Sissy Room

Yeah, it's interesting. I was at a Rearz event a few years ago, where one young woman came in "little attire" - wearing short-all's and a onesie with the "big baby head" accommodating neckline, and a pacifier, and she was holding her caregiver's or "big's" or Daddy's (or whomever's) hand, and I behaved basically exactly like I would have if someone had been there with an actual kid - you don't just walk up to a 6-year-old or whatever, and start a conversation. If there is some legitimate reason for doing so, you open with the parents. I didn't try to speak with her, because she was acting very shy, but I would most certainly have opened with her "friend" first, had I decided to engage.  Whereas there was another lady there, wearing a bulky diaper under a flowing, adult dress, who was there with a partner, and she looked and dressed like she was in her 30's, underpants aside, and many people spoke freely with her, and I did as well. 

Chapter One Hundred & Eighteen: Part Five Lilly set her glass down. The citrus inside shifted. A lime wheel turned once beneath the ice, caught briefly against an orange slice, then drifted free.   “I should start with thank you.”   Amber looked up. Of all the openings she had prepared herself for, that had not been one of them. Lilly folded her hands loosely in front of her.   “For what you did after the fight.”   Amber’s expression changed. The gym returned without warning. Not as a full memory. Fragments. The hard varnished floor. Paul’s body down. Noise everywhere. Marcus’s face. Lilly continued before Amber could retreat into it.   “You stayed. You helped get him help. You didn’t leave him there because it was ugly or inconvenient or because being seen beside him might cost you something.”   Amber’s throat tightened.   “I didn’t really do anything.”   Lilly’s voice was calm. Not indulgent. Certain.   “You were his friend when he needed one. Maybe not perfectly. But you were there.”   Amber looked down at her plate. The words should have comforted her. Instead, they hurt. Because friendship had become the one role she no longer knew whether she had the right to claim. Lilly watched her for a moment.   “I hope the two of you find your way back to that someday.”   Amber lifted her eyes slowly. Hope entered first. Then suspicion. The emotional weather changed so quickly Lilly could almost see Amber brace for the second half. And there was a second half. Lilly had promised herself she would not wrap honesty in so much softness that it disappeared.   “So,” she said, drawing out the word with the faintest Southern patience, “now that I’ve offered the sugar, here comes the medicine.”   Amber’s mouth twitched despite herself. Lilly leaned back.   “I find your fiancé about as tolerable as scum stuck to the bottom of a good pair of shoes.”   Amber blinked. The line landed with such dry precision that for one ridiculous second she almost laughed. Almost. Lilly’s expression prevented it.   “And I happen to like my shoes.”   There was the levity. Thin. Necessary. Then Lilly’s face hardened—not into hatred, but into something more durable. A mother’s memory.   “When I think about what he did to Paul, I have to remind myself that contempt is not a productive hobby.”   Amber’s stomach turned. Lilly’s fingers tightened once against each other.   “I have spent the last several nights helping rock Paul back to sleep because he wakes up believing another fight is coming.”   The room changed. The expensive kitchen receded. Amber heard only that sentence. Rocking him back to sleep. Paul. Eighteen years old. Terrified to close his eyes. Lilly looked past Amber for a moment, toward something inside herself.   “He doesn’t always know where he is. Sometimes he shields his face. Sometimes he curls in on that injured side before the pain reminds him not to. Sometimes he calls for Bryan. Sometimes he can’t get any words out at all.”   Her voice thinned. Not weak. Held tight.   “And I sit there telling him nobody is coming through the door to hurt him.”   Amber’s hand went still around her fork. The engagement ring beneath her shirt seemed suddenly heavier. She wanted to defend Marcus. The reflex came quickly.   He didn’t strike Paul.  He didn’t know it would go that far. He confessed. He feels horrible. He is trying.   Every sentence lined up inside her, ready to be presented like evidence. None survived the image of Paul waking in terror. Amber lowered her fork.   “When he told me…”   Her voice failed.   She tried again.   “When Marcus finally told me everything, I felt sick.”   Lilly said nothing.   “I thought I was going to throw up right there.”   Amber’s fingers moved unconsciously toward the chain beneath her mock neck.   “I took the ring off.”   Lilly’s eyes followed the gesture but did not interrupt.   “I wanted to throw it back at him.”   Amber’s laugh came out without humor.   “Actually, I wanted to throw it at his forehead. The distinction felt important at the time.”   Lilly’s mouth moved slightly.   “A direct delivery method.”   Amber looked at her. The shared humor lasted less than a second. But it allowed her to breathe.   “I held it in my hand,” Amber continued. “And I thought, this is it. This is the moment where I prove I’m not stupid.”   The words carried more self-contempt than anger.   “But I couldn’t.”   “Why?”   Amber answered immediately.   “Because I love him.” Then slower—“I think.”   The last two words frightened her more than the first four. Lilly did not react dramatically. No raised eyebrow. No triumphant recognition. She simply waited. Amber looked toward the window.   “I do love him.”   She needed the correction said aloud.   “He’s been part of my future for so long that I don’t know how to picture it without him. When he’s good, he’s…”   She searched.   “Strong. Protective. He makes everything feel like it has direction. Like he knows where we’re going even when I don’t.”   Lilly listened. Amber’s voice softened.   “And I know how that sounds.”   “No, you know how you fear it sounds.”   Amber looked back. Lilly lifted one shoulder.   “Those are rarely the same thing.”   Amber traced one cold water ring with her finger.   “Something bigger than anger stopped me.”   “Love.”   “Yes.”   Lilly was quiet. Then she gave a faint nod.   “I know something about that.”     Lilly’s gaze dropped to her plate, but she no longer saw lunch. She saw years. A road disappearing beneath magnolias. A boat house in summer. A young man standing beneath an oak with his jacket over one shoulder and the easy confidence of someone who had never heard the word no spoken with consequence.   “There was a boy,” Lilly began.   She paused.   “No.”   Her eyes lifted.   “A man.”   Another pause. Then, with more honesty than either description allowed—   “The person I once believed was my soulmate.”   Amber sat very still.   “His name was Samson Blount.”   Even the name seemed to carry its own architecture. Old money. Old families. Old expectations dressed up as opportunity. Lilly’s voice changed when she said it. Not softer exactly. Younger. The pain did not disappear from her words, but something tender remained beneath it, preserved against her will.   “He was beautiful.”   The admission escaped before caution could reshape it. Amber said nothing. Lilly almost smiled.   “Not handsome in the safe, pleasant way mothers approve of. Beautiful in the way that made sensible girls make very unserious decisions.”   She looked toward the window as memory sharpened.   “Tall. Broad through the shoulders. Blond hair always brushed neatly back like the wind had signed some agreement not to trouble it. Blue eyes that looked colder in photographs than they did when he smiled.”   Amber pictured him. Cream sport coat. Plaid shirt. Silk scarf tied neatly at the collar. Pocket square folded without fuss. The uniform of someone raised around money old enough to appear casual.   “He dressed like he’d inherited an entire county,” Lilly continued, her mouth curving faintly. “Tan jackets in spring. Navy blazers near the coast. Riding boots he did not need. Silk at his throat when the rest of us were still pretending lip gloss counted as sophistication.”   Amber laughed softly.   “You liked that.”   “Oh, I nearly died over it.”   For a moment, Lilly did swoon. Not theatrically. Honestly. The woman she had become stepped aside and allowed the girl she had been to speak.   “Our families were close. Dinners. Hunting weekends. Charity galas where everyone congratulated one another on giving away money they could not possibly miss. Now it wasn’t like betrothed to Samson. This wasn’t medieval Tennessee, despite what some of our mothers considered appropriate table settings. But it was suggested that I get to know him.”   “Suggested how?”   “In the manner wealthy Southern families suggest things.”   Lilly raised one brow.   “No one commands. They simply create an atmosphere in which disappointing them feels like vandalizing a church.”   Amber smiled despite herself.   “He was four or five years older than me,” Lilly said. “Which, at that age, might as well have been twenty.”   She looked down.   “I was still in high school. He had already left school, already traveled, already knew which fork to use in places where the menu didn’t list prices. He drove himself. Ordered wine. Knew musicians and politics and which chef had left which restaurant after insulting which investor.”   The old thrill returned to her voice.   “I felt chosen.”   That word settled differently.   “My friends were dating boys who smelled like gym bags and argued about parking spaces. I was being escorted into dining rooms by a man who opened doors, remembered the names of waiters, and ordered dessert before I decided whether I wanted one.”   “Romantic.”   “It was.”   Lilly did not qualify it. That mattered.   “He was romantic. I won’t rewrite that because of what came later.”   She closed her eyes briefly.   “There were dinners on verandas under strings of lights. Weekends at his father’s second hunting estate, which was somehow separate from the third hunting estate because apparently deer require regional options.”   Amber laughed. Lilly leaned into the memory.   “Boat houses along black water where the cypress trees hung low enough to touch. Champagne we, I was  too young and too smug to appreciate. Blankets on docks after midnight. He would bring records and play them through a portable speaker because he believed silence should always have a soundtrack.”   Her face warmed.   “He called me his cardinal.”   “Why?”   “My temper.”   Lilly glanced up.   “And because he said I entered rooms like something red against winter.”   Amber imagined it. Young Lilly in a pale dress. Samson leaning toward her with that practiced Southern ease. A world designed to make them look inevitable.   “He could charm a room without appearing to try,” Lilly said. “He remembered birthdays. He sent flowers to my mother. He listened to my father’s stories as if each one were new. When he focused on you, the rest of the room became furniture.”   Amber shifted slightly. Marcus could do that. Not with rooms. With her. At school, when he lowered his voice and looked directly at her, everything else sometimes fell away. Lilly’s words brushed too close to something Amber had thought belonged only to them.   “He was gentle,” Lilly said.   Then she stopped. The winter light moved across the marble between them. A bubble rose through Amber’s water and burst silently at the surface. Lilly’s expression changed. Not abruptly. Like a cloud passing over the sun.   “But beauty isn’t the only thing that can be skin-deep.”   Amber looked at her. Lilly’s voice lowered.   “So can kindness.”   The words did not arrive as a lesson. They arrived as something she had paid to understand.   “Kindness can be worn beautifully,” Lilly continued. “It can open doors, send flowers, remember your favorite dessert. It can perform so convincingly that cruelty has time to build a house behind it.”   Amber’s chest tightened. The story turned. Not into darkness all at once. Into shade.   “The first changes were small,” Lilly said. “They always are, or no one would stay.”   She picked up her glass but did not drink.   “Samson didn’t tell me I couldn’t wear something. He told me another dress suited me better.”   Amber felt a chill.   “He didn’t forbid me from seeing friends. He said he missed me when I spent time with girls he considered shallow.”   Lilly’s thumb traced the cold rim.   “He never ordered my food at first. He simply knew what I would like. Then he knew what I should eat. Then he noticed when I finished too much of it.”   Amber’s stomach tightened around the lunch she had eaten. A memory surfaced. Marcus looking at the dress she chose for a school event and asking whether she wanted that much attention. Not telling her not to wear it. Just asking. Then looking relieved when she changed.   Not the same. Amber told herself that immediately. Not the same.   Lilly continued.   “He corrected my laugh.”   Amber’s eyes rose.   “He said it became too loud when I was nervous. He told me certain friends made me common. Certain opinions made me sound uninformed. Certain silences made me look childish.”   The control had not arrived as force. It arrived as refinement. Improvement. A man helping a younger woman become worthy of the future he claimed to see for her.   “He made me feel mature,” Lilly said, “and then used every normal piece of immaturity as proof that I needed him to decide things.”   Amber looked away. Something in that sentence landed too close. Marcus did not decide everything.   He encouraged. He pushed. He believed in strength. He had wanted her to stop spending so much time with Paul because he not Paul needed her more.   There were explanations for all of it. Reasonable ones. Except reasonable things were not supposed to leave you feeling smaller. Amber reached for her water. The glass trembled faintly against the ice. Lilly noticed. She did not stop. But she did not sharpen her point either.   “This is not me saying Marcus is Samson.”   Amber’s eyes returned to her.   “I need you to hear that clearly.”   “I do.”   “Good. Because lazy comparisons help no one.”   Lilly leaned back.   “Some men control because they are terrified. Some because they enjoy power. Some because no one ever made them confront the difference between love and ownership.”   Amber swallowed.   “And women can do it too,” Lilly added. “Lord knows I did my share of manipulation.”   Amber looked surprised.   “I used silence like a weapon. I flirted with other boys when I wanted Samson jealous. I knew my parents hated how fast they thought we were moving, and some wicked little part of me enjoyed making their disapproval the stage where our love looked most dramatic.”   She shook her head.   “Forbidden fruit is sweeter mostly because everyone keeps telling you not to eat it.”   Amber thought of Martina. Her mother’s warnings. Marcus’s temper. Her own determination to prove everyone wrong.   Lilly’s voice became quieter.   “When Samson’s family lost their fortune, the world around him collapsed.”   Amber knew enough about old Southern families to understand that collapse rarely meant simple bankruptcy. Lilly’s expression confirmed it.   “It wasn’t market luck. It wasn’t poor timing. It was an ugly business scheme dressed in respectable paperwork until state investigators began pulling threads. Then federal authorities joined them.”   She stared past Amber.   “Accounts frozen. Partners indicted. Newspapers printing words the family had spent generations believing applied only to other people.”   Samson lost more than money. He lost the structure that had told him who he was.   “He became angry,” Lilly said. “Humiliated. Suspicious of everyone. My family forbade me from seeing him.”   The old resentment flickered unexpectedly.   “They were right.”   She gave a bitter little laugh.   “I hate admitting that. Even now.”   Amber understood that too. There were victories parents should not look too pleased to have won.   “My mother spoke as though Samson had become contagious. My father talked about reputation when I needed him to talk about danger. They made it sound like the family scandal mattered more than what was happening to me.”   Lilly’s jaw tightened.   “So I defended Samson harder.”   Because defending him became defending her own judgment. Her own intelligence. Her own love. Amber’s fingers closed around the chain beneath her shirt.   “I snuck out.”   Lilly’s left hand moved. Slowly.   Almost without her noticing. Her fingers closed around her forearm. Not gripping hard. Holding an old place. A phantom ache passing beneath skin that had healed years ago.   “He was drunk the first time we met after the scandal”   She looked directly at Amber.   “That is context.”   A pause.   “Never an excuse.”   Amber stopped breathing for a second. Lilly did not describe the night. Not in detail. She did not need to.   “It didn’t go well for me.”   Her hand remained around her arm. The kitchen seemed to narrow around the sentence. No crew. No camera. Only winter light and the hum of the refrigerator.   “I thought he could change.”   The words came smaller.   “I thought I could help him change.”   Her eyes closed.   “And even then, I used Samson too.”   Amber frowned.   “How?”   Lilly opened her eyes.   “I used him to rebel. To punish my parents. To prove that I was old enough to choose a difficult love and survive it.”   Her voice carried no self-pity. Only accounting.   “The more they banned him, the more I wanted him. He became forbidden fruit, and I mistook hunger for destiny.”   Lilly’s fingers tightened around her forearm.     “I paid a price for that.”   The sentence seemed to echo inside her. A price. For one impossible instant, the kitchen dissolved. A baby crying somewhere beyond reach.   Thin. Faint.   Then the cry stretched into the high mechanical wail of an ambulance. Blue light against wet pavement. A white church beneath live oaks. A Southern funeral hymn rising from voices trained to make grief sound orderly. Lilly’s breath caught.     Then the sounds were gone.     The kitchen returned. The citrus water. The salad. Amber sitting across from her with fear in her eyes. Lilly released her arm. Amber had questions. Too many. The baby’s cry had never been spoken aloud. Only passed through Lilly’s face.   Something lost. Someone lost.   A chapter Lilly was not yet offering. Amber did not ask. Not because she lacked curiosity. Because there are moments when restraint becomes compassion. Lilly looked down at her plate.   “I stayed longer than I should have.”   Amber’s stomach turned.   “Did he apologize?”   “Yes.”   That answer came immediately.   “He apologized beautifully.”   Lilly gave a faint, bitter smile.   “Southern men are often trained to make remorse sound like scripture.”   Amber’s mouth twitched despite the ache in the room.   “He cried. He promised. He brought flowers. He blamed the alcohol, then his father, then the investigation, then himself in exactly the right proportion to sound accountable without actually changing.” Lilly took another pause. “In fact, he was so good at it, I kept letting him appologize again and again and again.”   Amber thought of Marcus. His confession. The tears he had tried to hide. The way he had said he hated who he had become.   A frightening similarity surfaced.   Then the differences arrived. Marcus had not blamed Paul. He had not blamed alcohol. He had not asked Amber to forgive him immediately. He had given her space. That mattered. Right? It had to matter.   “He isn’t Samson,” Amber said.   The words came more defensively than she intended. Lilly nodded.   “No.”   The agreement disarmed her.   “Marcus confessed without being cornered,” Amber continued. “He said it was his fault. He didn’t tell me Paul deserved it.”   “I know.”   “He’s trying.”   “I believe you.”   Amber stared at her. That was not the argument she had prepared for. Lilly lifted her glass.   “I did not invite you here to win a debate.”   “Then why tell me all this?”   “Because maps are useful even when they don’t describe the exact road you’re on.”   Amber sat back. Lilly’s voice remained calm.   “Samson is not Marcus. You are not me. Paul is not whatever role he would occupy in my old story.”   She paused.   “But patterns don’t require perfect copies to become dangerous.”   Amber looked down. The ring beneath her shirt felt both precious and accusatory.   “Marcus wants to be strong,” Amber said.   Lilly waited.   “He thinks protecting people means taking control.”   “And what do you think?”   Amber’s answer took longer.   “I used to think it meant the same thing.”   There it was. Not surrender. Curiosity. A small crack in certainty. Amber stared at her hands.   “My dad left. My mom held everything together, but she always had to be the strong one. I think I wanted…”   She struggled with the confession.   “A man who would stay. A man who would know what to do. Someone solid.”   “Nothing wrong with wanting solid.”   Lilly’s Southern dryness returned.   “Most of us would prefer a porch that doesn’t collapse when company arrives.”   Amber laughed quietly.   “But solid and controlling can look similar from far away,” Lilly said. “Until you try to move a chair.”     Amber looked up. That line stayed with her. She thought of Marcus’s certainty. The way it once made her feel safe.The way it sometimes made disagreement feel like betrayal.   Did she love him?   Yes. She did.   But did she also love the idea of him?   Strong Marcus. Loyal Marcus. Future husband Marcus.   The man who would never leave because she had already chosen him so completely that departure seemed impossible. The question frightened her. Love had always felt like the answer. Now it behaved like another question. Lilly watched the conflict move across Amber’s face.   “I’m not asking you to leave him.”   Amber blinked.   “I’m certainly not asking you to stay.”   Lilly leaned forward.   “I am giving you a map. Study it. Tear it up. Mark your own route. Avoid the holes I fell into.”   A small smile touched her mouth.   “Or drop his ass altogether. Maps allow alternate destinations.”   Amber laughed, then covered her mouth because the sound felt wrong after everything. Lilly shook her head.   “Levity is not disrespect. Sometimes it’s the only reason Southerners survive our families.”   The seriousness returned.   “This is not punishment for what happened between Marcus and Paul. I’m not trying to sabotage your love life because I dislike the groom.”   “Dislike?”   “Fine. If Marcus and I entered the same stadium, I would request opposite seating sections and possibly separate weather systems.”   Amber looked down, smiling despite herself.   “Maybe someday,” Lilly said, “if he grows up and apologizes first to my son—not to me, not to Bryan, not for appearances—then I might believe he understands what he did.”   Her face cooled.   “I’m not holding my breath. It wrinkles the forehead.”   Amber’s smile faded. Lilly sighed. Then looked at her more carefully.   “I know this is complicated. You can love someone and still question whether loving them is good for you.”   Amber nodded slowly.   “Thank you for telling me.”   The words were sincere. Also insufficient. But what sentence could possibly hold all of that? She looked toward the quiet hallway.   “I understand now that Marcus and I had problems before the gym.”   Lilly remained still.   “Even if Paul’s secret had never been exposed. Even if that fight never happened.”   Amber’s fingers found the chain again.   “Maybe what happened is a wake-up call.”   She corrected herself.   “For me. Especially for Marcus.”   Lilly listened.   “I can’t speak for him.”   Amber’s voice strengthened as she said it.   “I can’t apologize for him. I can’t defend him every time someone says something true just because hearing it hurts.”   That realization cost her. Lilly saw it.   “But I want you to know he is trying to change.”   Amber met her eyes.   “If that means anything.”   Lilly’s expression softened. Not fully. A trace of disappointment remained because hope was not evidence and effort did not restore Paul’s lost sense of safety. Still, she reached across the island and placed her hand over Amber’s.   “It means something.”   Amber looked at their joined hands.   “Marcus is already more of a man than Samson was at that age if he is honestly trying to change.”   Amber’s shoulders loosened. Lilly squeezed her fingers.   “But that road is as long as the damage he has caused.”   The relief stopped.   “And there’s no promise you’ll end up with the same person you started with.”   Amber frowned. Lilly explained gently.   “Change may make him better.”   She paused.   “It may also make him different.”   The idea unsettled Amber in a new way. She had always imagined Marcus changing into the best version of the man she already loved. Not becoming someone she might no longer fit beside.   “People like to believe growth saves every relationship,” Lilly said. “Sometimes growth reveals why a relationship cannot continue. Sometimes two people become healthier and discover they were held together by the wounds.”   Amber looked toward the window. Lilly’s thumb moved gently across the back of her hand.   “Love is not proven by how much of yourself you can lose without leaving.”   The words settled quietly. Not preachy. Not triumphant.   A perspective offered. Nothing more. Lilly’s phone buzzed against the marble. Both women startled slightly. The screen illuminated.   CREW RETURNS — 15 MINUTES   Reality entered the room again. Lilly glanced at the reminder and exhaled.   “Apparently my lunch break has developed professional boundaries.”     Amber nodded. But her mind had moved elsewhere. Away from Samson. Away from Marcus. Toward Paul.   The question had been sitting beneath everything. She had been afraid to ask because answers could make absence permanent.   “How is he?”   Lilly’s expression changed immediately. Not guarded. Tired. Amber clarified.   “Really.”   Lilly looked toward the closed nursery door somewhere beyond the kitchen.   “He had a setback yesterday.”   Amber’s chest tightened.   “The school sent his completion package without talking to him first. They made a decision about his future and dressed it like kindness.”   Lilly’s voice carried restrained anger.   “He saw the diploma. The letter. He understood it as being removed. Rejected.”   Amber pictured Paul at Bishop’s Gate. Onstage beneath lights. Laughing too loudly backstage. Pretending not to be nervous. The thought of a package arriving to end that life without asking him felt cruel in a way good intentions could not clean.   “He broke the frame,” Lilly said carefully. “Cut his hands. His nervous system crashed hard afterward.” Amber swallowed.   “He’s safe. Bryan took him to Martina’s this morning. He was happier when he left.”   Lilly almost smiled.   “I hope your guy’s winter trip is safe,” Amber said. “For you. Bryan.”   Her voice softened.   “Especially Paul.”   “Thank you.”   “What happens next?”   Lilly looked at her. Amber’s question carried no demand. Only grief.   “I miss him at school.”   She paused. Then admitted the deeper truth.   “I miss performing with him.”   The stage returned between them. Paul beside her. Lines rehearsed in empty classrooms. Arguments over timing. The way he could transform after the lights came up, every tremor of uncertainty becoming energy the audience believed was confidence.   “He made me better,” Amber said. “He was annoying about it.”   Lilly smiled sadly.   “That sounds like him.”   Amber’s eyes lowered.   “Is he coming back?”   The question hurt Lilly more than everything asked before it. Her face changed. The mother remained. The certainty disappeared.   “We don’t know.”   Amber looked up.   “Bryan and I don’t know.”   Lilly’s voice became quieter.   “Paul especially doesn’t know.”   That was the truth they kept circling. Everyone had plans for Paul. School. Doctors. Lawyers. Parents. Babysitters & Friends. But moving forward had to belong to him.   “When we do know,” Lilly said, “you will know.”   Amber nodded. The phone screen dimmed between them. Fifteen minutes becoming fourteen. Amber stood. Lilly rose with her. For one awkward beat, both women seemed unsure whether the conversation ended with a handshake, another Southern joke, or silence.   Amber chose.   She stepped forward and hugged Lilly. Lilly stiffened from surprise. Then wrapped both arms around her. Amber held on.   Not like a child. Not like family yet.   Like someone standing at the edge of a life she had helped damage and asking whether there was still a place to return.   “I’ll stand by Paul,” she said against Lilly’s shoulder. “Whatever happens.”   Lilly closed her eyes. Amber drew back.   “But I’d like to be his friend again.”   The words were careful. No entitlement. No assumption that wanting restored what had been lost. Lilly touched her cheek.   “That will be his choice.”   Amber nodded.   “I know.”   “And if he gives you the opportunity—”   “I won’t waste it.”   Lilly studied her. Then smiled faintly.   “I believe you.”   Amber collected her denim jacket from the stool and pulled it on. The ring shifted beneath her shirt as she moved. Still there. Still hers. Still unanswered.   Lilly walked her toward the front of the house. They passed the sleeping cameras. The silent lights. The beauty set waiting to resume its illusion of effortlessness. At the front door, Lilly opened it. Winter light spilled across the threshold. Amber stepped outside. Then turned back.   “Thank you.”   Lilly leaned against the doorframe.   “For lunch or emotional devastation?”   Amber gave her a small smile.   “Both.”   Lilly nodded.   “Be careful.”   Amber was not sure whether she meant driving, Marcus, school, or life generally. Perhaps all of it. She walked away from the house. Each step carried her toward the car and toward questions that had not existed when she arrived.   Did she love Marcus? Yes. Did she love who he really was? She thought so. Did she love the strong, dependable man she believed he would become?   That answer frightened her.   The Goldhawk door closed softly behind her. Amber stopped near the walkway. Paul’s face rose in her mind. Not the injured version from the gym.   Paul backstage. Paul laughing. Paul calling her out when she became selfish. Paul trusting her.   Then another image replaced it. A playpen. A pacifier. A mind protecting itself by moving somewhere she might not be able to follow. She was on the way to see him next. The thought should have brought relief.   Instead, dread moved through her. Would he remember her?   As a friend? As someone who failed him? An enemy attached to the man who helped destroy his safety? Or worse—Would he look at her with kind, empty eyes and not remember her at all?   Amber stood beneath the pale December sun and understood that forgiveness was not the only thing she feared.

She literally should've tried to fly out of the lab, but no... she flies deeper into the place that's designed to break her down. XD   I wonder what could possibly happen next.

I hope you feel better soon, @ValentinesStuff, and also, that this letter finds you wearing a better diaper!

I'm back from an impromptu getaway with some buddies - I had vacation time that I had to use up, and some friends of mine were in a similar position, so we booked a quick golf getaway using the absurd discounts that our one friend who works for a major hotel chain, can engineer. Thus did I find myself in a city about 4 hours from where I live, for two nights, sharing a room with, thankfully, Dave, of the aforementioned Dave & Anne. I didn't have to specify that, it just came to be, which helped - I could, and have, shared rooms with the other guys before, but none of them are "in the know", so it adds a layer of James Bond-like security considerations to everything about dressing like a toddler, under my clothes.  I found a big, lidded, public trash can in the laundry/ice maker room, so that assisted me greatly with diaper disposal, meaning I could have managed that aspect, sharing a room with someone uninitiated. Even sharing a room with someone who knows, I didn't want to just leave bulging nappies in the diminutive trash can in the bathroom. But, the addition of my gigantic, terry-lined Kevlar underpants to my repertoire, made sharing a room with someone not up to speed on my "situation", a somewhat intimidating concept. I'd have had to sneak out of the bathroom in the dark, or, waited for them to fall asleep, before donning the absurdly-oversized garment, and then in the morning... wait for them to go into the washroom? Wrap my comforter around myself, and wear it like a robe, until I have a chance to change? Even with Dave, I didn't casually stroll across the room in the plastic pants - that would be an unnecessary, and gratuitous level of familiarity. He and his family have been very kind - I don't want to push their hospitality to unnecessary places. I brought an oversized pair of medium-weight cotton, drawstring waist shorts, that I have worn at their house many times before, as warm weather "pajamas", which I have comfortably worn around them over a diaper. So, the bulk of my equatorial district was not completely deniable, but I was as discreet about it as I could be, while still having an iron-clad guarantee in place that the beer we were consuming, on and off the course, would not end up being transformed into a stain on the bedding. I contemplated my preference for sleeping with a pacifier, a habit developed over the same period of time as my habit for weeing while I sleep, but decided to squib on it. I could probably have gotten away with it, or else Dave might have seen something, and just been diplomatic about it, and said nothing, but it was, again, an unnecessary expansion of my personal space into the public realm, so I just drank so much that I could have slept beside the active runway at an airport, and that worked fine.  I also wore my best options for overnight protection that can be opened and closed easily, and that doesn't look like the print was test-marketed in a kindergarten, being the BeDry Night Premium. They took some fire, but the plastic pants did not detectably intercept any escape attempts. None I noted, anyway. I had to toss the BeDry's somewhat early in their lifecycles, because a diaper like that does not work under modern golf attire, and in a nod to Father's Day being tomorrow, and my trip being somewhat on that theme, my wife had ordered me some lightweight golf shorts, because, "Those ones you wear are really heavy for the summer..." She was right about that, but failed to contemplate the why of it - I wear heavy, oversized cargo shorts because, of course, I am trying to go about my business in big plastic man-Pampers, without tipping my hand to general public. The golf shorts she bought me - from Nike - were very nice, but did not work well over most diapers. I tried them on over both a BeDry, and an Active Air, but got a head-shake from my daughter over both of those combinations. A Tena ProSkin or Tranquility ATN passed the "Am I wearing a diaper?" visual test, but they're not the best products I have, by a longshot. However, on a hot day, on a golf course, I knew that I would be emitting more moisture as sweat, than as wee,  and since we were staying close to the courses, I figured I could just go get changed right after the round, saying that I didn't want to spend the evening covered in sunblock and sweat. And, indeed, everyone was on the same page about that - I was able to wear those diapers for the 5-ish hours it took us to get there, play a round, have a pint in the clubhouse, and get back to the rooms.  I did, however, suffer an alarming catastrophic failure of a Tena, similar to one I experienced a few months back, helping a friend with a floor project - one of the stretchy side panels detached from the Velcro tab that was adhering it to the front of the garment, resulting in a distressing potential loss of containment, and, a sudden onset of very visible nappy lines, since the back of the diaper, instead of being uniformly stretched across the back of me, now migrated to the side that still had tension on it, and began to bunch up like I had a dish towel folded in my pants. The outcome of that was me playing very badly, and "in my head", for a couple of holes, aware that when I was bending over to tee up the ball, if anyone was paying attention, they'd wonder if I knew I had a shirt, or something, electrostatically stuck in the back of my shorts when I'd put them on.  Eventually, I ended up on a hole with restroom facilities, and I was able to go inside, survey the situation, realized  there was no "field repair" option, and so I binned the diaper, and, yes, "went commando", thankfully for only a couple of additional holes, and during the last hole, I had a "just in case" wee in the woods, at an opportune moment, just to make sure I didn't overestimate my capabilities in the "holding it" department. On a sidenote to that sidenote, I also found myself staring distressingly at the dripping that Mini Me was engaged in, post-transfer - being a guy who has worn a diaper all the time, everywhere, for the last 7 years, I usually pay no attention to that, but in my light-coloured, light-material fancy dry-wicking golf shorts, I did not want spots of wetness at ground zero. Viewer discretion advised - some vigorous shaking ensued, and eventually, the well ran dry, but it took a bit, and I was simultaneously also battling mosquitoes.  I was able to use the "I'm slathered in sunscreen" excuse to suggest a retreat to the hotel, before the celebratory pints, in order to put an Active Air on under my usual dad-bod cargo shorts, which carried me until bedtime.  So, being in diapers, travelling and sharing accommodations with friends, has its challenges, but not insurmountable ones. Caveat emptor.