MinnesotaWriter

Epilogue “Sorry, we don’t accept credit cards,” said the woman behind the counter at the courthouse clerk’s office. The portly woman tapped a pudgy finger against the glass barrier that separated the county workers behind the counter from the public, alerting us to a small sign stuck to the glass that did clearly state that credit cards weren’t an acceptable form of payment at the courthouse. Uncle James returned his credit card to his wallet, which he flipped open to check if he had enough cash to cover the sixty-five-dollar fee required to file the form. “All I’ve got is a twenty,” he said. “Honey, can you check your purse?” Aunt Lydia lifted her faux leather purse onto the granite countertop before unzipping it. Sixty-five dollars was such a small fee for something so life changing. I really hoped my aunt had enough cash on-hand to cover the remaining forty-five dollars. We lived all the way on the opposite side of the county from the courthouse. I didn’t want to have to come back another day. My aunt discovered a wad of bills in her purse, sifting through them until she had the right amount. She slid the money to the clerk through a small gap beneath the glass divider. The woman flipped through the bills, counting them out loud as they smacked against the counter. Twenty. Forty. Fifty. Sixty. Sixty-five. With the bills inserted into a cash register, I watched through the finger-print-smeared glass as the clerk went to the back of the room, where gray, metal cabinet files lined the walls. She pulled open a couple of creaky drawers before at last finding the form we were requesting, sliding it underneath the glass to my aunt, who handed the single sheet of cream-colored paper to me. “A little young to be doing that,” the woman muttered to no one in particular. I ignored the remark. What does she know, anyways? The title of the form was listed on the top left side of the paper in a blocky typeface: Request for Name Change. I grabbed a pen from the jar on the counter, removed the cap, and filled out the first few spots in blue ink with relative ease, listing today’s date, my address, and my birth name. I paused and took a deep breath as I reached the end of the form. My fingertips were beginning to get sweaty. Why am I so nervous? This is what I wanted, after all. A clean break. Severing the one remaining public tie I had to mother. I had thought carefully about what I wanted to change my name to. I wanted something shorter and simple, without any obvious negative associations. Annabelle was too long. Too formal. I also didn’t want to use a nickname. I’d made a list and settled on my choice several weeks ago. I had wanted to go to the courthouse right away, but Aunt Lydia insisted that I wait to make sure I wasn’t having any second thoughts about my choice. Steadying my hand at last, I held the pen above the section where it asked me to fill in my new first name. I wrote four letters in a neat, printed script: Lisa.

Been wondering about this for a while, but I've been curious about what people's thoughts are on how diapers are described in stories. It really can be broken down into four options: Naming the diaper brand (i.e. Goodnites, Pampers, Depends, etc...) Using real-life brands, but only describing how the diapers/pull-ups look and not actually giving the brand name Creating fictional diaper brands for the story No connection to any real-life/fictional brands For me, what's worked best with my stories is to avoid directly stating the brand names and to instead give a thorough description of what the diapers or pull-ups look like. Most brands have fairly distinctive designs so it's still clear to readers what brand is being talked about. I've always found it a bit weird when a story is cluttered with a bunch of diaper brand references, though I suppose it could work under certain circumstances. However, I'm not going to reference Goodnites in every other paragraph unless Kimberly-Clark is paying me to do so. What are your preferences as readers/writers?

Yeah, I wrote the legal scenes more in the sense of what would make sense story wise than trying to make it super realistic. John Grisham, I am not. There is an epilogue coming. So the story isn't technically over yet. And while for some stories, an epilogue is like an appendix, where it is nice to have, but not really needed, this one is a more vital organ in terms of framing the story in a proper context. That would be quite the interesting product. Would make for a good prank, maybe an April Fools story.

Don't worry, you'll find out exactly what Lisa is going to tell Sarah. Cliffhangers just happen to be the best places to end chapter. And yeah, Sarah's mother mentioned earlier that she had been a bedwetter, but she hasn't elaborated yet on what that experience was like for her. Absolutely, the biggest thing will be how Sarah reacts to Lisa's story once she has heard it. Yep, you'll be getting Lisa's backstory next. ? We'll have to see. It seems more like Sarah and Lisa are wanting to fight the need to wear diapers rather than accept it at the moment.

Chapter 11: Diapers Never Lie Present time... A half-dozen Corinthian columns lined the courthouse façade as I walked up the stone steps with my aunt and uncle on either side of me, the building still as imposing as my first visit several months ago. I was no less afraid of entering through the wide, oak doors than I had been before, though for far different reasons. The interior of the courthouse was spacious. From the atrium at the entrance, I could see all the way up to the fourth and highest floor, where the family court proceedings would take place. Paintings of former judges -- their legal garb providing a sense of gravitas – lined the walls. The building was oppressive in its grandeur, instilling a sense of dread as I meandered through the wide hallways. I was dressed for the occasion in a sleeveless, deep-blue dress that flared out at the waist, disguising the outline of my diaper. Aunt Lydia had helped me with putting my shoulder-length hair into an elaborate braid that hung off the right side of my head. To complete the outfit, I had on a pair of inch-high heels, the first time I had ever worn any in public. Even that small addition to my height felt almost overwhelming, but I had spent almost an hour practicing walking back and forth in them in my bedroom, so I didn't have any difficulty maintaining my balance. We made our way to the elevators, located to the side of the centuries-old building, a recent drywall addition that was out of place with the original architecture. A sign indicating that the ladies' restroom was around the corner provided a reminder that I really should make a trip to the toilet before the hearing. I tugged at Aunt Lydia's arm, embarrassed to announce in public I needed to go to the restroom. My aunt was thankfully on the same page as me, and she told me that they'd wait for me by the elevator until I was done doing my business. We'd arrived at the courthouse early enough that I didn't have to rush to make sure we would be on time for the hearing. Three of the five stalls were already occupied. My only options were two stalls that would leave me with someone to either side of me. After taking the remaining stall that was furthest from the restroom's entrance, I double checked that the stall door was securely latched shut. I hitched my dress up and lowered the pair of pink compression shorts I was wearing on top of the diaper before taking a seat on the toilet. Removing the diaper so that I could have access to the toilet presented a challenge. Yes, the Velcro tapes meant I could remove both the tabs from one side of the diaper to slide it down my legs while being able to put it back on after I was done, but there wasn't any way to quietly undo the tabs. I could rip them off all at once, louder, but it would be over quicker, or slowly ease the tabs slowly off and deal with the extended sound of the Velcro parting. I have never been comfortable in public restrooms. My earliest memories of them were of when I was still small enough to fit on the baby changing tables, of always turning my head to face the wall so as not to make eye contact with everyone else coming in to use the restroom. I would have been four, maybe five years old at the time. Old enough at least to know that it wasn't normal for me to still be wearing a pull-up or diaper. Mother would send my younger sister Elaine, who, of course, was already fully toilet trained, into an empty stall before lifting me up onto the hard plastic of the changing table hanging from the wall. I'm certain these changing tables were intended to have a parent place some type of mat or cover on top of it for both comfort and sanitary reasons, but mother never had a changing pad packed with her, leaving me to lie in discomfort on the plastic surface. Then there was a safety strap, which mother always secured on top of me, as if I were a squirmy toddler who couldn't be trusted to hold still for a diaper change. A solitary woman or girl coming into the restroom during a diaper change wasn't usually an issue. If they paused to gawk at the girl who was clearly big enough to be toilet trained, I at least remained unaware of their lingering gaze. But a group of women, or even worse, a mother and daughter, gave rise to the possibility of them conversing about the strange sight taking place in front of them. Comments that, no matter how discreetly they may have been intended to be, always seemed to carry across the restroom. Now, as much as I disliked needing to change my own diaper in a bathroom stall – the cramped space provided little room to maneuver while taping on a diaper – using the toilet in a so-called normal way was no less embarrassing. I had never had the chance to get used to performing my bodily functions around others. Hearing the splash of urine into the toilet bowl while someone was in an adjacent stall was enough to make my face turn beet red. A toilet trip that should have only lasted several minutes might take much longer, as I worked up the courage to go. I waited a couple minutes until my neighbor in the stall to my left flushed her toilet, using that noise to disguise the sound of quickly ripping off the two tapes. I kept the diaper between my knees, making sure not to lower it all the way to the floor, where it might be visible to someone looking underneath the stall. And I waited another couple of minutes for the next toilet to flush, giving me cover to urinate. My bladder emptied easily; I had gotten better at making myself go even when I didn't have an urgent need to do so. Wearing a pull-up would have made this whole process easier, but nothing would be worse than having a leak during the court hearing, so the diaper had been a necessary choice. --- The courtroom we had been assigned was smaller than I had expected, and the compact nature of the room left me closer to mother than I would have wanted to be. We had entered the room with our attorneys only minutes before the hearing was to begin. Mother was seated by herself in the second row on the left side of the room. She didn't turn around when my uncle pulled open the door to the courtroom and ushered us in. I squeezed ahead of my aunt and immediately walked into the back row on the right side of the room, putting as much space between myself and mother as I possibly could. I kept my eyes focused on the front of the room, a rising wooden podium where the judge would be seated, refusing to make so much as a glance in mother's direction. The side of the room had a couple of rows of empty benches where a jury could be seated, but, in our case, the judge would be the only person responsible for determining my fate. Seated in the front row, with a sign indicating it was for witnesses, were my therapist, Miss Amanda, and one of the doctors who had worked with me at the hospital, whose name escaped me. Everyone stood as the judge entered the courtroom from a door on the opposite side. She was an older woman, with short, curly silver hair, who was wearing a long black robe, her face carrying a serious expression as she surveyed the courtroom, before smacking her gavel to bring the hearing to a start. The mundanity of the lawyers' initial arguments belied the seriousness of whatever the outcome would entail, and I struggled to follow all of what they were saying. My thoughts drifted to the last time I had seen mother lying on the floor of the mobile home. I hadn't known the extent of her injuries at the time, but I found out afterward that the gun had been loaded with birdshot, and my wayward shot had only hit her in the shoulder. Mother's inebriated state had been as much to blame for her passing out as her injuries, which, while outwardly messy, had in fact been minor as far as gunshot wounds go. Her immediate recovery had been one of the reasons the judge had been lenient in not considering more serious charges. I tried to regain my focus on the proceedings as the judge was questioning my mother's attorney. "Suppose I was to award custody of Annabelle to her mother," the judge said, addressing the attorney for my mother. "Are you telling me that Mrs. Lee feels safe living with her daughter?" That was a good question. I couldn't picture trying to kill mother again, not because I didn't find myself capable of it, but because I refused to contemplate a scenario in which I ended up living with her. The attorney paused before providing an answer, appearing as though he was attempting to choose precisely what words he was about to use. "No, I'm not inferring that my client would feel say living with her daughter." Good. I was glad to hear that bitch was scared of me, but even more puzzled as to why the custody case was being pursued in the first place. The judge appeared just as puzzled as I was. Her upper lip stiffened, and she leaned forward in her chair. "If Mrs. Lee doesn't feel safe in caring for her daughter, why is she objecting to the state having awarded custody of Annabelle to her aunt and uncle?" "Mrs. Lee loves her daughter, and is pursuing custody for Annabelle's own good," the attorney began. I started to stand up. I wanted to yell something, anything, in objection to the bullshit the attorney was spewing. Aunt Lydia's arm caught me in the waist and forced me back down onto the bench. We briefly exchanged glances and the look she gave me told me I had come perilously close to getting into serious trouble. I had no choice but to sit uneasily and listen to what my mother's attorney had to say. "The girl is clearly suffering from serious mental issues. Besides attempting to take her mother's life, she has several indicators of anti-social behavior. For one she lacks the mental capacity to properly use the toilet and has always had the need to wear diapers." The padding between my legs felt extra noticeable after that remark. Everyone in the room already knew about my incontinence, but that didn't mean that it was fair for the attorney to bring it up and use it against me. I slumped down on the bench. It was one thing to know that everyone knew I was wearing a diaper; it was something entirely else for it to be rubbed in my face. But the insults from my mother's attorney didn't end with his remarks about my bladder problems. He claimed I had displayed anti-social behavior during group therapy and that my suicide attempt demonstrated that I wasn't mentally stable. "That doesn't seem to be a case for why Mrs. Lee would want custody of her daughter," said the judge, interrupting the attorney again. "Your honor, the girl is clearly troubled, and no doubt the death of her father and sister may have played a role in that too. Her inability to adjust to society and the potential danger she possesses to others would be justification for Mrs. Lee to seek institutional care for her daughter should she regain custody of Annabelle." That was the last straw for me. He had pulled out the age-old threat mother had always held over my head when she was at her angriest. Mother's plan was clear. She wanted to have her cake and eat it too by getting me locked up while still getting the monthly checks. I stood too fast for Aunt Lydia to stop me. "That's a lie! She just wants the money!" The judge smacked her gavel down almost instantaneously as every eye in the courtroom turned to look at me. "Order, order," the judge said. "Young lady, you need to take a seat." Properly admonished, I hastily took a seat, though I couldn't help but notice the judge attempting to hold back the slightest of smiles on her face. Aunt Lydia leaned in to whisper in my ear. "Don't worry, when it's our attorney's turn, they'll have a rebuttal for what was just said." I took a deep breath and picked aimlessly at my fingernails while the hearing moved on. At last, it was our lawyers' turn to speak. My doctor and therapist were both called as witnesses. The doctor explained, in greater detail than I felt was necessary, that my bladder problems were an entirely physical issue, and didn't reflect one way or another on my mental capacity. Miss Amanda testified that my mother's attorney had misrepresented her therapy notes and that I had been socializing as well as could be expected, given my circumstances. We were nearly an hour into the hearing. Both sides were supposed to get thirty minutes apiece. And my bladder was aching. This wasn't the typical urge to urinate that makes you want to squirm and cross your legs. The kind where if you laughed too hard or got tickled in the wrong spot your bladder's floodgates might open up. This was painful. The only comparison that felt appropriate would be if my bladder itself was cramping up. No one would know if I wet the diaper. mean, this is why I had worn a diaper instead of a pull-up in the first place? The risk of a leak was basically non-existent. The diaper was absorbent enough that I could wear it the rest of the day with no leaks happening, not that I would ever do that given how uncomfortable that would be. Giving in would be so easy. Relax my bladder for fifteen, maybe twenty seconds. The diaper would take care of the rest. The pain would go away. I could live to fight another day. "Annabelle. Annabelle." My head jerked upright at the sound of my name. One of our attorneys had walked forward to the waist-high barrier that separated the audience from the remainder of the courtroom. The arguments from both sides had concluded. Now it was time for the judge to determine the outcome. "The judge would like to talk with you," he said before I could think of a non-embarrassing way to excuse myself to run off to the restroom. The woman seated up high on the bench was not the same one who had handled my earlier proceedings. I had to lift my chin up to look her in the face. What did she want with me? "I need to know how you feel about all of this," the judge intoned quietly enough that her voice wouldn't carry back to the audience. "Does it matter?" "It often does, but it's a question I always want to make sure to ask before coming to any custody decision." "I want to stay with my aunt and uncle." There wasn't any reason for either of us to have expected that answer to be different, but I nonetheless appreciated that I had been asked. But now the pain in my bladder was back. The momentary distraction of being called forward to talk with the judge had temporarily put it off my mind, but now the ache in my insides was back with a vengeance. "How much longer till the hearing is over?" "It will be another ten to fifteen minutes. I need to talk with the attorneys for a bit more before I announce my decision." That was longer than I would be able to wait. I paused. If I didn't ask, I was going to wet myself. "Can I be excused to go to the restroom," I whispered. "Of course you can," she said, completely unphased by the request. "Oh, and you can take your time. The hearing needs to stay on schedule, so we'll keep it moving without you. And you don't have anything to worry about. You'll be staying with your aunt and uncle." I wanted to skip out of the courtroom, but I remembered the attorney's advice about maintaining decorum, and I kept myself to a normal pace, stepping out into the hallway before my aunt and uncle even had a chance to ask me where I was going. Once the door shut behind me, I took a glance in both directions. With no one in sight, I jogged toward the far end of the hallway where the restrooms were located. I yanked the tapes off of the diaper, indifferent but not oblivious to the fact that others in the restroom would be able to hear it, though hopefully they wouldn't recognize what the sound meant. And even if they did figure out that I had a diaper on, I didn't care. At the moment, achieving the success of making it to the toilet without wetting myself was worth a bit of embarrassment. Whoever had coined the phrase "relieving yourself" had captured the almost paradisiacal feeling of emptying one's bladder, when all the tension of holding your muscles tighter and tighter against your will finally gives way to relaxation. It was only after I had relieved myself that I found time to dwell on the judge's decision which had brought a whole different sense of emotional relief. I hadn't anticipated her delivering a different verdict, but the moment hadn't become real until the minute she announced it. I gave the diaper a careful examination while putting it back on. The interior of the diaper was solid white, with not a single yellow stain in sight. I did it. It was, to be sure, a small victory, a minor battle that I'd won in the course of a much longer war. But for the first time in longer than I could remember, I was filled with a sense of unbridled hope that the war to gain control over my bladder was one I was capable of winning. No matter what needed to be done. No matter how long it took. After all, diapers never lie. --- Links to all of my stories are available at https://abdlwriter.wordpress.com

Chapter 29: Revelations I looked down at my pants. I shouldn’t have looked down at my pants. That was a dead giveaway. Consciousness of guilt. But the response had been reflexive. I couldn’t have not looked. But in the same sense, there wasn’t any point in looking. Either my pull-up was showing, or it wasn’t. I had been smart enough at least to make sure that my look down hadn’t been anything more than the briefest of glances at the front of my jeans, which, to my great relief, were completely obscured by my hoodie. The zipper on my jeans was up. The cupcake pull-up wet, but fully hidden. But how did she know I was wearing a pull-up? Lisa’s question wasn’t so much a question as it was a declarative statement with the wrong punctuation mark tacked on at the end. That is to say, the nature of how Lisa’s question was phrased was perplexing. She hadn’t asked me if I was wearing a pull-up. Had that been the case, I would have issued an immediate, flat-out denial. Embedded in her question was both the acknowledgement on her part that she knew I was wearing the pull-up and the gumption to make me aware that she knew it. She wasn’t giving me any room to deny what I was wearing beneath my jeans. But the question was perplexing in another way. Asking someone why they are wearing a pull-up is like asking why water is wet. What else would a pull-up be for if not for handling bodily fluids that someone isn’t able to control? That left me both uncertain of how to answer Lisa’s question and wholly unwilling to engage with her on the topic. I decided to throw it back at her. “I’m sorry, what?” I said, doing my best to sound confused, as if I thought I had misheard or misunderstood her question. That should have been enough to throw Lisa off balance. I liked the friendship we had developed, but I also had to be fair in my assessment of her. Being assertive and forward is far out of her normal social and emotional range. My thoughts scrambled­ through a range of ways I could extract myself from this situation. If I pushed back on her enough — gently of course — perhaps I could get her to drop the topic and rethink whatever assumptions had led her to believe I was wearing a pull-up. I’ll risk wearing panties the next time I see her and make sure that they show at some point. Everything was going to be OK. I could still keep my secret safe and get out of this situation without being outed. Neither of us said anything as the conversation turned into a silent stalemate. I stared back down at my feet. I couldn’t bring myself to make eye contact with Lisa. Was there any way to break the ice that wouldn’t be disastrously awkward? As the seconds ticked by, I prayed fervently that Lisa would allow the topic to drop. I had misjudged her. Badly. “Hey. I. Um. Didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Lisa said with a stammer. “But, I wear them too, so, it’s OK.” “Wait? What?” This time, my confusion was genuine. Lisa sucked in her lower lip and appeared to bite it before giving me a reply. “I’m wearing a pull-up too.” “No way,” I said, not intending to refute her so much as to express my surprise at this turn of events. “I can show you.” The mental image of Lisa hiking up her dress to reveal a pull-up was more than I wanted to picture. “There’s no need. I believe you.” Instead of pulling up her dress and flashing me, Lisa turned around and took a couple of steps toward a dresser that was almost as tall as me. She pulled open the top drawer and removed a white pull-up, turning back around to face me with a cautious grin on her face. Everything came together at once. The mysterious pull-up I found in the school restroom that looked just like the one Lisa was holding. How Lisa had always been in a rush to go to the bathroom. That time her uncle, the history class teacher, had casually told her she could have wet herself instead of rushing off to the bathroom in the middle of class. And that time where I was sure she must have snooped in my backpack. That must have been when she saw my own pull-ups. The terror of having my secret revealed faded away, replaced with a feeling I couldn’t quite identify. This was so much to process all at once. My legs felt wobbly all of the sudden. I took a seat on Lisa’s bed for the first time. A telltale crinkling sound let me know that her bladder problems didn’t go away at night. Lisa took a seat next to me on the bed. She was still holding the pull-up. Lisa has six inches on me, but she felt even taller when we were seated with our shoulders nearly touching. I blamed my long legs. “You really do have a pull-up on right now, right?” she asked. I gave her a slight, affirmative nod. “That’s so cool.” There are many words I would use to describe needing to wear a pull-up. Gross, embarrassing, and shameful came at the top of the list. Cool was not among them. “You wear them all the time?” “Yeah.” “So, what brands do you use?” “I don’t know. Whatever Mom ends up buying for me.” “Oh, well, I can show you what I have.” Lisa hopped up from the bed, grabbed my hand, and pulled me toward the dresser. Lisa pulled open one drawer after another, rattling through the names of almost a dozen different brands of diapers and pull-ups, none of which I recognized, adding details about which ones she liked better and why. There were ones with plastic or cloth backing. Some apparently worked better in certain circumstances than others. She was like a living, breathing diaper encyclopedia. I had never experienced Lisa being so talkative before. Even with Fortnite. And she loved Fortnite. I couldn’t believe my good luck after Lisa pulled open the top drawer. Tucked into the back of the drawer, I could just barely make out the same brand of pink and purple pull-ups that I had on, some with the cupcake design and others with stars on them. If she let me have one of them to change into, I could arrive home later tonight with Mom having no indication of the accident I had a little while ago. This whole discussion was so weird, to be talking about pull-ups and diapers as if it was completely naturally for two teenage girls to not be able to control their bladders. Like. I get it. We both have bladder problems. That doesn’t mean we have to have an extensive, detailed conversation about it. She continued talking about the different diapers and pull-ups, oblivious to my discomfort at the topic. She peppered me with additional questions. How often did I have accidents? Did I ever mess in the diapers? To my relief, she clarified that she didn’t do that either. I kept my answers truthful, if vague. I didn’t say anything about how I was trying to hide my accidents from my mom, or how I was taking pull-ups from my sister. And I wasn’t going to dare mention how mother changed me and made me stay in a diaper all night long no matter what. As the questions continued, my head felt like it was in a fog. This was just so surreal. At last, Lisa arrived at a question that made me pause. “So, have you needed to wear all your life?” The truthful answer to that question was no. My daytime issues had only been occurring for about a month now, and the re-occurrence of bedwetting had been for even less than that. True, I had been a bedwetter through my elementary years, but I’d had a lengthy period after that during which I toileting wasn’t something I even had to give a second thought to. I hesitated to give the truthful answer. To say no would be to invite a bunch of questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. Best just to nod like I meant yes and let her move on to her other questions. “I see. I’ve dealt with incontinence my entire life as well,” she said. I begin to feel guilty about how judgmental I had initially been. It wasn’t a hypocritical type of judgmental. I wasn’t looking down on her for needing to wear diapers. To do that while wearing a wet pull-up of my own would be ridiculous. But I had to admit that her exuberant enthusiasm about the topic had initially weirded me out. When I paused to think about it from her perspective, it made sense. With toileting problems all her life, Lisa probably hasn’t ever had someone her age to talk to about it. I began to understand her excitement about discovering that we were dealing with the same condition. I did, however, have some questions of my own. “How did you figure out I wore pull-ups?” “I noticed you were also rushing off to the bathroom a lot. And then one time I was standing next to you, I thought I could hear the rustling sound from your pull-up.” “Was it really that noticeable?” “Not at all. I don’t think anyone would notice unless they knew what they were listening for. Anyway, I definitely heard you have an accident during one of the Fortnite practices. And you looked down at your pants right afterward, too.” “Did you look in my backpack for the pull-ups?” “Yes. I’m sorry I did, but I really want to tell you that I wore as well, but I couldn’t risk being mistaken about it.” “And you set up as partners for the class project?” “I asked my uncle if I could pick who I wanted to work with for the group project. I felt bad about separating you from Samantha and Desi, but I couldn’t think of another way we would be able to have a discreet conversation together.” I had to admire her ingenuity, even if I was annoyed that she has snooped through my stuff without my permission. But I needed a break from this conversation. I’d learned far more about Lisa than I had wanted to and shared more about myself than I had intended. Before we had gotten sidetracked with the discussion about our bladder problems, we had wrapped up most of the work on our history class project and had been set to play some video games before dinner. “Do you think you could get the Nintendo Switch setup?” I asked. That was another thing I was jealous of about Lisa’s bedroom. She had her own TV. Granted, it was a small one, but still more than sufficient for a few Mario Kart races. As Lisa was getting the video game setup, I made a show of digging through my backpack, checking all the pockets, with my hand stretched toward the bottom. I was beginning to get an urge to pee and if I was going to go to the bathroom, it would be good to change myself as well. But I needed an excuse to use one of Lisa’s pull-ups. “What are you looking for?” Lisa asked. “A pull-up, but I think I forgot to bring a spare one to change into. Could I borrow one of yours?” “Sure, as long as you don’t return it when you are done with it.” I didn’t get the joke right away, but chuckled a bit a few seconds later. I opened the top drawer of Lisa’s dresser and made certain to grab one of the pull-ups with the cupcake designs. “Oh, are you sure you want those?” Lisa said, when she noticed which pull-up I had selected. “The other ones are more absorbent.” “These are the ones I wear during the day, and I should be able to make it home without any accidents.” “It’s your choice if it works for you. There are wipes and powder in the drawer next to the sink in the bathroom.” Lisa wasn’t wrong about the absorbency of the pull-ups I’d been using. They were good for exactly one accident, and even then, I had to be careful. But it was the best I was going to get, since there was no way I was going to ask Mom to get me a different brand of pull-ups to use. Lisa took a turn in the bathroom after me with a pull-up in hand. I guess it was time for her to change as well. We both stretched out on the bed, our backs propped up against the backboard with pillows as Lisa handed me a controller. Then we were off to the races. I’m so bad at racing games. The only saving grace was that in Mario Kart, the player in last place is the one most likely to get the dreaded blue shell when receiving a new item. Lisa, who was in first place, wasn’t as amused when it struck her character in the middle of a jump, causing her Kart to cascade into the canyon below. “This game is rigged,” she muttered. “Yeah, in favor of newbs like me,” I said, laughing. My relief at knowing that the first person to discover my pull-ups was someone with similar issues was tempered by the growing realization that a secret, no matter how well-intended, becomes harder to keep secret with each additional person that learns about it. “You haven’t told anyone about my pull-ups, right?” I asked. “Of course not.” “Not even your aunt and uncle?” “Nope.” “And you won’t tell them?” “Sarah, it’s OK. I’ll keep it a secret. I assume Samantha and Desi don’t know either?” “They don’t have a clue about it.” “That’s impressive, but I have to ask, what’s the deal with Samantha? She went out of her way to wear a diaper during the Halloween Party.” What was the deal with Samantha anyway? On one hand, her Halloween outfit, where she had come dressed as a baby, diaper and all, had been weird. That said, Samantha always went all out for Halloween and that was a common, if cliché, outfit for the occasion. If that had been the end of it, I wouldn’t have given Lisa’s question anymore thought. But that wasn’t the end of it. I thought back to the sleepover. How Samantha had dared me to reveal her brother’s pull-up, who she remorselessly tormented over his bedwetting. How she had dared Desi to actually wet a pull-up. How I had inadvertently discovered how she was pranking her brother into wetting the bed. I had no intention of conveying anything of that to Lisa. Under the right circumstances, I don’t think Desi would react poorly to discovering my bladder problems. Samantha, on the other hand, had a judgmental side that left me certain that telling her would be a bad idea. “That’s just Samantha being Samantha. She always goes all out for Halloween.” “In fact,” I added. “It’s probably best to be careful about all this around her. I don’t know if she would react well.” We played through all the classic courses. I forgot how much I hated Rainbow Road. I couldn’t stop my kart from spinning off into space when going around the sharpest turns. Lisa abruptly paused the game mid-race and rolled off the side of her bed onto her feet. She took a couple of steps toward the bathroom, but paused suddenly at the doorway, not going into the bathroom, but not coming back onto the bed to resume the game. She lifted her arm up to her face. Lisa’s back was still toward me, but I had to assume she was rubbing at her eyes. She seemed more upset about the accident than someone who had grown up without control of her bladder would be. I wasn’t sure about what I should do. Should I say something? Get up from the bed and try to comfort her? Before I could make up my mind as to what I should do, Lisa returned wordlessly to the bed. Her eyes had gotten red and puffy. She sniffled slightly. She knew that I knew what had happened. I didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that she had wet her pull-up, but what I didn’t understand was why this accident had affected her like this. “Are you OK?” I asked. Lisa didn’t reply. Instead, she grabbed her gaming controller and tossed it casually off the bed and onto the floor. “I don’t really feel like playing anymore,” she said at last. I didn’t know what to say. She had gone so quickly from near jubilation while talking with me about our toileting challenges to this sudden moodiness. “I’ve been trying to get better at using the toilet,” Lisa said at last, her voice surprisingly bitter. “It went well this summer. I even had a couple of days where I wore panties without any accidents during the day.” “It’s school and video games that keep getting me. I’ve never had to deal with a class schedule before, and my bladder hasn’t adjusted to it yet. And I just get so distracted while playing video games. I don’t always notice when my bladder is trying to tell me it’s time to go.” “I’m sure you’ll manage to get the hang of it,” I said. “Yeah,” Lisa said noncommittally. “But this was the first time I had a good chance at toilet training, and I couldn’t manage to pull it off.” “But didn’t your parents try to get you potty-trained when you were a toddler?” “Yes, and, no. It’s complicated.” That didn’t make much sense to me. Then Lisa told me everything.

Thanks! We'll have to see about that. Would be a bit of karma. There will be an answer for the mother's motivations. Only one chapter and an epilogue left.

Chapter 10: Midnight Choices Several months ago... My skin itched underneath the scratchy, cotton nightgown, but with the heating bill left unpaid, and the temperature getting close to freezing, the outfit was still preferable to spending the entire night shivering beneath paper-thin blankets with no clothing on other than a diaper. I had nothing to drink today besides a single eight-ounce glass of water around noon. Mother's latest theory on dealing with my untrainable bladder was to severely limit my fluid intake along with closely monitoring everything I ate. Sure, I was peeing less during the last several weeks. But I still had no control over my bladder, and the more concentrated urine was becoming increasingly irritable to my skin. The ragged mattress I was lying on hadn't been replaced in the two years that had passed since the death of my father and sister in a drunken car crash. Most everything else had been. Everything that belonged to my father or sister had been sold, the remainder of our old house gradually ransacked as monthly bills came due. Last to go was the house itself. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms were more space than what would be needed for a single mother and her daughter, but the sale came out of desperation, not practicality. Mother purchased the mobile home about a year ago, and we've lived in a handful of trailer parks since then, each seedier than the last. The plastic covering of the mattress was ripped in several places, but I used that to my advantage, as I had stuck a bobby pin into the mattress through one of the tears in the cover, keeping the hairpin completely out of mother's sight. I'd been changed and put to bed around 9 p.m. And by put to bed I mean mother sent me to the smaller of the two bedrooms and had locked the door behind me. Sound traveled easily through the walls of the mobile home, and noises made during her nighttime routine appeared like clockwork – the TV blaring on some violent, late-night show. Glass bottles being tossed across the room. The clamor of furniture being shoved around – until I at last heard her bedroom door shut. With the hallway light, which had been shining into my room through the crack at the bottom of the door, now off, my room was in near-total darkness. I didn't know how long I waited after mother had gone to bed. I didn't have a clock in my room. But I counted to one-thousand, and, in hearing no noise coming from her bedroom across the hallway, determined that it was safe to make my move. I retrieved the bobby pin from inside the mattress. The discovery of what I could do with it the other night had been a moment of pure genius. With the pin in hand, I crept stealthily toward the door. The first night I had picked the lock on the door, it had taken me what must have been nearly an hour to pull it off. Tonight, I got the door unlocked in five minutes. My stomach rumbled as I stepped into the hallway. I briefly froze, listening for any sound that might indicate that my growing hunger had betrayed me. I was down to getting two diaper changes a day, with mother changing me once in the evening and once in the morning. With how little I was getting to eat and drink, there weren't any issues with leaks, but the lengthy time between changes had recently led to some uncomfortable rashes and chaffing. With no sign of danger, I tucked the bobby pin into my hair and resumed my walk across the floor, gingerly stepping forward, not only because I wanted to avoid making any noise that would wake mother, but because of the discomfort of doing so, as each step caused the edges of the diaper to rub against already chaffing skin. A brief burst of light shot into the room as I inched open the door to the refrigerator. I held down the button inside the fridge to get the light to shut off while I used my free hand to blindly rummage through the remaining contents of the fridge without filling the mobile home with light. After a few moments of searching, I grabbed what felt to be a half-gallon jug of milk from the top shelf and shut the fridge. In the darkness of the kitchen, the starlight coming in through the windows wasn't enough to allow me to determine the expiration date, only that the plastic jug had a heftiness to it that made it seem as if it was mostly full. I spun open the lid and raised the tip of the jug to my nose. A cautious sniff told me that it hadn't gone bad yet. I raised the milk jug to my lips and took the slightest of sips. As much as I wanted to chug it down, I couldn't leave any evidence that I had snuck out to the kitchen. Mother didn't know that I had managed to pick the lock that she used to keep me in my bedroom all night long, and the situation needed to stay that way. Having taken a couple of additional sips of milk, I reached for the refrigerator door so I could put the milk jug back in and see if there were other items that could be discreetly snacked on Instead of bringing my foot back down onto the linoleum floor of the kitchen, my heel came down on top of one of mother's bottles. As I slipped forward, my hand yanked the refrigerator door all the way open, flooding the room with light. I dropped the jug of milk onto the floor as I braced myself for the fall. As I landed on my knees, the bottle spun out behind me, resulting in a loud, metallic clink as it came into contact with other bottles that must have been left on the floor. I rolled onto my side, clutching at my knee and biting my lip while trying desperately to not add any more noise to the midnight cacophony. Exactly how many fucking bottles of alcohol had mother left out this time? At least she might be wasted enough not to notice this clamor. I peered down the now dimly lit hallway toward her bedroom, not seeing any signs that I had immediately roused mother from her slumber. I felt something cold and wet against my hand. The milk jug had cracked and was spilling its contents across the kitchen floor. No, no, no. How am I supposed to cover this up now? I set the milk jug upright. Thankfully, the crack was near the middle of the jug, so it hadn't spilled its entire contents. I held up the jug so that I could view it in the light of the still-open fridge. The crack wasn't all that noticeable. I placed the milk jug back on the top shelf of the fridge and closed the refrigerator door with the hope that the damage might go unnoticed in the morning. Now, what to do about the milk puddle? We were out of paper towels and didn't even have any of the leftover napkins mother would grab in large handfuls when getting take-out fast food, so I would have to make do with a rag from the bathroom. I practically crawled to the bathroom, timidly stretching my hands out in front of me to make sure I didn't knock anything over that would add to the commotion I had already made. As I stood up in the bathroom and rummaged through a storage shelf for a cleaning rag I could use, I felt a painful rumble in my stomach, but this time it wasn't because I was hungry. A week or more must have passed since I had drunk any milk, and it wasn't sitting well in my stomach. I was beginning to feel pressure building up in my bowels, like a balloon that was being inflated to the point of bursting. It's not as if I wasn't used to messing myself by now. Several months had passed since mother had let me wear anything other than a diaper. But I usually tried to time my bowel movements to around the time mother would be changing me. How I wished I could sit on the toilet. In the past several weeks, the only times mother had allowed me to relieve myself on the toilet were the times between diaper changes. But I couldn't go to the toilet by myself. Removing the tapes would only rip the plastic covering of the diaper, leaving me unable to put it back on and in a huge amount of trouble with mother in the morning. Whatever reaction the milk had caused in the inner workings of my body was going to come to fruition much sooner than later. I tugged at the bottom of the diaper to loosen it up and make room for what was about to enter it. I bent my knees forward and squatted slightly. I didn't need to squeeze any of my muscles, as my body did the rest. The resulting smell was bearable, though I was well practiced in breathing through my mouth and not my nose. I let several minutes pass without moving. A shitty diaper didn't feel as bad as long as I remained still, but with each step I took back toward the kitchen, I could feel the sticky fecal matter spreading across my butt. I needed to get the milk wiped up, and then hide the rag in the dirty laundry and hope that mother doesn't noticed it. I had only just gotten on my knees in front of the puddle of milk when the lights came on. "Annabelle, what the fuck are you doing out of your bedroom?" mother screamed. I didn't have time to answer as I scrambled off the floor as mother stepped toward me, not that there was anything to say in my defense. Her puffy eyes and dark red cheeks were indicative of how she had spent the evening. I tried to raise my arms up, but I wasn't quick enough as her hand slapped downward across my cheek. I braced myself for another blow, but mother stepped back with her hand cupped against her nose. "Eww, did you really shit yourself again? You know you're not getting your diaper changed until morning, young lady." I had never been more relieved to have pooped in a diaper before. If doing so spared me a beating it would be almost worth it. I'd forgotten about the rag I'd left lying on the floor. Mother hadn't noticed the rag at first, but it at last caught her attention. "What the hell is that on the floor?" she muttered, reaching down to pick up the rag and spotting the puddle of milk on the floor. Mother shoved me out of her way and stomped across the kitchen to the fridge, which she flung open, rattling the condiments stored on the shelves inside the fridge door. She pulled the jug of milk out of the fridge; the crack more obvious than I realized. "You little thief," mother squealed. "No wonder you are still waking up with a wet diaper every morning. You're sneaking out to get a drink every night." I remained silent. Any protest that this was in fact only the second night that I had pulled this stunt wasn't going to be believed and wasn't going to make her less angry at me. "And this milk is ruined now," she muttered, almost as an afterthought. I ducked as mother chucked the jug of milk at my head and it careered past me and into the hallway. Her rage outweighed any disgust she felt at my messy diaper as she assailed me, the slaps coming on my face, head, and shoulder as I retreated backward toward the hallway that led to both of our bedrooms. I could have turned and run back into my bedroom, my normal reaction to when she got out of control. That would have put a stop to the beating but would also have left me in the room till morning to stew in a messy diaper with windows I couldn't open. What the fuck did she expect from me? I was thirsty and couldn't fall asleep with a dry mouth. As I slowly gave way toward the bedroom, I sidestepped the milk jug and the puddle it had created on the floor. The whole side of the jug had split open, emptying the remainder of its contents. Mother wasn't as lucky, her foot stepped squarely in the middle of the puddle as she reached out to strike me again. I turned to the side and flattened myself against the hallway wall as she tumbled past me onto the floor. This was my chance. I raced past her to the other end of the mobile home. I didn't dare run outside, not with how cold it was and my lack of a winter outfit. With my luck, mother would lock me out until the morning. Instead, I stepped into a closet near the front door and placed a broom between the handles to hold the closet doors shut. Mother was slow in getting up from the floor. She hadn't been asleep in bed all that long. Maybe the liquor was finally getting to her. From my hiding spot, I could hear the irregular pace of her footsteps as she approached the closet. She gave the doors a single tug, but the broom helped hold the doors in place as I also grabbed at the door handles in a game of tug of war. "If you don't come out now, you will be grounded for the rest of your fucking life," she yelled. The threat didn't hold much sway with me. I was already grounded. I basically never left the mobile home. Partly because mother didn't ever want to take me anywhere, and partly because I didn't have any outfits that really hid my diaper well enough for me to even be comfortable with asking to go somewhere in public. I was locked in my bedroom each night, not allowed to have any food or to use the toilet except at certain times. Yes, I legitimately had accidents, but I wasn't allowed to change myself or be responsible for my own toileting needs. In short, I couldn't picture any discipline worse than my daily routine, giving me no desire to give in to her demands. Without an answer from me, mother resumed her attempts to pry the door open. With as hard as mother was pounding and tugging on the closet door, I was amazed that it hadn't given way. At last, she leaned back against the wall, panting heavily. "Listen you little bitch. I'm coming back in a few minutes and if you aren't out of the closet by then I will make you regret it." The front door opened, and I heard mother step outside, though I didn't have any idea of where she would be going or what she was doing. The reprieve created by her absence allowed me to examine the sparse contents of the closet with the light shining in from the hallway through the slits in the closet doors. Besides mom's outfits, there were a couple of jackets I had outgrown and a few threadbare ones from a thrift store that still fit me. Much of the remaining space was taken up with cardboard boxes, likely containing items that weren't valuable enough to sell, but not so useless as to be thrown out in the trash. I reached to the back of the closet when my hand closed around a narrow, cold, metal tube. I pulled the object toward me to the revelation that it was my father's old shotgun. I'm surprised that mother had kept it. The gun had to be worth a decent amount of money at a pawn shop. I didn't have a clue as to whether it was loaded or not, or how to check that other than by pulling the trigger. But it gave me an idea. I set the gun back down and removed the broom from the door handles so that I could get out of the closet. I made my way to the living room with the shotgun and waited for mother to come back inside. When mom stepped back inside the mobile home, I saw why she had gone outside. As I peeked around the corner, she was holding an iron crowbar in her hand that she must have retrieved from the car. Mother hadn't noticed me yet; her attention was focused on the now-empty closet. "Annabelle, you had better be in your bedroom," she called out aimlessly. I stepped back from the corner and stood at the back of the living room. It would have been easier to hold the shotgun if I was seated, but I couldn't do that comfortably in a messy diaper. Mother flinched at the sight of the gun, when she caught sight of me, but otherwise didn't react as we remained in a silent standoff. Her crowbar held loosely in her right hand. My shotgun held upright and aimed at her chest. "You put that down right now before you get into any more trouble than you already are." I didn't budge. I didn't have any goals past that obstinate refusal. I just knew that I was done with all the restrictions, all the abuse, all the shame. And I wasn't going to do another single fucking thing that she asked me to. "Look, I'll put this down," mother said. She took a step forward and placed the crowbar on the floor, but when she stood up, she was now several feet closer to me. "Stay back," I said, taking a backward step myself. "Annabelle, put the gun down, it isn't even loaded." The contradiction in that message confused me. If it wasn't loaded, why did it matter if I put it down or not? The weight of the shotgun was getting to me. I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep the shotgun pointed at mother with how much it was straining my arms to keep it upright. After another lengthy moment of silence had passed, I began to involuntarily lower the gun so that it was pointed in front of mother rather than right at her. Mother seized the opportunity and took another couple of steps forward. It took all my remaining strength to point the shotgun back at her. "Stop," I shouted. Mother came to another pause, this time only ten feet away from me. Sweat trickled down my back. My arms shook. I held the shotgun upright, but I couldn't keep it steadily pointed at mother as it wavered back and forth. Mother took another tentative step toward me. I pressed my finger against the trigger. It wouldn't budge. Nothing happened. Mother took another step. I placed a second finger on the trigger, closed my eyes, and squeezed as hard as I could. The blast from the gunshot knocked me backward onto the floor. I landed on my bottom at first, with my head slamming back against the carpet. I had expected the kick from the gun and had made sure to steady it against my shoulder before firing, but the strength of it still left me stunned. The sound is what I hadn't been prepared for. Not the sound of the gunshot, which had left my ears ringing. The sound of mom's anguished cries filled the trailer, a ghoulish mix of sobbing and screaming. Death wasn't supposed to be this noisy. After several seconds I opened my eyes to see her sprawled out on the floor, her limbs twitching. And so much blood. A dark red puddle was spreading out onto the floor next to her. Crimson specks spread across the room behind her. This wasn't what I had pictured happening when I had grabbed the shotgun. I don't know what I had naively thought would happen, but it wasn't this. There was so much blood, that I couldn't tell where the shot had hit her and whether the wound was fatal or if she had only been temporarily disabled. An onslaught of emotion broke through the shock of the moment. Regret. Panic. A sudden urge to run. To where? I didn't know. Just not here. I skirted around mother's body on my way to the front door. The main door remained open, leaving only the screen door clattering as it opened and shut in the wind. Two steps out onto the tiny wood porch changed my mind about running away outside. The blistering cold would be the death of me. I turned back to go inside, shutting the door behind me and flipping both of the locks. Though why those would be needed, I didn't know. I ran back into my bedroom, averting my eyes from mother as I passed by the living room. She had gone silent. I stood confused in my bedroom. I didn't know why I had gone there. Instinct? Habit? Something was out of place, and not being able to place it was creating a growing anxiety. Then I remembered what was missing. My entrance to the bedroom was almost always followed by the slam of the door closing shut behind me and the click of the lock going into place. A routine so familiar that its absence left me unnerved. I paced back and forth inside the bedroom, as I was prone to do during times I was locked inside the room and unable to sleep. Hours passed. I didn't leave the bedroom. I couldn't leave the bedroom. The mental lock was as strong as any of the physical one's mother had installed, and I would need something stronger than a bobby pin to break through it. The diaper remained on me. Another habit I couldn't bring myself to break. There was nothing to stop me from changing myself, and yet, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I hoped she was dead. Then I hoped that she wasn't dead. Then I hoped she wasn't dead so I could shoot her again to make sure she was dead. I couldn't make up my damn mind. I had no idea about what I should do next. Was she really dead? If so, how would I hide the body? And how long would I have until anyone noticed, given how recluse our lives were? Each question spawned a dozen more, none of which I had satisfactory answers for, and all of which depended on a question I remained unwilling to discover. My feet ached. I sank down to my knees, exhausted. My life was over. I couldn't do this. It didn't matter whether mother was alive or dead. I was screwed either way. A sense of peace filled me at that moment, as the need to be concerned about anything further away than the next five minutes disappeared. I found that I had the strength to step up from the floor and walk to the bathroom. I didn't check on mother. I closed the bathroom door behind me and locked it just in case. I reached my hand to touch the back of my diaper. That was a mistake. Shit had smeared up my back, probably from when I had been knocked to the ground after I had fired the shotgun. I washed my hands clean with ice-cold water from the sink. The mirror doubled as a medicine cabinet, I tried to avoid looking directly at my reflection as I swung it open, to reveal several small shelves littered with bottles and tubes. I didn't stop to even read the labels on the bottles. I'd seen them enough before to be familiar with the dire warnings of taking more than the prescribed dose. I grabbed the first bottle of pills, pressed my hand firmly against the lid, and twisted to get it open. It wouldn't budge. Fucking child safety caps. I got it open on the second try, but to my display, on a dozen or so pills remained. The ease at which I was able to swallow all of them was disconcerting. But would a dozen be enough? I didn't want to leave it to chance. I opened several more bottles, taking a dozen pills from each. It had only taken a few minutes to do so, and I didn't feel anything yet. Maybe it had been foolish to expect the results to be instantaneous. I waited. The need to pee came and went as I urinated in the diaper, toilet training another desire now rendered pointless. The effects of the medication came on so gradually that I didn't realize them until they had reached their full force. My legs began to feel weary as if the weight they were needing to hold up had tripled. A sudden clamminess overtook my arms, which were now hanging onto the counter to brace me. I could literally hear my heart pounding. I couldn't hold myself up any longer. My hands slipped from the counter and I hit the tile floor with a thud. I tried, and failed, to lean up against the wall so I could sit in an upright position. I thought belatedly about my funeral. There would have to be one, right? But who would come? What songs would they sing? What would they say about me from the pulpit? Each breath became harder to pull in than the last, yet my body fought for each breath, strained for life, even as every breath became more painful than the previous one. I wanted the end. I welcomed it, but my body said no. But what I wanted didn't matter. What my body wanted didn't matter. What mattered was the pills I had swallowed minutes ago and the irrevocable path they had set me on. My eyes closed and then opened, then closed and opened again, staying shut for longer and longer at a time as the cycle continued until they at last closed and didn't open.

Need to change your username to Nostradamus ?

In jail, probably. On a side note, yes, I remember running into that site in my early teens. I had the good sense to be creeped out by it and not return.

Chapter 9: The Question Present time... The top drawer of my dresser slid open without a single creak or groan. As with everything in the bedroom, it was new and in perfect condition. Mine. That wasn't a description I had thought I would end up giving it. I hadn't noticed the shift in how I perceived my environment, but at some point in the past several months, I'd come to accept my aunt and uncle's house as home, not simply a place I would be temporarily staying. Three months had passed since mother had filed her lawsuit to regain custody of me. The initial terror of that first week had receded, replaced first with a curiosity about the legal process, followed by a retreat into indifference. It's not as if I weren't mindful of the consequences of what would happen should my mother's attempt to take me back succeed, but the longer it dragged out, the less I thought of it. Legal stuff isn't nearly as exciting as it gets shown on TV. Shocking, right? I had yet to step foot in a courtroom, everything that had happened up to this point had been lawyers from both sides filing documents and mailing them back and forth. The hearing was supposed to take place in about two weeks, but it had been delayed twice already, so it wasn't at the forefront of my mind. I still hadn't gotten over how amusing it was that legal documents were referred to as briefs. The first time that the attorney my aunt and uncle had hired visited the house to discuss their legal strategy, his comment about "needing to get the briefs ready" had me laughing so hard that I didn't even realize I had wet my pull-up. All the websites I purchased diapers from never actually referred to them as diapers, opting instead for a range of euphemisms. Disposable briefs were the most common one, though I failed to see how it made anyone feel better about purchasing them. I'd slipped into a sleeveless tank top after drying off from the shower. The summer heat was too oppressive for anything more than that. I examined the contents of the drawer, surveying my options for what else I could put on. A diaper was out of the question. My work on finally getting toilet trained wasn't finished, but I had at least gotten to the point where I was only wearing diapers at night or when I left the house. Even in public, it was with a diaper brand I found that had re-adjustable tapes so that I could still have access to a toilet. Besides, I didn't even want to think about how badly a diaper would make me sweat. That left me with several options of pull-ups to put on. My aunt and uncle hadn't exactly forbidden me from wearing panties, but they both had strongly encouraged me to stick with pull-ups until I could be certain I wouldn't be having any accidents. I could understand their reasoning. The house was mostly carpeted, and those types of stains could be difficult to clean up. I would have been resentful had it been mother who had issued that type of edict to me, but it was easy to let it slide since they otherwise left me to my own devices when it came to my toileting issues. Offers of an occasional diaper change from my aunt had stopped after I began to decline them. I even had my own debit card, which they sent money to so that I could make purchases of diapers and pull-ups for myself. This newfound independence helped alleviate the annoyance of having to forego wearing panties, several pairs of which were now located in the top drawer of my dresser, next to my pull-ups. I could have stuck the underwear in the closet, hidden away until I was fully ready for it, but I had been so excited about the purchase that I wasn't able to keep them out of sight. Every time I opened the drawer, I could barely resist the urge to grab one of the panties and run my fingers through it, at times even slipping it on for a few minutes, imagining the day when the pull-ups and diapers were all discarded, and all that remained in the top drawer of the dress were rows of regular, normal, adult underwear. Maybe I could wear them again this morning, if only for a few minutes while I did my hair. Privacy was another benefit of living with my aunt and uncle. I never had to worry about them abruptly barging into my bedroom. They rarely bothered me, but if they wanted to get my attention, they knocked and then waited for me to come to the bedroom door and open it. I slipped on a pair of lavender panties and went back into the bathroom. The mirror was still slightly fogged up from the shower, so I had to grab a towel and wipe up the remaining moisture so that I could see my reflection. The image that peered back at me still wasn't completely clear, but it would do, as I grabbed a brush to get any remaining tangles out of my hair. I still couldn't get over how different the panties felt and looked. Gone was the bulkiness between my legs, the struggle to avoid waddling, the crinkling sound as I walked. The underwear was so thin that it didn't feel like I had anything on at all. The sense of freedom, of being unconstrained, of not being ashamed of my body or how I looked. I never wanted it to end. I decided not to put my hair into any fancy braids today. I didn't want to spend all morning getting ready. I grabbed a stretchy hair tie from the drawer next to the sink and pulled my shoulder-length hair into a simple ponytail. As fun as it was to wear the panties, I knew it was time to get changed out of them. I still hadn't managed to pull off a day where I had avoided any accidents, but I also have managed at least one successful trip to pee in the toilet every day for the past several weeks. Progress was coming at a slower pace than I would before, but as long as it was coming, I could wait for it. I had a couple of plain-white medical brand pull-ups with various levels of absorbency. I applied a generous amount of lavender-scented baby powder before putting on a pull-up. I finished by pulling on a knee-length skirt along with some shorts to make sure the pull-up was fully concealed, as I headed to the kitchen to eat breakfast before my tutor arrived. --- The question had been gnawing at the back of my mind ever since I realized that my aunt and uncle wanted me to live with them and were willing to fight my mother in court for the right to maintain custody of me. It wasn't a kind question, and I wasn't certain I wanted to know the answer to it, given its power to impact the very nature of my relationship with my new guardians. The tutoring session hadn't gone well today. I had been so distracted that I hadn't even gotten halfway through the practice test I had been assigned to complete. The tutor was gone for the day. Such a relief. Since there wasn't any way I was going to let her know about my toileting issues, it also meant that I couldn't be rushing off to the bathroom nearly as often as I would need to do to avoid any daytime accidents. Next week I would have to go through five straight days of tests. While the plan was for me to start my freshman year of high school in the fall, they had to be certain that I was academically prepared for it. With the tutor gone, I had Aunt Lydia to myself for an hour or so before Uncle James got home from work. She was nestled into her reading chair in the living room, a situation that usually led me to play video games in my room so as not to disturb her. I wasn't good at starting conversations, even when it was about simple stuff, like, what the weather was going to be like or what I might want to eat for dinner. I didn't have the slightest clue about how to broach a more sensitive topic with my aunt. It wasn't that I didn't like talking to her, it's just that she was always the one initiating our conversations. I stood right at the corner of the room for several minutes, my feet fidgeting, trying to work up the courage to finally ask the question. My aunt was seated in her reading chair with her back to me and her feet stretched forward on the recliner. She was flipping casually through a magazine with her reading glasses on. My mouth and lips were dry. I wasn't sure if any words would even come out if I were to open my mouth. Screw it, I can ask later. I had begun to turn around and head back to my bedroom when my aunt spoke up herself. "Is there something you need?" Aunt Lydia said. She hadn't looked up from her magazine but somehow had sensed my discomfort even though her back was to me. What to say? What to say? What to say? Why hadn't I come up with a fallback question? I blurted the question out, almost angrily, though I hadn't intended for my tone to be confrontational. "Are you getting paid to take care of me?" Aunt Lydia took off her reading glasses and turned to look at me. "No, we aren't getting paid to take care of you," she said. "Why would you think that?" Why would I think that? That thought had come from when I had sifted through mom's mail and found the checks that had come every month, not that any of the money had found its way into my pockets. Where were those checks being sent now? And was Aunt Lydia being truthful? Or had I been mistaken? I stayed silent, hoping that Aunt Lydia would give more of an explanation, which she did. "You were getting some monthly payments after your father's death, but that is going into a trust fund for you until turned eighteen." "A trust fund?" "That's just basically a bank account that no one else can take money out of until it's time to give it to you." "But why didn't you tell me about it? A frown appeared on Aunt Lydia's face. She looked upset. I knew I shouldn't have brought this topic up. What was I thinking? "I thought you already knew," she said. "The money should have already been going there since your father's accident." I shook my head sideways. I had been aware of the checks, but that they were solely intended for my use was a surprise. "That bitch," Aunt Lydia muttered. I nearly jumped. My aunt never swore. "Of course, my sister was keeping the money for herself."

Narcissists going to narcissist. But yeah, they'll be an explanation about that. Yes, in fact, she did. It's always interesting to get reader feedback and see what sticks out to them. That actually wasn't what I had in mind at all, though it it does fit in perfectly with the story. I actually included the line about the nice dress more as a way to contrast that with how Annabelle is cared for at home and how her mother is just trying to create the appearance that she is well cared for. Thanks, I always like it when I can get a tittle that plays into the chapter later on. CP does come about unannounced, in this case, the parents got tipped off about it, so they had time to be prepared. I can confirm that the attempt to kill the mother was intentional, Annabelle makes that part clear at least. As to the how of it, there's going to be one more flashback. You're welcome! We'll get a good look at the mother's motivations really soon. That is an intriguing theory.

Chapter 8: The Third Casket Two years earlier... I had never before felt so alone when surrounded by so many people. The funeral had not started on time, and I suspected that my mother was somehow to blame. In her absence, I remained in the lobby of the funeral home, the center of attention for everyone in need of someone to whom they could direct their condolences. For the past half-hour, I had been the constant recipient of awkward hugs that lasted too long, whispered sympathies that each contained the same insincere words as the last, and pats on the back from people who I couldn't recall ever seeing before. My father and sister had been dead for nearly a week, and I still hadn't shed a tear. I might cry now, not out of any sudden sense of sadness, but from the strength of the perfumed candles lining the wall near where I was standing. The smell of flowers might have been pleasant in a smaller dose, but the overwhelming nature of it made me wonder if it was causing me to experience a sudden onslaught of allergies. I resisted the urge to rub my knuckles against my eyes, not because I didn't want to garner any more displays of empathy from the roughly sixty or so attendees milling about the room, but because mother had put makeup on me for the first time ever, and I didn't dare risk incurring her wrath by making a mess of it. Two days ago, we had gone shopping for an appropriate dress, as the growth spur I had gone through in the past six months -- putting on another six inches in height -- made my previous dresses obsolete. Ladylike wasn't how anyone would describe me. Sure, I was now as tall as my mother, who wasn't a short woman, but I remained gangly after growing so quickly. Still, the dress was by far the nicest outfit mother had ever purchased for me. Pitch black and elegant, it streamed down to my feet in a way that my other dresses did not. More importantly, the ankle-length dress was loose enough around my waist that it didn't reveal the outline of my diaper. It was true that I had been outgrowing the pull-ups I had been using for the past several years. They still fit, but much more snugly than before, and leaks were increasing at an alarming frequency. Whatever else I might say about the diapers, I couldn't deny that they at least did exactly what they were intended to, which is to ensure that no one but me noticed when I wet myself. That isn't to say I didn't still throw a fit about mother's decision to make me wear a diaper to the funeral. I was mortified at the prospects of the cousins, who saw me paraded around in a diaper four years ago during the holidays, again spotting me in a diaper. The fact that the dress concealed the diaper better than I anticipated did mollify me some. My cousins remained clustered in a group near the opposite corner of the room. They hadn't come to say anything to me, save for a few that walked over silently with their parents, their eyes shifting away from mine. Under other circumstances, the social ostracization from my peers would have been deeply hurtful, but I couldn't imagine how that incident wasn't, even now, replaying freshly in their memories. I wanted nothing to do with them. There were only two visitors that I had hoped to see, Aunt Lydia and Uncle James. Four years had passed since that fateful Thanksgiving Day when I had both met them and last seen them. I had thought my father's threat for them to never step foot in the house again had been mere drunken bluster, but perhaps there had been more to it than I had been made aware of. Either way, I never had worked up the courage to ask about my aunt and uncles' whereabouts, and in truth, had given them little to no thought for a long time until now. If anything were to bring them back, the death of a brother and niece and the final moment of goodbye at a funeral would appear to be enough. Yet, they hadn't been among the visitors at the wake yesterday evening, and there was no sign of them today. Mother stepped into sight from around the corner, her eyebrows narrowed; her hand clutched tightly around a cell phone by her side. What phone call could have been so important that it was worth delaying the funeral? "Why aren't you greeting the guests," she whispered harshly at me, when she was close enough to speak without anyone else overhearing her. "They've already taken their turns coming to talk to me." Mother didn't appear satisfied with that answer, but she moved along without prolonging the argument. With a practiced touch, mother smoothed the expression on her face, and made eye contact with the pastor on the far side of the room, and the man hurried over to us "We're ready to begin," she said, slipping her phone into her purse and dabbing at her eye with one of her sleeves. "Why don't you come with me and get seated, and then I'll usher the guests in after you," he said. The pastor took my mother's hand as he led us toward the front of the chapel and we each took a seat in the second row. While the diaper provided my bottom with a degree of protection from the wooden bench, I was unable to get my back into a position where it was comfortable against the pew. As the crowd of mourners made their way into the chapel, I received a firm pinch on my arm, a message from mother that I needed to stop fidgeting. While I had been to my share of church services, I had never attended a funeral before. My gaze didn't linger at the pulpit for long, but shifted past it, to where the two caskets sat side by side. One open. One closed. The ceremony began on a solemn note, as mournful organ music filled the room. A prayer was said, a hymn was sung, and several people who had known my father and sister had stood at the pulpit and given brief eulogies of them. The pastor was now at the pulpit and had begun an exuberant recitation of how virtuous my father had been – loving, selfless, and devoted to his children, who never raised his voice in anger. He's dead, what purpose is there to lie about how good of a person he was? The man continued, extolling a wide array of platitudes that he said my father had possessed. I didn't get too bothered by it until the pastor described the deaths as the result of a tragic, unlucky accident. Liar. The car crash had been tragic, yes, but in no way could it be simply described as an unlucky accident. Even though it had been early in the afternoon, father had already been drunk when he got in the car. Mother had offered to drive, but daddy wasn't having any of it. Staying home meant the possibility of needing to change me, and he hadn't done that in years and wasn't going to get started again now. About an hour later, I had eavesdropped by the door when two police cruisers pulled into our driveway, their lights on and sirens blazing. I scurried away to my room when the somber-faced officer delivered the news of the deaths to my mother, whose shrieks of denial could be heard from behind the shut door to my bedroom. I put together the full scope of the story with the bits and pieces of information that had gradually come my way the next few days, as relatives we hadn't seen in ages trickled into town for the funeral. The pastor's eulogy wrapped up, and another man took to the pulpit, his arms raised to direct a pair of final songs. I steadied the hefty hymnal on the bench in front of me, but I didn't need to glance down at the lyrics to follow along with them. However, I didn't join in with the song, opting to instead mouth the words as I pretended to take part in the ceremony. When the ceremony at last concluded, I took one last walk by the caskets with mother. My father's casket remained open. When I had looked inside the casket the other night at the wake, his eyes had been closed, lips curled upward into the faintest of smiles, a whole arrangement intended to convey a sense of peace that I had never witnessed while he was alive. I didn't look in the casket this time. I averted my eyes toward the ground. My last memory of him wasn't going to be a lie. My sister's casket was closed. Elaine hadn't been wearing a seatbelt. Supposedly there hadn't been much left for the embalmer to work with. Instead, a collection of photographs had been arranged on a small table next to it. I wasn't in any of them. I could hear mother sniffling as she attempted to maintain her composure. It took me a while to finally register the mood I was feeling. I was disappointed, disappointed that there wasn't a third casket. ----- We'd been home from the funeral for over an hour, and I was still lying on my bed waiting for mother to come in and change the diaper I'd worn for the entirety of the funeral service and burial. I'd already asked mother to change me once. She'd just told me she come in later in my room. I knew better than to ask a second time, even as the moisture in the diaper was becoming more irritable against my skin. With my dress off, all I had on was a training bra and a sagging, pale-green diaper with a pair of small tapes on each side barely holding it up. Without any appropriate diapers my size at Walmart, my parents had turned to the internet. I'm sure they bought the cheapest brand that they could find. Even though I'd had the diaper on for more than six hours, I'd hardly had anything to drink which meant that had gotten soaked, but it hadn't leaked. When we moved to this house a couple years ago, my bedroom had been neglected while the home was furnished. Elaine had been given a fancy bed. Hers was a lofted bunk bed with a ladder to climb up to it. Beneath her bed, she had a desk and chair to sit out. My room was an afterthought. As my old mattress had been ruined from nightly bedwetting, the new one my parents purchased after the move was one with a built-in plastic cover designed to make it fully waterproof. They hadn't bothered with a bedframe and had instead set it down in the far corner of the room. I could smell the alcohol on mother's breath when she at last stepped into the bedroom. She laid out a changing pad on the bed, and I dutifully shifted over onto it, too tired and uncomfortable to make the always unsuccessful argument that I should be allowed to change myself. The reasons for why I wasn't allowed to change my own diapers had varied as I had gotten older. As a younger child, it was because I wasn't big enough to do that. As I got older and was given chances to diaper myself, mother complained that leaks would happen because I couldn't diaper myself right, or said that she needed to clean me up because I wasn't doing a good enough job of it myself. For a while, those arguments got set aside as mainly wore pull-ups, but as pull-ups' usefulness came to an end, I was often at the mercy of mother for any changes or trips to the toilet. Father had always been the one with a taste for liquor. Mother might join in with him on occasion, but more often than not, her chastisements over his alcoholism turned into full-fledged arguments. But tonight, her eyes were red, and her breath was reminiscent of my father's when he had deep into hard liquors. She did a rushed, sloppy job of changing my diaper, mumbling words under her breath that I wasn't able to discern. As soon as she had left the room and shut the lights off, I carefully adjusted the tapes on the diaper to achieve a more comfortable fit. Waking up in a wet diaper was bad enough. I didn't need a wet bed in addition to it. As guilty as these jealous thoughts made me feel, I couldn't help but wonder at the possibility of being allowed to move into my sister's bedroom. I'd long envied her bunkbed and the ability to have her own desk to sit and draw at, not to mention her much more well-equipped wardrobe. I fell asleep to dreams of better things. That was not to be. My cautious inquires the next morning about possibly moving into my sister's room were rebuffed off-hand by mother, who made it clear that the topic was a non-starter. My schooling, which had been on pause for a week, remained neglected as I spent the day placing phone calls with increased agitation and anger in her voice. I was left to my own devices, which meant spending the day watching low-budget educational documentaries of dubious quality, such as the one on at the moment that was attempting to argue that dinosaurs and man had existed at the same time. As the day progressed and mother's voice became loud enough to carry throughout the house, I understood why she was so upset. When my parents made the decision to pull my sister and me from public schools to homeschool us, she quit her job to stay at home. She hadn't worked in seven years and had little desire to return to work. Father's life insurance policy should have made us rich. But the policy had several loopholes, and dying as a result of your own drunken driving was one of the causes of death that the insurance company wouldn't pay out, no matter the manager mother asked to speak with or the threats of lawsuits that she delivered. As the next weeks passed, mother sold off every item of my father's and Elaine's that she could get a buyer for. A month later, my sister's room was as barren as my own. And I was alone.

That last sentence sums things up about right. You're welcome! Thanks! I'd like to perhaps think I'm getting a tiny bit better as a writer. We'll see how this goes. I still need to stick the ending and there isn't much time to do it.

Well, I do have some other tricks up my sleeve, just not the ones being alleged. You're welcome! Well, it won't probably hit another 30 chapters, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are another 25 chapters or so. There is a lot of stuff left to happen. And yeah, I've had time where I've been writing chapters for both stories at the same time, hopping back and forth between them. It isn't too bad, since sometimes an idea I get will fit in one story better than another. One of my favorite plot interactions as a reader is when you know that two characters are on a collision course plotwise, but the two characters don't know it, and then getting to see how that interaction finally plays out. It's going to take the next two chapters to flesh all of that out all of the Sarah/Lisa stuff for sure.

Yeah, I'm clever, but not quite that clever. My idea was that most teenagers probably wouldn't have all that much of an interest in the actual brand name of whatever diapers or pull-ups they were using, so from Sarah's point of view, simply describing them, rather than naming the product, was a good way to go about it. And, with this audience, as long as the product is given a good description, I suspect people will have a good idea of what brand it is. That's funny how that is similar to the story, with Sarah's mom having an older package on hand before getting the newer designs when buying another package. It's been a while since the butterfly ones, sadly. I'm actually kind of curious about what type of market research goes into picking the designs, I assume at some point they would get feedback from actual, bedwetting kids and their parents. Personally, even though the cupcake designs are pretty cute, they just seems so out of place for being used for bedwetting pull-ups. So my opinion on that may have rubbed off on Sarah.

Yeah, mom isn't the brightest in that sense. Thanks! ? You're welcome. Might have another chapter before Christmas, but for sure before the end of the month. Once I get my other story wrapped up, this one will be able to get more frequent updates. The next two chapters are ones I've been looking forward to writing for a while. No hints though. As far as the plot goes, this does mark the half-way point in the story. I don't think it will take me another 30 chapters to finish though, at least, I hope not. That's a very good question. We'll have to see how Sarah ends up being able to (or not able to) manage her wet pull-up.

She's fourteen in the current timeline. The first two flashbacks have had her at 8 years old, and the most recent one had her as 10. I'll admit that most of my legal knowledge comes from binge reading a dozen or so John Grisham books several years back. I'll do my best to make that realistic when it gets fleshed out in chapter 9, but kind of hoping there aren't any actual lawyers reading.

Chapter 7: Group Therapy Present time I must have misheard what Aunt Lydia had said. They'd let Mom out of jail? She was trying to regain custody of me? That couldn't possibly be right. No. No. No. "Wait. Really?" "Yes, that was the lady from the Child Protective Services office." I felt a chill rush through me as if the temperature had dropped to below freezing. "But how could she do that? That's not right." "I'm not sure, but since the charges against her were dropped, she is allowed to make a petition to get custody of you again." That still didn't make any bit of sense, but the legalese of the situation was beyond my understanding anyway. "How" wasn't even the most important question. That was just the procedural part of it. What left me most puzzled was why Mom would even consider trying to regain custody of me in the first place. Set aside for a moment the fact that I had tried to kill her. She had never wanted me. My younger sister had always been the favored child and for reasons beyond simply my inability to consistently make proper use of the toilet. Elaine had been smarter, better-looking, better behaved, better, well, at anything and everything compared to me, not that doing so had been much of a challenge. I was an afterthought, the unseemly first attempt that hadn't quite turned out as expected. Sure, I was all she had left, but over the past two years, that scarcity hadn't resulted in an increased demand that she care for me. The whole deal made no sense at all. Mother had no reason to want me, and she had given me no reason to want her. Aunt Lydia intruded upon my silent reflection to try and reassure me that everything was going to be alright. "Annabelle, you don't need to worry that anything is going to change right away," my aunt said. "It takes a long time for things to go through the court system. I'm going to make some more phone calls, why don't you stay in here and keep watching TV." I left the TV on, but I had gotten bored of watching game shows, so I instead sat at the desk to fiddle with the computer. I had never been allowed unsupervised access to a computer before and had no idea where to begin after turning it on. This one was so much fancier. The keys on the keyboard lit up in a stream of rainbow colors and gave a satisfying click every time I pressed them. The mouse was large and fit perfectly into my hand. It had a bunch of buttons on the side, but nothing happened when I pressed them, so I didn't have a clue as to what they were supposed to be used for. Minesweeper and Solitaire were the only games I had been allowed to play on the computer. They were apparently educational enough that my parents hadn't thrown a fuss over them. I tried to look for Minesweeper, but it wasn't anywhere to be found. I would have to ask my uncle to help with that when he came home from work later today. The urge to pee came briefly and disappeared as I relaxed my bladder almost instinctively. Aunt Lydia's idea about taking a short break from toilet training sounded like a good idea while I had been sitting on the floor crying about the previous accident, but a wet diaper was still a wet diaper. I wished fervently that I would soon begin to see some results from the exercises I was doing. The doctor had hinted at the possibility of some medications if that didn't work. At this point, I'd be willing to give any idea a shot. Aunt Lydia was on the phone talking to someone in an urgent, hushed tone as I walked over to the living room to retrieve the Switch. I couldn't make out what she was saying, as she appeared to have lowered her voice after noticing I had stepped out of the bedroom. I tried to keep my mind clear of thoughts about what the custody battle would mean for me, as I laid back down on the bed to play with the gaming system and enjoy the temporary distraction it provided. --- My first foray into public wasn't going as well as I had hoped it would. The hospital stay didn't count. And I'd hardly ever left home in the year preceding it. Being homeschooled hadn't been high on the list of my sources of angst but finding myself seated amongst a half-dozen other girls my age left me at a complete loss as to what I should say or do. The last time I had been around this many kids my age had been at the funeral. Outside of gatherings with our extended family, which had become more and more infrequent, my social life had been basically nonexistent. We were seated in a full circle, in an oddball collection of mismatched plastic chairs in the center of a large room that could have held ten times as many people. I was seated to the right of the therapist, Amanda, whom I had met with while I was at the hospital. These group therapy sessions hadn't been required as part of the agreement with the court, but apparently, Amanda had suggested the idea to my aunt and uncle, saying it would be good for me to be around girls my age. I had arrived only a few minutes before the therapy session was to begin. I had panicked when I had gone out to the car with Aunt Lydia, and it had taken a while for her to help me calm down. The other girls had already divided into a couple of groups when I arrived and were casually chatting amongst themselves, their voices echoing across the mostly empty room. I later learned that all but one of them had been to this therapy group before. None of them paid me any attention when I grabbed one of the two remaining seats. I stood out like a sore thumb. None of them were dressed nearly as conservatively as I was. Five of the girls were wearing jeans or leggings. Another was wearing mini shorts. There was one girl who was wearing a skirt, but it didn't even reach all the way to her knees, and her shirt was tied up in the front so that her midriff was showing. Mother would never have let me dress like that in public, not that I would have wanted to. A diaper underneath one of those outfits would stand no chance of going undiscovered. I didn't attempt to join in on any of the conversations. What would I say? I didn't have a single clue as to how I should introduce myself or what I should say. I resorted to half-heartedly picking at my fingernails and staring at the floor and my ankle-length dress. I really suppose I could get away with something at least a few inches shorter. The attempts at toilet training had been put on an indefinite hiatus in the several days since I had found out that mother was attempting to regain custody of me. Not a single night had gone by without one dream or another about all the humiliations and embarrassments I had endured. More than once I had woken up without immediately realizing that I was now free from that woman's grasp. I didn't want to admit that this additional stress had made concentrating on my bladder a much more difficult proposition, but that was the truth, and so I had basically stuck to diapers since then. Seeing how normal kids dressed made me want to redouble my efforts. I had never worn leggings before, and they looked so comfortable. When the therapy session began, Amanda made everyone take turns saying their names and doing something fun they did in the past week. She started with the girl seated to her left and they went around in a clockwise fashion until it was my turn to speak. "I'm Annabelle, and something fun I did in the last week was beat the Breathe of the Wild game." Amanda spent some time talking about the importance of being able to express ourselves and not bottle up all our thoughts and emotions inside. We were supposed to share our feelings and speak our truth, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. The first time Amanda called on me to speak, my mind went as blank as an Etch A Sketch tablet that had just been shaken. I kind of shook my head until she called on someone else and said I could have more time to think about what I wanted to say. I tried to pay attention to the other girls as they talked. I didn't understand why they were in a therapy group. They all seemed so normal. 'Can I be excused to go to the restroom?" I asked Amanda, anticipating that she was likely to call on me again soon. I had no compunction about using my bladder problems as an excuse to get myself a break from a conversation that I had zero interest in. Plus, it was a tactic I'd already used successfully with Amanda before. "Of course," Amanda said. That response didn't sit well with the other girls, who apparently hadn't been given the same luxury of being able to step away from the therapy session whenever they asked. A few of them grumbled about how that wasn't fair. "Well, Annabelle can, so let's just continue," Amanda said as I shifted my mini backpack onto my shoulder and went in search of the restrooms. I remained in the bathroom for as long as I felt I could get away with it. I had gone into one of the family restrooms so that I could have a little more privacy, but this one came with a full-length mirror on one of the walls. I wanted to pace back and forth so I could concentrate and think, but every time I turned around to face that wall, I had to see myself and this ugly dress in the mirror once again. Amanda didn't ask me any more questions during the remainder of the therapy session once I had returned to the circle. I appreciated not being put on the spot again, and I guessed that Amanda must have figured that was how I was feeling. I left the room as soon as the session came to an end, not bothering to stick around and try to talk with the other girls. "I have some good news for you," Aunt Lydia said, asa I sat down in the passenger seat of the car. "It better be that I don't have to go to this stupid therapy session ever again." "Why would you say that? What happened?" "No one wanted to talk to me." "Anyways," Aunt Lydia said, clearly intending to press on with the good news she had planned to deliver. "We hired a lawyer who is going to help make sure that you don't have to go back to living with your mom. There's going to be a court hearing in a month or so, but the attorney we hired is going to file a countersuit."

Chapter 28: Study Buddies Another morning, another wet diaper, another reminder that despite the façade I’ve been desperately attempting to construct, my bladder problems show no sign of improvement. Mom’s not-so-gentle-hand nudging my shoulder was what woke me up this morning. I didn’t need to look at the alarm clock to know that it was way too early for me to be getting out of bed on a weekend. Saturday mornings are supposed to be for sleeping in. Surely, there must be some law about it. That had changed with the re-emergence of my bedwetting problems over the past couple of weeks. Getting up bright and early was my mother’s mantra, and she used the excuse of needing to change my diaper to get me up at the same time that she did. We had adapted into an unspoken truce regarding the nighttime diapers. I didn’t put up any fuss with the diaper changes and cooperated fully with them, and mom handled it without any unnecessary commentary on the situation. The arrangement was the best I could hope for until the bedwetting abated. This morning, not only did mom remove the soaked diaper and wipe my bottom clean, but she proceeded to slide on a pair of panties for me, as if being a bedwetter again somehow meant I also needed assistance with dressing myself. At least I’d now successfully gone nearly a week of hiding my daytime accidents, so she wasn’t putting me in pull-ups for the day. It was also a good thing that there appears to be no end in sight for Emilia’s potty-training struggles, which have continued to plague her day and night. My three-year-old sister’s reliance on pull-ups has provided me with the ability to secretly use her pull-ups as well, and at least hide my daytime bladder accidents from my mom. Times like this, where I would have to wear panties for a while before I got an opportunity to exchange them for a pair of Emilia’s pull-ups, were when I had to be on my guard the most. Mom already made me go back to wearing pull-ups for a week after just one incident of me peeing my pants, and I had no doubt whatsoever that she would do so again if there were to be a repeat of that incident. Emilia was still fast asleep in her crib. Odds are good that her diaper is as soaked as mine, but mom didn’t bother waking up my little sister for a diaper change of her own. A cranky, tired toddler is much more of a handful to deal with than a cranky, tired teenager. Anyway, I could wait until Emilia was up until I slipped into one of her pull-ups. I went to the kitchen to prepare a bowl of cereal as mom started a morning bath for herself. I’d showered last night, so I didn’t need to this morning. I had only made it about halfway through my breakfast when I felt a tinge of pain in my bladder. How could I need to pee right now after I had woken up with a soaked diaper? The need to pee was usurped by a bigger problem. I had panties on and couldn’t afford to have a single leak. I raced to the bathroom and knocked frantically on the locked door. “Mom, can you let me in? I need to use the toilet.” “Not while I’m in the bath. You’re going to need to hold it.” She was in the bathtub, not on the toilet. Couldn’t she just close the curtain for a few seconds while I relieved my bladder? At best, mom probably wasn’t going to be out of the bathroom for another ten minutes. I’d be lucky if I made it that long without wetting myself. I peaked into the bedroom I shared with my sister. Emilia was stirring in her crib, appearing on the verge of waking up as if she hadn’t already. I took a couple of cautious steps into the bedroom, but the creaky wood floor tattled on me, and Emilia’s eyes blinked open. My sister yawned, and then tugged at her blanket so that it covered her better. I had no doubt that Emilia would tattle on me if she saw me take one of her pull-ups from the dresser, and I wasn’t going to stick around in the bedroom only to wet myself in front of her for a second time. I paced back and forth through the house, going from the laundry room to the kitchen to the living room and back to the only bathroom in the house. Walking seemed to slightly alleviate the urge to urinate, but it could only prolong the inevitable. “Mom... please,” I said at the bathroom door again, my voice breaking into a high-pitched whine. “Sarah, you’re fifteen. You can wait another five minutes.” It turned out that I couldn’t wait another five seconds. I felt an immediate warmth and wetness in my panties, followed by a gradual wetness spreading down my inner thighs and legs. The sensation of peeing stopped almost as soon as it had begun. For as badly as I had needed to pee, I was surprised that my bladder really hadn’t been all that full. The puddle on the floor was tiny. Most of the urine had instead soaked into my jeans. I’d been so careful. Why did the one accident I had have to happen at the only time I wasn’t prepared for it? “Why are your pants wet?” Emilia asked. Out of the mouths of babes. I turned around to see my younger sister standing outside the bedroom door. I instantly wished I hadn’t, because the wet spots on my pants were much more visible from the front. To be fair, Emilia’s diaper was clearly sagging beneath her pajama bottoms, but to be fair as well, I’m also nearly twelve years older than her and have few excuses for wetting myself. Emilia’s comment had made it through the bathroom door to mom as well. “You did what, Sarah?” I heard the sound of water splashing on the other side of the door and then a couple of footsteps as mom must have been stepping out of the tub. A few moments later, the bathroom door edged open a couple of inches as mom peeked her head out, wet hair dangling all over her face. “Not again,” mom said with a sigh. “Sarah, take your wet clothes and put them in the washing machine, and then go to my bedroom when you’re done with that.” I was too ashamed of the accident to make any attempt to argue with mom. I hurried to the laundry room, eager to be away from my sister, whose inopportune arrival had once again gotten me into trouble with mom. After stripping off my wet clothes and tossing them in the washing machine, I grabbed a fresh towel from the dryer. Emilia wasn’t in sight when I passed the still closed bathroom door on my way to mom’s bedroom. I felt frustrated more than anxious, because past experience now told me exactly what I had in store. Mom was going to make me wear pull-ups again, and I’d have to follow the same rules as my sister, meaning that I wasn’t going to escape that punishment until I’d kept those pull-ups dry during the day for a week. I could pull off the trick I’d used the last time mom had giving me this punishment and use Emilia’s pull-ups instead whenever I could get away with it, but I wished my life could go back to when I didn’t have to spend so much time monitoring my bathroom habits. Mom had told me she’d be out of the bathroom in five minutes, but I guess now that there wasn’t the urgency of freeing up the toilet for me, she felt as though she could take her time. I had been sitting on mom’s bed with the towel wrapped snug around my waist for about twenty minutes when mom finally stepped into the bedroom. “Sarah, how in the world are we supposed to get your younger sister potty-trained if she keeps seeing you have these accidents?” “It was only twice. And this time it wasn’t my fault.” “Two accidents are two more than any girl your age should have.” “I had hoped these weren’t going to be needed,” mom added, as she reached for something on the top shelf of the closet. Mom retrieved an un-opened plastic bag, tore open the side, and removed a pull-up. I was relieved that I appeared to be avoiding a lengthy lecture, but disappointed that mom had pull-ups on hand for me still. The picture on the pull-up was different from the other ones mom had used for my previous bedwetting phase. Was this a new brand now? “Why is the pull-up different?” “You went through all the old ones from when you were younger, so I had picked up some more at the store, just in case. It’s the same brand. They must have updated the designs.” I stood up from the bed, still holding the towel around my waist so that it wouldn’t drop to the floor. “That’s just in the way,” mom said, yanking the towel off of me. Mom knelt down and stretched the sides of the pull-up, and I knew what she expected me to do. I reluctantly guided my feet through the pull-up’s leg gatherings as mom slid it up to my waist. I looked down to get a better idea of what the new designs were like — cupcakes and confetti on a pale-pink background. That literally makes no sense. Not that I was all that emotionally invested in what my pull-ups looked like, but the other ones with the butterflies were one hundred percent better. I didn’t even bother putting on anything to cover the pull-up directly. Sweatpants or even a skirt would be out of the question with mom’s insistence that my sister and I shouldn’t have anything covering a pull-up when we had one on. Instead, I burrowed through the bottom drawer of my dresser to change into the largest t-shirt that I could find. The old summer-camp shirt didn’t completely conceal the pull-up, but it was likely the best I’d be able to get away with without upsetting mom. Only the bottom couple inches of the pull-up were visible, and it was now that I noticed that the bottom front of the pull-up had this strange, white rectangle on it that was so out of place with the remainder of the design. Whoever makes these has no idea what they are doing. My cereal was soggy when I at last returned to the kitchen, where Emilia was eating her own breakfast. Mom had made toast with jam for her. Like me, my sister had on just a pull-up and a t-shirt. I hated soggy cereal, but not finishing a meal was one of the easiest ways to get on mom’s bad side, so I chowed away at the now soft chunks of cereal as quickly as I could manage. “The laxatives arrived in the mail today,” mom mentioned casually, as if that was somehow a completely normal purchase to make for your two daughters. I had completely forgotten that mom had ordered laxatives, at my earlier suggestion, none-the-less, since constipation was apparently something that could mess with your bladder. I wasn’t ready to mess with how my bowels work today. The last thing I needed was to accidentally crap myself at school or at Lisa’s house when I’m studying with her this afternoon. “We’ll give the laxatives a try tomorrow and see if that helps you and your sister with the bladder problems you’ve been dealing with,” mom said. I wasn’t eager at the idea of taking some medicine that was supposed to give me an urgent need to poop, but if clearing out my bowels had the possibility of also helping me to stop wetting myself, I was at the point where I was willing to give it a try. --- The hallway at the front entrance of the high school was completely empty as I walked in after Mom dropped me off for our first official match for the Fortnite team. I made an immediate beeline for the nearest restroom, which, like the hallway, was also completely empty. I needed to get out of this pull-up pronto and put on one of the ones I'd taken from my sister instead. Another week of this charade where I have to carefully manage what undergarments I'm wearing was the price I was going to have to pay to get Mom off my scent about the daytime accidents again. Taking a seat on the toilet, I hastily removed the pull-up I had on. I was more than happy to take off the cupcake pull-up. I zipped open my backpack and reached my hand toward the bottom, where one of Emilia's pull-ups would be. Beneath the books for the history project, I felt some old erasers, candy wrappers, and a couple of pens, but the pull-up was nowhere to be found. My heart raced as I scoured the remainder of the backpack, but I came up empty. How did I forget to bring some of my sister's pull-ups along? On one hand, this was the first of the seven consecutive days I would need to keep Mom from discovering my daytime accidents, so if I did end up wetting the cupcake pull-ups, re-setting the clock would only set me back half-a-day. However, this meant I only had one pull-up. Mom hadn't sent another one of the cupcake pull-ups along. Since the two daytime accidents she had discovered were a couple of weeks apart, she at least still seemed to view them as isolated incidents and not part of a larger problem I was dealing with. I couldn't afford to have two accidents, cause the second one would lead to wet pants and a puddle on the floor. Lisa was already seated at her spot in the computer lab when I arrived. Shy was an apt description of her, but today she seemed to be a bit fidgety and on edge. She nearly jumped out of her seat when I grabbed the chair next to her and said hello. Unlike with other sports teams, since Fortnite can be played online, we didn't have to travel to another school for the Fortnite match. The requirement was only that we come to the school to play and the coach would just certify who was playing that day. Coach Olson gave a re-run of the rules once everyone had arrived. "All the schools in the state that have a girls Fortnite team will take part in the matches each week, with four games to be played," he said. "For this week, it will be all duo matches. There will be two matches going on at each time, so that pairs from the same school can't collude by being in the same match." Olson gave Lisa and me a password to enter, and we logged into the lobby for the first match and waited as players joined in from the other schools. I rubbed my palms against the sides of my jeans, as my hands had gotten a little sweaty. I shouldn't have had any reason to be nervous. This wasn't different from any other Fortnite match I'd played. Besides, Lisa, my teammate for the day, is a much better player than me. We waited for about five minutes before the countdown timer began, and then we were off. It turned out that I didn't have much to be nervous about. I was better than most of the competition, and Lisa was light years ahead of them. We parachuted straight down from the Battle Bus as soon as it arrived over the island, and we made short work of the other teams that had been unfortunate enough to also land in the same area. The round ended in an easy first-place victory over the second-place team we ambushed after hiding in a couple of bushes. The second and third rounds went the same way, as we fought our way to decisive first places finishes. We were in the lobby waiting for the fourth and final round of the day when trouble arrived in the form of clear and unmistakable signals from my bladder that I better get my butt on a toilet sooner rather than later. But this wasn't a sport with the option to call for a timeout, and the countdown timer for the next match was down to ten seconds already. With the game underway, I had little hope that this round would end quickly. Lisa was simply too good, and I was a half-way-decent player myself. If we made it to first place as we had in each match so far, I was looking at needing to wait nearly a half-hour before getting to the bathroom. That wasn't going to cut it. I resigned myself to the idea that I was going to end up wetting the pull-up and needing to go commando until I got home later this evening. Like the first three matches, Lisa and I dropped down to the island as quickly as we could, landing on separate buildings in the city before using our pickaxes to break through the roofs and equip ourselves with weapons from chests hidden inside the attics. "Shit!" I turned from my screen for a second to see a look of shock on Lisa's face. I'd never heard her use a curse word before. "Someone got me from behind," Lisa said. "Can you get over to revive me?" I replied that I was on my way, but then another thought popped into my mind. If my character died, then the match would be over, and I would be free to get to the bathroom on time. I hurried to build a ramp leading up to the top of the building that Lisa's character was in, but as I reached the top, I moved my character forward without putting the next piece of the ramp in place, and my character plummeted to ground to meet its untimely demise. "Ugh! I'm so sorry," I said, trying to act surprised by what had just happened. "It's OK," Lisa said, though she still sounded upset. "We should still get first place overall." It wasn't the first time we had ever lost a match, and, with the three previous wins, we were going to end up in first place for sure in the aggregate ranking for the day, but Lisa definitely seemed annoyed. "I don't know how I didn't hear them walking up the stairs behind me," she muttered. I couldn't bring myself to rush off to the restroom right away. I didn't want it to look like my bladder had distracted me from the game in any way. I watched the match continue for a few minutes before heading off to the restroom once it became clear that I couldn't afford to wait any longer. "I'll be right back," I whispered to Lisa as I slipped out into the hallway. I made a careful examination of the pull-up as I sat on the toilet. Not a single sign of any leaks into it. I still couldn't believe how I had forgotten to bring any extra pull-ups. That was a mistake I couldn't afford to make again. I returned to the computer lab just as the match was finishing up. It turns out that the team that had eliminated us had made it all the way to fourth place in the round. Even with that last loss, we were way ahead in total points for the day. With the Fortnite matches over, Coach Olson dismissed us, and I followed Lisa to her uncle's tiny office. Mr. Higgins was sitting at a desk with a stack of papers in front of him. The one he was working on at the moment had received generous amounts of red ink. I hope it wasn't mine. "How did it go?" he asked, not looking up from the paper. "We won!" Lisa replied enthusiastically, appearing to finally have gotten over the ignominious defeat in the final match. "That's great. I've just got two more papers left to grade and then we can head home." Lisa grabbed her backpack and excused herself to go to the restroom, while I took a seat on the floor outside Mr. Higgin's office. My mouth was beginning to get dry, but I didn't dare walk down the hallway to the drinking fountain. Mom wasn't going to go come pick me up from Lisa's place until after dinner, so I had to avoid wetting this pull-up for as long as I possibly could. --- We didn't talk much on the drive to Lisa's house. The trip took about twenty minutes, and by the end, we were on a bumpy, gravel road on the outskirts of the city. I usually didn't mind hanging out with my friend's parents, but this was different. First, Mr. Higgins was Lisa's uncle, and second, he was my history teacher. It was just awkward being around a teacher outside of school. I had never envisioned them living normal lives, even though they surely must. I couldn't believe my eyes when I entered Lisa's bedroom. It had to be twice as big as the one I shared with my sister, and Lisa had this room all to herself. There was a TV on a dresser across from her bed, and on the side of the room, there was another door that led to what look like her own bathroom. If my bedroom was like that, it would have solved my bladder problem this morning. "I'm so jealous. Mom would never let me have a TV in my bedroom." "Is she strict?" "Well, kind of. But I also share a bedroom with my sister. She's three, so a TV probably isn't the best idea anyway." "That must be tough." "Yeah, she has a bad habit of sometimes waking me up in the middle of the night when she can't sleep." We got to work on our history class project right away, which was to put together a five-minute presentation about a U.S. President. We had been assigned George H.W. Bush. I thought it was a bit of a raw deal. He had apparently only served one term, so there wasn't as much for us to talk about. "Maybe we should start with a list of all his major accomplishments," Lisa said, pulling out a miniature whiteboard and handing a marker to me. "Did he really do anything all that important?" "Well, unlike his son, he didn't get the U.S. Army stuck in Iraq for more than a decade." I scribbled a note on the miniature whiteboard – better pull-out game than his son. We spent the next couple of minutes collapsed on the floor in side-splitting laughter. It was only after standing up that I realized that I had laughed so hard that I had peed myself. A discreet glance down at my pants confirmed that the pull-up had done it job, but without a way to discard the pull-up, that meant I'd be stuck in it until Mom picked me up. Since Lisa had invited me to stay for dinner, that was going to be a long wait. There was not a chance in the world that I would leave a wet pull-up in one of her garbage bins. While the pull-up didn't feel all that wet, I wasn't confident at all that it could handle another accident without leaking. I continued to help Lisa put together the list of H.W.'s accomplishments. He'd actually had quite the busy four years in office. We made a power-point slide with the top five ones, so that we could spend a minute talking about each of them. I offered to do three of the slides, knowing that Lisa wouldn't be excited about public speaking. I was going to talk about the first slide, and then we'd alternate from there. We had sped through the project faster than I had expected, so we still had an hour or two before dinner, plenty of time for playing some video games. Lisa had a Nintendo Switch that I was eager to try Mario Kart on. "Should we find something to play now?" I asked. "We can practice giving the presentation after dinner." "Sure, but in a little bit," Lisa said, with a bit of a stammer. "There's something I've been meaning to ask you." I had no idea what Lisa could be referring to. She clearly seemed nervous, but about what? "Of course, go ahead." Lisa paused and looked at the floor for a moment as she shuffled her feet. She then took a deep breath and looked back up at me. "What's the deal with you wearing a pull-up?"

I don't like getting into political arguments, but as my elderly Grandmother (who is at high risk) just got diagnosed with Covid today, I feel compelled to respond to this with a few points, because Covid denialism is dangerous to our society. The flu kills about 30k or so people a year (in the U.S.). Sometimes, more, sometimes less. And we don't have to shut down society to deal with it. Covid has killed 10x that many, 300K, in only nine months. (Studies that examine the average U.S. death rate compared to this year show it is highly likely we are undercounting Covid deaths, and the Covid death toll is maybe 100k higher than reported) Hospitals are literally running out of ICU beds. The national guard has had to construct temporary field hospitals in some states. If hospitals get overwhelmed and people with Covid can't get good treatment, the death toll from Covid will rise astronomically. The biggest danger with Covid isn't it's fatality rate (which, while worse than the flu, isn't nearly as bad as things like Ebola) the danger is that it is so infection that is spreads super easily and too many sick people will overwhelm the hospital system, leading to lots of unnecessary and completely avoidable deaths because while people can survive Covid, it requires specific and often intensive treatment. So basically, we shut a ton of shit down, which we never do for the flu, and Covid still, despite all those efforts, managed to kill 400K people and will likely get twice that much by the time it runs it's course and the vaccine produces herd immunity sometime in 2021. So yeah, Covid-19 is a big fucking deal, and should be treated seriously. Wear a mask, don't go to crazy social gatherings, and for the love of God (or whatever deity you believe in) take the vaccine when it is available. And yes, dispose of your diapers properly (you should be doing that anyways). /end rant p.s. It's actually fecal matter that spreads Covid more than urine.

The Washington Post is covering it, so it must be legit: China’s flight attendants advised to wear diapers to avoid covid-19 risks - The Washington Post From the article: "China’s transportation officials are recommending flight attendants wear disposable diapers and avoid restrooms at all costs on flights serving countries with high rates of coronavirus cases, according to documents from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). The recommendation to use diapers and avoid in-flight bathrooms altogether applies on flights to and from countries with infection rates exceeding 500 cases per million people. The United States’ coronavirus case rate exceeded that limit as of Dec. 10, at more than 660 cases per million."

Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

I write my stories in Microsoft Word and I've never run into any issues with a quick copy/paste into this forum. Granted, I don't do much the way of formatting. I just paste it in, adjust the text-size for the chapter title and put it in bold, do another quick read through and it's always been good. Otherwise, I'd suggest Google Drive/Docs as your best option, since that is free and auto-saves.

Someone else recommended the Tranquility brand, and I would agree. You can order that easily from Amazon. Their ATN (all-through-the-night) or Slimline options are both likely what you would be looking for in terms of a slimmer diaper with decent absorbency. Depending on the size you use, if you get them by the case they'll run 60-85 cents a diaper.