Trading Post

I was looking at the Masterpiece nappies and they have my interest. Will try them.

Chapter Eighty: Paul stared at the ceiling. He lay flat on his back on the changing table, hands resting on his chest, fingers laced together the way he did when he was trying not to think too hard. It didn’t work. Beneath him, the table was cool through the mat, firm in a way beds never were. He hated that he knew the difference now. Hated that his body had learned routines his mind still rejected. This wasn’t how seventeen-year-olds were supposed to start a school day. His thoughts slid backward whether he invited them or not. Yesterday afternoon replayed itself whether he wanted it to or not. The waddle. The way the swollen padding between his legs had forced his steps wider, slower. Clothing meant for someone half his size, bright and soft and forgiving in all the wrong ways. The pacifier—God—still bobbing stupidly from his mouth as if his hands hadn’t known what else to do with themselves. And worse than all of it, the thing he still didn’t have language for yet: the need. The pull. The insistence that he hold that stupid Batman plush like it was oxygen before he could walk down the hall and find— Mommy. Daddy. No. Step-mom. Dad. Dammit, I’m not a toddler. The thought had come sharp yesterday, cutting and panicked. This morning it arrived duller, heavier, like a bruise pressed from the inside. That scared him more than the panic ever had. He blinked slowly and tried to anchor himself in now. The edge of his father’s shoulder in his peripheral vision. The soft click of a drawer opening. The faint crinkle of packaging. The smell of powder—sweet and clean in a way that made the room feel smaller, more domestic, more real. He remembered the pergola in the backyard—ironwork shadows striping the patio table like a cage you could pretend wasn’t there. He remembered Bryan’s laugh, lighter than it had been in weeks. He remembered Lilly’s fingers on his shoulder, the way she’d moved through the afternoon like she was holding a glass full to the brim: steady, careful, determined not to spill. What did you think of Harley today? His answer replayed clearly. “I don’t know.” Not avoidance. Not fear. Just honesty. Harley had been extremely nice. Almost overwhelmingly so. She’d listened—really listened—the way Amber listened during rehearsals when Paul talked through lines and blocking. The way Savannah listened when Paul talked about nothing important at all and made it feel important anyway. Harley listened. But she also leaned in fast. Like she wanted to gather everything about him all at once and hold it tight. “She was really into caring for me,” he’d admitted. “It kind of felt like a lot.” He hadn’t meant it as criticism. Just observation. It was the closest thing he could say to the real feeling, the one he didn’t want to look at too long: That Harley didn’t just enjoy taking care of him. She lit up. And that was… complicated. Bryan and Lilly hadn’t reacted the way he feared. They’d nodded. Asked questions. Treated him like a person who got a vote. Like an equal partner at the table. That mattered. Adult. Equal. It made him feel tall even when everything else made him feel small. He’d asked them for one more test—another visit, but different. “If we try again,” he’d said, voice steady, “can we do it with you both out of the house? That’s the only way I’ll know for sure who she is.” It had been brave. He knew it was brave because the tracker flicked yellow for half a second when he said it, then settled back to green the moment his dad nodded. “Fair,” Bryan had said. “Fair,” Lilly echoed. And then—because the universe didn’t care about fairness either—time squeezed in on them. With Bryan  getting ready to leave for Tokyo in just 72 hours, time wasn’t on their side. Lilly taking the lead called Harley right there in the backyard and asked if she could come over to the house Saturday afternoon around twelve thirty to three pm to hang out with Paul? Harley sounding more adult but still with that undertone of a very enthusiastic babysitter she would absolutely love hanging out with little Pauly again. Great he had a nickname. The nickname sat in Paul’s head the way a new bruise sits on skin. Little Pauly. A part of him hated it on principle. Another part of him—quiet, traitorous—felt a small, warm tug in his chest that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with being seen. He tried not to chase that feeling. That was how you got hurt. That was how you ended up relying on something you weren’t ready to rely on. The tracker stayed green anyway, like it was watching him lie to himself and didn’t bother calling him out. “Hey, champ.” His dad’s voice cut through the memory softly, but cleanly, like sunlight hitting a room you forgot had curtains. Paul’s breath hitched as the nightmare shattered. For a split second he’d been back in class—Whitney standing at the door, green diaper bag slung over her arm, smiling too wide. His teacher—beautiful in that effortless, almost-supermodel way—droning on about something meaningless until the knock came. “Oh hey,” the teacher had laughed. “I didn’t know it was time for Paul to get a fresh diapee so soon?” Whitney grinning like this was routine. Normal. “Oh yeah,” Whitney said brightly. “He certainly does, he’s like a little pee-pee machine needs a fresh change every thirty minutes.” Laughter. Heat crawling up Paul’s neck. “Come on, champ,” Whitney said. “Lift your legs, sport.” The words weren’t Whitney’s. They were his dad’s. Gentle. Full of love and concern. Paul blinked hard, and reality snapped back into place. Bryan stood beside him now, fluffing out a new diaper with practiced hands. No rush. No commentary. Just care. “Help me out here, sport,” Bryan said softly. “Lift your legs.” He kept staring at the ceiling while he complied, because looking down made everything feel too real, too humiliating, too final. He could feel the fresh padding settle under him, the powder’s soft coolness, the methodical certainty of his father’s hands. His body accepted the help. His pride tried not to. Bryan’s mind wasn’t quiet either. He remembered another ceiling. Another room. Paul at six—small enough that diapers still made sense to the world even when they didn’t make sense to him. “What if the big kids make fun of me?” “How do I not cry, Daddy?” “Why can’t I be a big boy?” Bryan had gone to school with him that day. He couldn’t now. That loss pressed into his ribs as he pulled the adult-sized onesie down over Paul’s head—white this time, neutral, simple—and snapped it into place. He worried about independence. About the future. About how much care Paul would always need. And still—uninvited—there was warmth. The strange, guilty gratitude of being allowed back into moments he thought were gone forever. Care given. Care received. Like love had been handed back to him in a form he didn’t ask for. Do I get to do this right this time? his mind whispered, and he hated himself for the thought even as he held it close. “I’ll meet you downstairs,” Bryan said quietly, voice clearing as if to keep emotion out of it. “We’ll head out together. I’ll drive you.” “Okay,” Paul muttered, then after a beat, “Thanks.” Bryan paused like he wanted to say more—like he wanted to offer a guarantee he didn’t have the right to offer. Instead, he rested his hand briefly on Paul’s shoulder. A squeeze that said: I’m here. I’m trying. Then the door closed. Paul sat up slowly. He was dressed in a cloth-backed preschool diaper under navy plastic pants. The rustle registered immediately—quiet but obvious, the kind of sound that only the person wearing it heard as thunder. He wasn’t scared. He was tired. And there was something else too—something he didn’t want to name. A low-grade dread that wasn’t about diapers in general. It was about school. Less than a week ago, the diagnosis had made everything official. The body he’d spent his whole life trying to “manage” had finally won the argument. This wasn’t a fluke. This was a routine now. He slid off the changing table and crossed to his closet. Clothes were no longer fashion. They were armor. He chose deliberately—layers, longer tops, specific fabrics. First: his white St. Louis Rams 2010 NFL jersey, navy blue and gold striping bold enough to distract the eye, long enough to cover. It fell past his hips like a curtain, plus because it game worn it was heavy, forgiving, swallowing outlines and sound. Then loose-fitting jeans. Not tight. Not trendy. Practical. The kind you could sit in without drawing attention to posture. The kind that let you move without the fabric catching and announcing every shift of padding underneath. He tested it in the mirror. Turn left. Turn right. Sat on the edge of the bed and listen. Rustle. Barely. He adjusted. The tracker flicked yellow. Then green again. Like it was grading him not on dignity, but on survival. His parents told him the new rule: check in with Whitney every morning. She would assess the “state of his protection” and decide if he needed a change before first bell. Just thinking about it made his stomach tighten. Whitney wasn’t cruel. Whitney wasn’t the nightmare version his brain invented. But she was still Whitney—still a person with eyes, with a smile, with opinions, with the power to make things real in a place where Paul wanted nothing real. He could handle wearing a diaper. He’d already handled that. What he didn’t know how to handle was being perceived. Being perceived as the thing he was trying not to become. He paused, then opened it again and added something he hadn’t planned on: a Bishop’s Gate school hoodie, thick and soft, something he could wrap around his waist if he needed extra cover. Armor on top of armor. He was on a clock, all ticking towards the rehearsal, Amber would be there. Newly engaged. A ring on her hand like a spotlight. Amber who listened. Amber who saw him. Amber who would look at his face and know something was different even if she didn’t know what. He wasn’t ready for that. He wasn’t ready for her to be happy about her life while he felt like his own was shrinking. He wasn’t ready for the jealousy that made him feel ugly. He wasn’t ready for the part of him that still wanted to impress her, to be the version of himself that stood tall under stage lights and didn’t have to think about bathrooms or bags or plastic pants. Paul’s throat tightened.   The daycare wing sat off to the side of the main campus like its own small world, tucked behind a set of double doors marked with bright laminated signs and a hand-drawn sun that had faded from too many months under fluorescent lights. The air always held the same gentle mix: disinfectant, vanilla hand soap, and something faintly sweet from the kids’ breakfast snacks. Whitney moved through it with routine precision. A chair pushed back into place. A stack of tiny paper cups aligned. A bin of sensory toys re-labeled after yesterday’s “sorting” incident that had ended with a teacher crawling under a table for the third time in one hour. She checked the changing area next—sanitized surface, paper lining stocked, gloves in their dispenser, trash bin emptied and re-bagged. She didn’t rush. She didn’t need to. Then she crossed the short hall to the supply closet and flicked on the light. The shelves looked like the anatomy of care—organized, predictable, calm. Nipples for baby bottles on the top shelf, assorted sizes. Two boxes of wipes. A row of baby powder bottles with their blue caps. Packages of pull-ups for the little ones, labeled with names in thick black marker. Whitney took inventory the way some people prayed. It steadied her. Her gaze stopped—without meaning to—on a section of shelving marked with neatly printed initials: P.G. Her fingers lifted, almost absentmindedly, and “walked” up the plastic and juvenile packaging of the adult-sized diapers stacked there, the crinkle of it whispering under her touch. The packages looked out of place in the closet the way a winter coat looks out of place hanging in July. Except they were here. They were real. And they were staring back at her like a responsibility with a name. Whitney’s face softened. A half-hearted yet warm smile tugged at her mouth as she thought about the young man—her “biggest” student now, the one her care had expanded to in a way she hadn’t expected when she took this job. Most days, she still couldn’t quite wrap her head around it: a senior. Nearly grown. Brilliant eyes when he let you see them. And yet— She remembered how they first met. Eye contact limited. Pride like armor. His jaw set when he said he’d keep his pull-ups on him at all times, like the words themselves could turn it into a choice instead of a need. The first time he asked for a change—quietly, carefully—because he’d forgotten his spares and had nothing left to hide behind. The look of fear and humiliation when she’d first had to tape him into a brief. The way his whole body had stiffened, then loosened, when she kept her voice normal and her hands steady. Whitney had asked around quietly after that. Not gossip. Not prying. Just… context. His teachers were consistent: intelligence, comprehension, speaking ability—“a politician in waiting,” one of them had said with a kind of wistful certainty, like it was a story that should’ve been simpler than it was. But then the softer voices. A guidance counselor had mentioned an innocence, said with a fondness that didn’t fully hide the worry. Another teacher used the word immaturity—outside the classroom, socially, developmentally—not as an insult, not as punishment, but as a fact that sat beside everything else. Not troublemaker. Not delinquent. Just… young in a way that didn’t match his age. His history teacher had once told Whitney, quietly, that sometimes when she looked out and saw him sitting at his desk, there was a youthful, childlike naivety in his posture that seemed to hold him back—not academically, but in the space between people.  Whitney let her fingers linger on the packaging a second longer than necessary, then pulled down a fresh diaper and shut the closet. Today would be his first day back. And she’d promised herself—silently, firmly—that she would be what she’d always been in this room: Safe. Professional. Unshockable. She stepped into the changing room and set the diaper on the counter like it belonged there—because it did. She glanced at her watch, then at the table, then at the door, and waited with patient stillness that looked easy but was built from practice. In her hands, the diaper unfolded with a soft crinkle. The pattern felt almost more mature than Paul’s Step-In trainers—almost. Geometric shapes, ABCs and 123s printed on the top of the waistband. It was trying, in its own way, to bridge a gap that shouldn’t exist. Whitney’s mouth pressed into a line that wasn’t judgment. Just thought. Then—right on cue—the blue annex door opened. And in stepped Paul. He looked ever more “puppy dog” than pitbull this morning, his shoulders slightly rounded, fingers fidgeting with the sleeves of his school hoodie. His eyes stayed low, like eye contact would make the moment heavier. “Good morning,” he said—quiet, polite, thin. Whitney saw the signs immediately. The way he carried his breath. The tension in his jaw. The split-second pause before each step, as if he was listening for sound he prayed nobody else could hear. She answered with her own quiet, “Good morning,” and let warmth live in her tone without making it a big deal. As she spoke, her fingers began unfolding the diaper on the spot—no dramatic movements, no “announcement,” no pause that told him this was strange. In Whitney’s hands, it was routine. Paul blushed anyway. Because to him, none of it felt routine. His thoughts wandered backward, dragged by the anxiety that always tried to write his story for him.   Bryan kept his eyes forward, hands steady on the wheel, but his attention was split three ways: the road, the clock on the dash, and his son in the passenger seat. Paul sat stiffly, hoodie zipped too high, shoulders drawn in. He stared out the window like the neighborhood houses were something he had to memorize before they disappeared forever. Bryan spoke gently, not like a lecture, not like a warning—more like a map. “So,” he began, voice low and even, “Whitney walked us through the school side of things. I know we touched on this a few days ago but I wanted to make sure you hear it again before school starts. Same facts. No surprises.” Paul nodded once, jaw tight. Bryan continued, choosing words carefully, “So once the school is officially responsible for your care during the day, certain rules kick in. State rules. They’re not optional, and they’re not personal.” Paul swallowed. “It means,” Bryan said, “when you arrive wearing one, your first stop is Whitney’s office. Not class. Not homeroom. Her office.” Paul’s fingers curled into the fabric of his hoodie. “She checks if you’re dry,” Bryan went on, steady, “and”—a pause, brief but deliberate—“clean. Before the day starts.” The word sat between them. Paul’s tracker pulsed. Yellow. “If you need the restroom,” Bryan said, “and the brief can be reused, you can take it off, use the toilet, and come back to be retaped. But school bathrooms are off-limits unless you’re accompanied.” Paul shifted in his seat. “The staff member who will accompany you,” Bryan finished quietly, “will be Whitney.” The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was thick with meaning—law, safety, dignity, all braided together whether they liked it or not. “I know,” Bryan added, softer now, “this feels like control. Like something being taken from you. But it’s not about trust. It’s about risk. And the school has to answer to the law before it answers to feelings.” Paul nodded again. And that’s when his body chose to speak. The tracker flared—not red, not dramatic—just enough. A sharp spike of sensation bloomed low and warm, spreading fast, unstoppable. Paul froze, breath hitching, as the reality settled in. He was soaking his diaper. Right there. Right now. His face stayed neutral by force of will alone, but Bryan saw it anyway. He always did. The slight tightening around Paul’s eyes. The way his shoulders lifted like he was bracing for impact. Bryan glanced over just once—quick, careful—and read his son’s face like a second language. “Hey,” he said gently. “Do you want to go back home and change before school?” It was an offer. An exit. A kindness. Paul’s chest burned. Upset at his condition. Upset at his life. Upset at the wet diaper he could feel pressing against him, heavy and accusing. Upset that even when he tried to be grown, his body pulled him backward. For a split second, the urge to run—to rewind the morning, to pretend none of this was happening—rose sharp and tempting. Then something steadied. A stubborn line inside him. A refusal. “No,” Paul said. The word came out quieter than he meant. He cleared his throat and tried again, voice firmer, forcing dignity into every syllable. “I can’t—I mean, I don’t want to go home.” Bryan waited. Didn’t rush him. “I’m just,” Paul continued, swallowing hard, “going to go to Whitney and ask for a change.” He said it like a decision. Like a promise. Bryan nodded once, slow and deliberate. “Okay,” he said. But his tone said so much more, layered with pride in son’s determination to try and get back a sense of normalcy. That’s facing it head-on. I’m proud of you. Now—back in the annex—his courage felt like it was down to its last breath. Whitney’s voice stayed calm, professional, warm without being sugary. “Go ahead and take off your hoodie and jeans,” she instructed gently. “So I can help inspect your diaper.” She didn’t say brief. She didn’t soften it into something cute. She used the real word. And for a moment, the air in the room thinned, like language itself had weight. Paul’s fingers moved slowly, awkwardly. Hoodie first. Then the jeans. His tracker pulsed. Yellow. His face stayed neutral anyway. Whitney kept hers steady too. What she saw next didn’t shock her—not really. If it had been any other student, maybe it would’ve landed differently. But Paul’s care leaned on the younger side of things in a way that had become part of her reality. What other eighteen-year-old still had a pediatrician instead of just a family doctor? Whitney thought it without judgment, just context—one more example of how his life had been rerouted in ways most people never had to imagine. Paul stood before her now in an adult-sized onesie. Whitney could see his padding was soaked, the bulk heavier than it should be this early. And—were those plastic pants? Whitney didn’t blink. Whatever his needs were, she would provide the care she was professionally entrusted to give—and personally wanted to. Not because she pitied him. Because she respected him. She pointed to the table with a gentle nod. “Go ahead and lie down.” Paul obeyed, jaw clenched tight enough to ache. Whitney gloved both hands with practiced efficiency. The snap of latex was quiet but sharp in the small room, like punctuation. She looked down at him with a warm, gentle smile that made her professionalism feel human, not sterile. Then she began unsnapping Paul’s onesie. And Paul—staring up at the ceiling again, the fluorescent light blurring at the edges—tried to keep his mind somewhere else. Anywhere else. But the tracker on his wrist stayed awake. And it kept telling the truth, even when Paul didn’t.   Martina stepped back into the Goldhawks’ home the way someone does when a chapter has already turned—but the pages are still warm. The door barely had time to close behind her before Lilly was pulling her into a hug, coffee forgotten on the side table, Bryan’s voice already layered over it with an easy, genuine warmth. “Congratulations,” Lilly said first, breathless, her smile wide and unguarded. “Truly,” Bryan added, stepping in to squeeze Martina’s shoulder. “We’ve been dying to hear everything.” For once, the living room wasn’t a place where bad news had to be managed or softened. Sunlight poured through the tall windows, catching on the polished wood of the coffee table. Fresh pastries—still flaky, still warm—sat on a ceramic platter between mugs of coffee that steamed lazily into the air. The furniture was pulled closer together than usual, as if the room itself wanted to lean in. They gathered there easily, knees angled toward one another, the way people do when the story is good and the ending—at least for now—is happy. Martina let out a small, disbelieving laugh as she sat. “It still doesn’t feel real,” she said, shaking her head. “The last three days have been a whirlwind. I don’t think I’ve stopped crying since Tuesday—and not all of it sad, I promise.” She spoke like a mother still catching her breath. “Tears at the airport. Tears at dinner. Tears in the car for absolutely no reason,” she went on, smiling through it. “Happy ones. Grief ones. Pride ones. All tangled up together.” Lilly nodded, understanding that language immediately. She had lived in that liminal space long enough to recognize it—where joy doesn’t erase fear, and fear doesn’t cancel pride. “And Amber,” Martina continued, her voice softening in a way that made Bryan sit up just a little straighter. “Amber got accepted to the University of South Carolina. Full ride.” She pressed a hand to her chest, as if steadying something that still felt too big. “First in our family. First one. I can’t even—” Her voice broke, just slightly. “I couldn’t be prouder if I tried.” She didn’t rush past it. She let the words sit, let them breathe. “She walked around Orlando like the world had finally tilted toward her,” Martina added quietly. “Not loud about it. Just… lighter. Marcus never let go of her hand. Not once. At dinner, at the engagement party, even walking between cars. Like he was saying, I’ve got you, without making a show of it.” Bryan could see it without trying—the way Amber used to tuck herself inward, the way she now stood taller without forcing it. He felt a tug in his chest that wasn’t jealousy, exactly, but recognition. “They hosted us at this little restaurant near the water,” Martina went on, warming to the memory. “Long tables pushed together. His family, ours, laughing too loud, ordering too much food. Someone started a toast that turned into three. Marcus’s aunt cried so hard we had to pass her napkins like communion.” Martina laughed softly. “And Amber—she just kept smiling. Like she finally believed she was allowed to have all of it.” Lilly felt a pang she didn’t immediately name. Not envy. Not resentment. Something closer to mourning for the version of the future she once assumed would be symmetrical. Bryan reached across the table without thinking, his hand finding Martina’s and squeezing gently. “You know,” he said quietly, “it wasn’t the house that gave Amber such a solid foundation. It was the people in it. Especially her mother.” Martina’s eyes shimmered. “Still,” she said, squeezing back, “if it hadn’t been for you—and for Rachel’s memory living in those walls for so many years—I don’t know if Amber would’ve had the same start. I really don’t.” The room went still for a moment. Not heavy. Just honest. As Martina continued describing Orlando—the dancing, the late nights, the laughter that came easier than expected—Bryan felt his thoughts begin to drift. Not intentionally. Not cruelly. But images rose unbidden. Amber, radiant and anchored, stepping into a future built on motion and choice and independence. And then Paul. Paul navigating a present that required routines and layers and planning just to stay upright. Lilly felt it too. The comparison wasn’t spoken, but it hummed beneath the conversation like a second frequency neither of them could quite turn off. Two kids who’d grown up side by side. Two futures now pulling in different directions. It was Martina who brought it gently into the open. “So,” she asked, folding her hands together, her tone careful and kind, “what news do you have about Paul?” The shift was immediate. Not abrupt—but unmistakable. Bryan and Lilly exchanged a look that carried more than words ever could. Then Bryan stood, offering Martina his hand. “Come upstairs,” he said. “We’ll show you.” Paul’s room felt different these days. Not worse. Just… reorganized around need. Bryan demonstrated how the changing table opened and closed, the hinges soft and deliberate, designed for repetition rather than emergency. Lilly explained the routine in careful layers—daily diaper changes timed around meals and school, naps that were no longer optional but necessary resets, clothing choices that balanced dignity with access. “At home,” Lilly said, opening a drawer, “we keep things simple. Soft. Predictable. He can have a really rough morning—angry, withdrawn, overwhelmed—and then twenty minutes later he’s carrying around that Batman plush like it’s oxygen, asking for a hug like nothing else exists.” She paused, swallowing. “And both of those things are real,” she added. “The struggle and the softness.” “This isn’t about taking anything away from him,” Bryan said quietly. “It’s about making sure his body doesn’t sabotage him when his mind is already exhausted.” Lilly knelt and opened the baby-blue plastic bin. Inside were toys—some familiar, some new. Blocks. Plush animals. Simple things chosen not to diminish Paul, but to meet him where his nervous system could breathe. “Some days he pushes these away,” Lilly said softly. “Other days he clings to them. Yesterday he asked if Batman could ‘stay with him’ during his nap.” Her voice caught. “He’s still Paul. He’s just… carrying more than his body knows how to hold.” Martina watched quietly. She saw the fear in Lilly’s eyes—the unspoken question of whether she was asking too much. She saw the guilt and anger braided together in Bryan’s posture—the helplessness of a father who couldn’t fix what he loved. And in herself, she felt the impossible math of it all. A daughter stepping forward into love and independence. A boy she loved just as fiercely learning how to live inside new limits. How do I scale back? Martina thought—not aloud, but deep in her chest. How do I hold both without losing either? She turned back to them with a smile that was gentle, not performative. Reassuring without being dismissive. “I’m here,” she said simply. “For Paul. And for my daughter. Their lives are changing, yes—but my love doesn’t need to shrink to make room. It can stretch.” She reached for Lilly’s hand, then Bryan’s. “However you need me,” Martina continued, voice steady now, “I’m here. For both of them.” The room exhaled.   The stage itself breathed. Every shuffle of feet, every cough, every whispered line echoed and softened at the same time, absorbed by velvet curtains and scarred wooden boards polished smooth by decades of blocking marks and nervous pacing. Ghost light off. House lights low. Stage lights warming to half, casting long amber pools across the floor. Paul stood just inside the wing, toes hovering near the tape mark, not crossing it yet. His wrist buzzed faintly. Not loud enough for anyone else to hear. Just enough for him to feel. He didn’t look down, but he didn’t have to. Yellow. Not danger. Not panic. But warning. Elevated. A body quietly saying pay attention even while his face stayed neutral, carefully composed. He rolled his shoulders once, subtly, like loosening a knot, then pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth—grounding habits he’d picked up without realizing when. He felt too visible. Too exposed. The stage lights weren’t even fully up yet and already it felt like they could see through him. Then the lights shifted. A tech adjusted a barn door, and the beam swept across center stage—clean, white, unforgiving—and something caught it and flashed back brighter than anything else in the room. Amber’s ring. Paul clocked it instantly. Before thought. Before defense. A precise glint, sharp as a bell tone. Engaged. His tracker pulsed again. Still yellow. Holding. The word didn’t hurt the way he’d imagined it might. It landed quieter than that. Heavier. Like a weight settling somewhere behind his sternum, changing the balance of everything else without cracking it. He looked up fully then. Amber stood near center stage, script folded neatly against her chest, posture open and assured in a way that came from repetition, not arrogance. She looked… settled. Confident. Happy in a way that wasn’t loud. Adult happiness—the kind that doesn’t need to announce itself because it expects to be believed. Paul felt the split happen immediately. I should be happy for her. I want to disappear. Both thoughts existed at once, parallel and incompatible, neither winning. Amber turned. Her eyes found him instantly. For a fraction of a second—less than a breath—the world narrowed to that shared look. From Paul’s side, it felt like stepping into a photograph he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. He saw her confidence first, the ease in her shoulders, the future that sat so naturally on her now. The ring was proof of trajectory—forward motion, plans that made sense. She looked like someone who knew where she was going and trusted that the ground would be there when she stepped. It made him feel… paused. His tracker flickered—yellow holding steady, not spiking, not easing. Suspended. Amber’s perspective cut differently. She saw Paul standing just off the light, half in shadow, shoulders drawn in slightly as if he were bracing against a breeze no one else could feel. He looked thinner to her—not physically, exactly, but emotionally compacted. Smaller than she remembered, yes, but not diminished. There was apprehension there, a carefulness in how he held himself, like someone learning a new gravity. And underneath it—she saw it. The glint. The passion hadn’t gone anywhere. It sat behind his eyes, quieter now, banked like coals instead of flame, but unmistakably alive. The stage still had him. He just wasn’t sure yet if the rest of the world did. Amber’s chest tightened. She smiled. Paul felt the pull to wait—to let her speak first, to take the temperature—but his big side pushed forward before his little side could retreat. “Hey,” he said, stepping fully onto the stage. His voice carried. The boards felt familiar under his shoes. The tracker buzzed once more—yellow, but softer now, less insistent. “Welcome back.” Amber blinked, surprised—and then genuinely warmed by it. “Thank you,” she said. Paul nodded once, then added, because it mattered that it comes from him, “And… congratulations.” He gestured lightly toward her hand, not staring, not avoiding it either. Just acknowledging the obvious. Amber’s shoulders softened. Relief crossed her face before she could hide it. “Thank you,” she said again, quieter this time. “That really means a lot.” She stepped forward before he could recalibrate. The hug happened fast. Too fast for Paul to brace for it properly. Amber wrapped her arms around him with earnest warmth—no hesitation, no calculation. It was meant to reassure, to reconnect, to say I’m still me. For Paul, it was… awkward. His arms hovered a fraction too long before returning the gesture, his body stiff for half a beat before he forced himself to soften. He was acutely aware of everything at once—the way the stage lights caught the dust in the air, the sound of his own breathing, the proximity of another person when he already felt overexposed. His tracker buzzed sharply— Yellow spiked. Then steadied. Amber pulled back quickly, reading the tension, not offended—just adjusting. “You okay?” she asked gently. “Yeah,” Paul said, immediately. “Yeah, I’m good.” It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth. She studied him for a second longer, eyes kind but perceptive. “You look… different.” Paul huffed a soft, humorless breath. “So I’ve been told.” Not accusation. Not invitation. Just an observation hanging between them. Paul felt his shoulders loosen a notch. The tracker pulsed again. Yellow… then green. Amber smiled at that. She believed him. Around them, the room shifted. Scripts rustled. Someone dropped a pencil. The casual energy of warm-up began to sharpen. Then Declan’s voice cut through it all like a snapped baton. “Alright, lads and ladies—let’s stop flirtin’ with the idea of rehearsal and actually rehearse, yeah?” His Irish lilt rolled through the theater, equal parts charm and command. “Marks on stage, heads outta your arses. We’re workin’ like professionals today.” The effect was immediate. Paul exhaled. Fully this time. The stage claimed him back.   Declan’s voice had called them into this sequence like a drumbeat. “Positions. Quiet in the house. We run it clean.” Clean. Professional. It was Paul’s favorite kind of instruction because it gave him somewhere to put himself: inside the work, inside the line, inside the rhythm. Jem was safe. Paul wasn’t. Declan signaled. And the speakers crackled to life. A recording began—Amber’s voice, older and reflective, playing through the theater system the way a memory plays through the body even when you don’t invite it. SCOUT (VOICE — older, reflective) That was Jem. Always checking the edges. Always standing where the wind hit first. Amber stood there in the present, listening to her own voice, and it made something inside her tighten—because the words were about Jem, but the person in front of her was Paul, and she wasn’t sure how far the overlap went anymore. Paul drew in a breath. The stage lights shifted slightly. And the scene began. They entered together, closer than before, their pace unhurried—two shapes moving through a quiet that felt loaded. JEM “You ever notice how the town feels different when it’s quiet?” Paul delivered it gently, like he was letting the line land in someone’s hands instead of throwing it. Amber answered in step, her face set in Scout’s blunt honesty. SCOUT “That’s because nobody’s watching.” JEM “Exactly. No eyes. No opinions. Just… space.” He stretched his arms wide, taking up room. And for a split second, a truth slipped under the character: Space is what I don’t have anymore. JEM (CONT’D) “I like nights like this. Makes you forget who you’re supposed to be.” Amber nudged him, Scout teasing Jem, but Amber’s eyes stayed on Paul’s face a beat longer than the blocking required. SCOUT “You saying you don’t like who you are?” Jem considered this. Shrugged. JEM “I like who I am right now.” A beat. JEM (lighter, teasing) “Tomorrow—different story.” Somewhere offstage, a cast member shifted weight and whispered, barely audible: “Jesus… that sounded too real.” Leo—Atticus—stood in the wing, half-hidden by curtain, watching like he’d forgotten he was supposed to be waiting for his entrance. His face wasn’t neutral. It was openly enthralled, like he was witnessing something rare and didn’t want to break it by blinking. Amber—Scout—nudged again. SCOUT “You worry too much.” JEM “Someone has to.” He slowed. Looked at her. JEM (CONT’D) “You good?” SCOUT “I’m fine.” They walked again. The speakers carried Amber’s recorded voice over them like a shadow of the future: SCOUT (VOICE — older, reflective) That’s when his shoulders changed. Like he already knew the ending. A sound joined theirs. A soft, irregular footstep. Paul stopped completely. Not because the blocking said to—because his body recognized threat the way it always did now: before his mind could rationalize it. JEM (low, steady) “Scout.” Amber stopped. SCOUT “What?” Paul’s voice tightened into control. JEM “Stay close.” She did. Another step. Closer. The sound system didn’t add music—Declan had insisted: No score. Let the silence work. Let them carry it. The light shifted. Shadows stretched unnaturally across the boards. The Shadow appeared—never fully visible, a shape at the edge of sight, exactly as the staging required. Paul angled his body subtly, instinctively, between Scout and whatever was coming. JEM (voice firm, controlled) “We’re just walking home.” Silence.   Then—The Attack. The Shadow hit Jem first. Stylized, choreographed, safe—except Paul’s nervous system didn’t care what was safe anymore. The impact echoed through his arm in a way his body interpreted too literally, too fast. Amber was thrown backward into a tight pool of light. The music cut. Completely. Every sound became the stage breathing and Paul’s body. They held tableau. Everyone froze. Scout mid-reach. The Shadow mid-motion. Only Jem moved. Only Paul moved. And this was where the line between acting and living snapped into something frighteningly thin. Paul tried to breathe. Failed. He gripped his arm. A sharp, involuntary sound escaped him—not a scream yet. JEM (through breath) “No— no—no—” He tried to straighten his arm. Bad choice. His body betrayed him. And the betrayal was familiar. Not because he’d ever broken his arm before—because he knew that sensation of my body is not listening to me. JEM (raw, uncontrolled) “Ah— God—Scout—” Paul dropped to one knee. Still no music. Every sound was him. Breath. Fabric. A choked cry he tried to swallow and couldn’t. JEM (voice cracking, not heroic) “I can’t— I can’t feel—” He looked at his arm like it didn’t belong to him. Panic hit. Real panic. Not character panic. Paul panic. The tracker on his wrist vibrated hard against his skin—yellow flaring hotter, edging toward orange, begging him to regulate—but regulation required safety, and safety required control, and he didn’t feel like he had either. JEM “Scout— Scout, I can’t—” His voice broke fully now. A guttural, human sound—pain without words. He tried to stand. Failed. Offstage, someone whispered again, louder this time because they couldn’t help it: “He does know this is practise right?” Leo—still in the wing—didn’t laugh. Didn’t flinch. He stared like he was watching someone drown and couldn’t decide whether to jump in or pray. In the audience, Julia sat frozen. Not because she thought it was just good acting. Because she knew. She knew what had changed. Earlier that morning, the school’s head nurse—and Paul’s parents—had called her. Quietly. Carefully. They’d told her the rules now. The privacy. The care needs. The promise that nothing would be made public, nothing would become gossip. Julia had agreed immediately.\ And watching him now—watching Paul pour something raw into Jem’s pain—her heart fractured in a way she couldn’t show anyone. Because what broke her wasn’t the scene. It was the realization that Paul’s gift—the thing that made him shine—was now braided tightly with the thing that made him vulnerable. Onstage, Paul’s breathing became shallow. His eyes fluttered. JEM (soft now, fading) “Hey… hey… don’t—” He lost consciousness. His body went slack as he “fell” face first down onto the stage. It was perfect. It was terrifying. It was too believable. Declan stood near the edge of the stage, arms crossed, jaw tight—not the hardness of critique, but the restraint of someone deeply moved who refused to show it. Veteran instincts told him this was rare: the kind of performance you didn’t teach, you only witnessed. The tableau broke. Scout rushed to Jem. SCOUT “Jem— Jem—no, no, no—” Amber’s recorded voice threaded over it again like a prophecy: SCOUT (VOICE — overlapping, helpless) That’s when I knew. Before the doctors. Before the cast. I heard it in his voice.   And then it happened.   It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t intentional. It was physics. Her foot slipped on the edge of a tape mark. She pitched forward—caught herself—and fell onto him. Declan, from his position, had a flash of instinctive approval before his brain could correct it. But Amber’s right hand landed square on Paul’s behind. The squish and crinkle was impossible for Amber to ignore.   The world narrowed. She froze for a fraction of a second. Not because she was judging. Because she suddenly understood something she hadn’t been told. Her palm stayed there a heartbeat too long before she pulled it back like it had been burned. Paul’s eyes flashed open. Fear first. Then guilt. Then embarrassment so sharp it felt like his skin turned inside out. His body screamed: run, run and never look back. But Jem couldn’t run. And Paul—Paul didn’t know where he’d even run to. Amber’s mind spun, fast and quiet. Pull-ups. She had thought pull-ups. Temporary. She had thought temporary. Manageable. But this—this was different. This was heavier. This was… more. What changed? What happened to my friend? Her face stayed in character because the stage demanded it. But her eyes were no longer acting. Amber gathered him instinctively, awkwardly, protectively—her arms cradling his head the way a person does when they’re not acting at all, when they’ve forgotten the audience exists. Paul stayed limp, as scripted. She turned Jem over, cradled his head in her arms, and leaned down—close enough that to the audience it looked like urgent tenderness. To Paul, it felt like the edge of a cliff. His eyes closed again in character. His breathing shallow. And Amber—still holding Jem, still Scout in the body—whispered into Paul’s ear, voice so quiet only he could hear it: “Paul why are you wearing diapers?”

I would want to be stuck around age 7, my mother's cuddles and cooking. 

I've put on cloth diapers straight out of the dryer.   Wonderful feeling.  

Same as always: Lose weight. So hard to do