eyes half-closed. Paul was bundled against him, almost in his lap rather than beside him, blanket tucked up to his chest. His pacifier bobbed lightly with each breath. The light-green Safari-patterned sippy cup sat empty on the coffee table. Something in Lilly’s chest cracked and expanded at the same time. She met Bryan’s eyes. He carefully shifted Paul onto the cushions, tucking a pillow under his head, then stood and walked with her into the kitchen, cup in hand. “He’s not angry,” Bryan said quietly, rinsing the sippy. “He’s… done. He’s been fighting so hard to win something he can’t win. I couldn’t just… watch him starve his way through it.” “What happened?” she asked. “I made juice and I stopped asking what he wanted and gave him what he needed.” His shoulders slumped. “We keep talking about regression like this menu item we can order later. It’s not later anymore, Lil. His body’s already using it, whether we’re on board or not.” She looked at the sippy in the drying rack, then back at the living room doorway, where the glow of the TV haloed the corner of the couch. They stood there in the kitchen, the two of them orbiting the truth: the life they thought they were returning to after this “episode” was gone. Something else was forming in its place. “We can’t pretend this is optional anymore,” Bryan said. “He needs structure. He needs tools. He needs us to stop asking permission from him to parent him.” Lilly nodded, eyes stinging. “Then we stop.” Paul woke later to quiet and a neck crick. The pacifier was on the cushion beside his hand. The blanket smelled like their laundry detergent and his dad. The sippy cup was gone. Physically, he felt… better. Less buzzy. His head clearer. His stomach not as hollow. Emotionally, it tasted like defeat. He pushed himself upright, scrubbing at his eyes. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a new line had been drawn: drink from sippy cups, rock in chairs, accept pacifiers, leak into padding. A version of himself stepped back from the line and refused to cross it. “I’m not staying here,” he told the empty room. “I’m not.” Sunday came into focus like a finish line. He’d go to the beach. He’d wear just a Step In, no plastic pants, no extra. He’d eat normal food. He’d act normal. He’d prove—to himself, to them, to the universe—that he still had some say in what his life looked like. If he didn’t, he wasn’t sure what would be left of the person he thought he was.   In the master bedroom, sunlight fell across the bed as Lilly laid out items on the duvet: wipes, powder, folded shorts, a fresh Step In, the Safari-print changing pad. She hesitated, then reached into the gym bag and took out the one loose diaper Kim had tucked in there. Light-green, whimsical animals, absurdly innocent for what it represented. She looked at Bryan. His jaw tensed. He nodded once. “Better safe than sorry.” She added it to the pile. The tote bag they used for beach days became something else—a “To go bag,” as Mindy had called it, but they both knew what it really was now. By the time Paul came down the stairs, retreating back into a Jaguars all black & teal jersey, hair damp from a shower, the bag sat by the front door, its contents hidden under a towel. “You sure you’re up for it?” Lilly asked, keys in hand. “We can just… stay in, make pancakes, veg out.” “I’m fine,” he said. “I want to go.” “You’re still wearing the plastic pants over the Step In,” she said, making it a statement instead of a question. He hesitated. The idea of all that bulk under his shorts made his skin crawl. “Just the Step In,” he countered. “No pants. They’re loud. You said it’d be quiet out there, anyway.” Bryan and Lilly traded a look. “Paul,” Bryan said carefully, “yesterday you were barely keeping anything down. If you have a flare—” “I won’t,” he snapped. “I’ll be careful. I’ll go before we leave, and when we get there, and… I don’t know, everywhere in between. I get it now, okay? I’m not stupid.” The hurt under the anger was so naked that arguing felt like kicking a bruise. Lilly exhaled slowly. “Step In it is then,” she said. “But we’re keeping a pair of plastic pants in the car. Non-negotiable.” He nodded stiffly. “Fine.” He used the bathroom before they left. Double-checked the fit of his Step In. Tugged his cargo shorts up, adjusted his jersey. From the outside, he looked like any tall seventeen-year-old heading to the beach with his parents. On the inside, he felt like glass.   The beach was thinner in November. Less neon, more locals. The sky was a pale, endless blue. The wind had teeth, but not sharp ones. They found a spot away from the densest clusters—near a dune, half-shielded. Bryan spread a blanket. Lilly set out containers: grilled chicken strips, quinoa salad, sliced fruit, chips. Paul sank down, legs stretched out, toes digging into cool sand. For a little while, it worked. They tossed a football lazily back and forth. He laughed once, reflexively, when Lilly made a truly terrible catch and tumbled dramatically onto the blanket. “Flag on the play,” Bryan called. “Roughing the influencer.” “Intentional drama,” Lilly said, brushing sand off her jeans. “Fifteen-yard penalty.” Paul’s chest loosened a fraction. The ocean hushed and roared. Gulls wheeled and screamed. Kids shrieked happily down the shore. The normalcy almost hurt. He took small sips of water, nothing like the volume Mindy would have preferred. Bargain number two: hydrate enough not to pass out, but not enough to tempt fate. They ate. He took a few bites of chicken, some strawberries, a handful of chips. His appetite hadn’t quite caught up with his body yet. After a while, Bryan sat beside him and chucked the football toward the dune. “I missed this,” he said. “You, me, wind that smells like salt instead of work.” “Yeah,” Paul said. He meant it. He did a mental check-in. Bladder: present, but manageable. Tracker: green shifting toward yellow. He could probably go use the public restroom by the parking lot. He could probably wait a bit. Five more minutes of pretending this was just another day. He chose pretending. They walked down to the waterline, letting the foam lap their ankles. The chill bit pleasantly at his skin. He watched a little boy—maybe three—waddling in a sagging swim diaper, his father trailing, both of them laughing. Something twisted under his ribs. He looked away, out to the horizon, where the sky and sea blurred into one long, indifferent line. The urge hit midway back to the blanket. Not the polite tap on the shoulder he’d had in rehearsals. This was a shove. Sudden, deep, his gut clenching as if someone had grabbed it and wrung. He stopped dead, breath catching. “Hey.” Lilly’s voice was immediately tuned to him. “You okay?” “Yeah,” he said automatically. Then, quieter: “Bathroom.” “The public ones are back near the lot,” Bryan said, already scanning the path. “Can you make it?” “Yes.” Pride teeth-bared. He started walking. The first steps were fine. The next less so. The urge sharpened. His body had decided something without consulting him. No amount of clenching changed it. Halfway up the sandy slope, his foot slipped. The small burst of effort was all it took. Heat bloomed, sudden and awful, not forward this time but lower, heavier. A spreading, growing wrongness that filled his Step In past what it was ever designed for. His whole body went cold. “No,” he whispered. It might have been to his own body, to the universe, to whoever was listening. The smell arrived a beat later, confirming what his nerves already knew. “Paul?” Bryan’s voice was closer now, soft but edged. “Talk to me, bud.” He stared straight ahead, eyes burning, throat closing. He couldn’t get air. The world narrowed to the feel of ruined padding between his legs, the grit of sand under his shoes, the knowledge that there was no salvaging this as anything but what it was. “I—” His voice broke. “I tried.” “Paul?” Bryan’s voice. Closer now. Too close. “Talk to me.” Lilly stepped to his side, hand landing between his shoulder blades. “We know,” she said. “We know you did.” But it was the smell that nearly sent her reeling, wet pants and sheets were one thing but this, this was something she never prepared for. “I really tried,” he said, the words tearing on the way out. That sentence punched straight through both of them. The war he’d been waging against his own body had just claimed a very public casualty. He shuddered. The humiliation wasn’t sharp. It was… vast. An ocean in reverse, rising from the inside. Bryan stepped in front of him, blocking the view from anyone who might glance their way. Lilly moved to his side, one hand at his back. “Okay,” Bryan said, voice measured. “We’re going to walk to the car. Slow and easy. We’ll fix it there. You’re not alone, do you understand me?” Paul nodded once, eyes burning, vision swimming. They walked, a tight little unit, the blanket and leftover food abandoned for the moment. Each step was an exercise in suppression and awareness: don’t move too fast, don’t think too much, don’t smell, don’t feel. He heard snippets of other lives as they passed—a kid begging for one more hour, a couple debating brunch, someone complaining about sand in places sand should never be. No one spared them a second glance. To Paul, it felt like every eye was on him. At the car, Bryan slipped him behind the open passenger door, Lilly in front like a screen. Bryan took the keys. “I’m going to move us to that far corner,” he said. He jogged around, started the rover, and eased it down to the far edge of the lot, near a clump of palmettos, as hidden as it got. Killed the engine. The air inside was warmer than the wind outside. He laid the Safari-print changing pad across the backseat, tucked it into the upholstery. Pulled out wipes, powder, the Safari diaper. Fingers steady, breathing not. He grabbed the pacifier; he turned to see them approaching as he opened the rear door. Lilly had her arm around Paul by the fender. His face was gray and blotched, eyes too big, pupils blown with panic. “Hey, buddy,” Bryan said softly. “We’re going to get you into the car, okay? No one can see. It’s just us.” Paul’s mouth opened—maybe to argue, maybe to apologize, maybe to beg. Nothing came out. Paul’s knees suddenly felt unreliable. His brave face, the one he’d been stretching tight over everything for days, finally tore. His mouth trembled. His eyes filled. The words tumbled out small and broken. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to.”   At any other age, it would have been effortless. At seventeen, he was lanky and heavy and awkward, but adrenaline and something deeper—pure paternal determination—made it doable. Bryan slipped an arm under his knees, another around his back, and lifted. Paul made a small sound—half protest, half surrender—but didn’t fight. The ruined Step In sagged under him. Bryan kept his face neutral, his movements smooth, carrying him like precious, breakable cargo. He laid him gently on the changing pad in the backseat, knees bent, shorts already a lost cause. Inside, his heart was breaking. No father wants this for his son. Every decent one does it anyway when it’s needed. Lilly climbed in from the other side, gently closing the door behind her. The car became a small chapel of necessity: tinted windows, shared breath, the rustle of fabric. “Pacifier,” Bryan murmured, holding it out. Paul stared at it like it might bite him. Then a tremor went through him, and his lips parted. Bryan placed it there, the familiar silicone a bridge between the nightmare that was happening and the memory of Wednesday night in the chair. Lilly stroked his hair back from his forehead. “Focus on me, honey,” she said softly. “Not what’s happening. Just my voice. Just Dad’s hands. We’re going to make you clean and comfortable. That’s all.” They worked together, quick and efficient and as dignified as the situation allowed. Shorts off. Failed Step In wrapped and sealed in a disposal bag as fast as possible, with minimal commentary. Wipes doing the careful, necessary work, hands gentle even when their hearts were twisting. For Paul, it was a collision of realities—the nightmare he’d had of over-the-top diaper changes and baby talk, and this, which was quieter, graver, but no less overwhelming. His brain screamed humiliation. His body, still shaking from the accident, mostly registered relief—cool wipes, clean skin, the promise of being out of the soiled, heavy confines. Tears leaked sideways into his hair. He didn’t sob. There was no energy left for that. Just silent, exhausted crying. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered around the pacifier, the words mushy but understandable. “I’m so sorry.” Lilly’s hand cupped his cheek. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” she said, voice thick. “Your body had an episode. That’s all. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Paul’s cheeks kept burning hot. Tears leaked sideways into his hair despite the pacifier. His mind screamed humiliation, betrayal, a hundred versions of this shouldn’t be happening. His body, freed from the foul weight, mostly screamed relief. “You’re doing so well,” Lilly murmured, thumb tracing circles on his forearm. Bryan slid the Safari diaper under him, the absurd jungle animals staring up at the car ceiling. He’d never imagined he’d be taping one of these onto nearly-adult hips. He also couldn’t imagine doing anything else but exactly this. He fastened the tapes snug but not tight. That was the moment something in Paul surrendered. Not just his muscles, which had given out on the sand, but the last thin barrier of the story he’d been telling himself. That this was still optional. That if he just tried hard enough, he could avoid it. His vision blurred at the edges. Whether it was emotion or the leftover adrenaline dump, he didn’t know. The pacifier soothed a tiny piece of his nervous system even as the rest of him reeled. He let his eyes close, just for a moment. The smell of powder, a hint of ocean, the warmth of their hands. The shame was still there, a burning coal. But under it, a thin bedrock of something else: the knowledge that they hadn’t recoiled. They hadn’t yelled. They hadn’t made jokes. They’d just… stayed. Bryan tied off the bag with the ruined clothes and tucked it under the front seat. He tugged clean gym shorts up over the diaper, the plastic crinkling softly under cotton. “Okay,” he said, voice gentler than Paul remembered it ever being when he was small. “We’re good. You’re clean. You’re protected. Nothing else matters until we get home.” He slid out of the backseat to put the blanket and food away, to reset the outside world. Lilly stayed, one hand on Paul’s arm, thumb still drawing slow, soothing arcs. “I really tried,” Paul whispered again, quieter now, as if confessing a crime. “I know,” she said. “And I am so proud of you for letting us help when trying wasn’t enough.” He didn’t fight when Bryan came back and helped him sit up. Didn’t bat away the hand that steadied his shoulder. Didn’t spit out the pacifier. For the first time, he didn’t pull away from the regression-shaped help being offered. He was too tired. Too aware that his last line of “I can handle it” had been washed away on a wave he hadn’t chosen. Bryan buckled him in, fingers brushing the waistband of the gym shorts, the faint, undeniable bulk beneath. In the front seat, they exchanged a wordless look. The line they hadn’t wanted to cross had been crossed for them. Outside, the waves kept erasing and redrawing the shoreline. Inside the car, three people sat in the aftermath of a small disaster that had just quietly rewritten all of their futures. The war Paul had been fighting against his own body was over. What came next would be about learning how to live in the territory that war had left behind.

Is there a specific reason you are posting there rather than on the forum side here? I am genuinely just asking as a writer/reader, I’m curious what, if any, advantages it might hold?   I know on this side, as others have said, it is more searchable, posts immediately, gives the option to follow and be notified, and allows comments.