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Hi, I am trying something a little different. First person works for a lot of people, and I've had the advice before that I am emotionally disconnected from my characters when I write. Maybe Third Person is not a style that really works for me. So, I've decided to write Lauren's tales from the First Person Perspective to see if that helps with emotionally identifying, at least, with the main character. So, I've been watching some depressing movies lately about child fostering, adoption, and abuse, and somehow, this has sparked my need to tell another story. Now, I do not claim to know what true abuse is like, and I don't claim to have ever lived in a foster home ever, but I hope my empathy reaches to the point that this story makes sense. It has been a while since I've actually written a story outside of roleplay, and I don't mean to be insensitive at all, so if you are horrified by the emotions that someone that had not experienced it themselves, but who has the imagination to try to place themselves in the shoes of such a person, then please do not read this. It is meant to draw up strong emotions, though the main players in this story are NOT the cruel people that would have hurt the kid. The kid is just ten years old when the story opens.... Chapter 1 Was I Dreaming Again? The vibration of the car seat under me shook me so that I couldn’t relax. The drive was long. The new faces were yet to burn themselves into my heart. There was only the feeling that once again, I was in the fog of the unknown. What new rules were there to be? What new rules were there that they thought I already knew? What kinds of things will set off the ticking into an unmanageable explosion? Why couldn’t I just stay where I knew what they wanted? I looked down at my legs, covered by wine-purple sweats as I pushed my thighs towards each other. I knew why it was hard to make my thighs rest against each other, and why it was uncomfortable to make my knees touch, but that was normal. It wasn’t anything new. What mattered more, was that I kept the secret as long as I could so that I wouldn’t get caught, maybe have a chance to deal with the damp moisture on the skin around my privates. Please, don’t seep through, please don’t do it. It was late, probably after the time that most had dinner. I was sitting in the backseat of the dimly lit car with a girl a little smaller than me. She was wearing blue jeans and a pink top that had hearts around the collar, the sleeves, and the trimmings at the bottom. It was so cute! She was cute, too, but she was probably just like all the others. I best not talk to her. Best not do anything to upset her. She might tattle on me for something weird. She might even realize what I’ve done, and tattle about that. Something watery and itchy on my nose, my snot, made me reach up with the upper end of my arm, and as I sniffled, I wiped the water on my purple sleeve, the sleeve of my sweats. I turned to look out the window, hoping that the girl next to me didn’t notice that I saw her. I hoped she didn’t think I wanted to talk. I didn’t want any trouble. I felt my legs push towards each other, the knees touching on the tips, but it was like trying to keep a clothes pin back end together. It just didn’t want to stay like that, and sprung apart. I glanced down at the pocket of seat that was between my open legs. There was a dry red-brown seat there. I hoped it would stay dry all the way to the place we were going. It was dark outside. I hate the dark. “Mommy,” the little girl next to me suddenly made a noise that drew me out of myself. Alert that she had said mommy, I wondered if she was telling on me. I wondered what I did wrong, or maybe she knew that my privates were damp. Maybe she knew that the stiffness between my legs was …. “...I’m hungry,” the girl said. Her hair was darker brown, and when the light hit it, it sometimes looked a little red. She was shorter than me. She was smaller. But it was always the smaller kids that I had to be most careful of. They were the most trouble. All it took was one mistake, and her age, her size, her seemingly innocence would be used against me and I’d be hit! “Honey, pull over,” the lady in the front seat told the man. “The kids are hungry. We can surely take them out, right? Give us a chance to talk to our new child a bit more like a family.” The man nodded and seemed like he was smiling as he agreed to pull over. They were pulling over. Oh, no, there was no time to let it dry. They would get me out of the car, and they would notice what I’ve done. It only took a peek down my pants, or a light touch on my bum, and they would know. I was in trouble now. I tried to bury my face in my arms, and pretend to be asleep. I closed my eyes. It was probably not going to save a ten year old the disgrace of being found like this, but it might get me off. They might think I was just… um… a bed-wetting baby. Better that, then a ten year old kid that pees her pants all the time and causes trouble. But then, maybe they already knew. Most of the people by this time that would pick me up, would eventually get me home, check my pants, and tell me not to lie, that they knew I had peed my pants, even if I didn’t see how they knew it yet. Maybe they were told I’d pee my pants. I don’t know. It was just the confusing way they always spoke, that I was never really sure if they were told or not. “Honey, get Lauren’s diapers from the back?” the lady told the man as she went to my door. They knew I wore diapers then…. “I want to check her when we go in, and make her comfortable before she eats.” The man nodded and after opening the side of the car that April, the girl that sat next to me for her, he went to the back. He didn’t look at me at all. I couldn’t tell how mad he was, if he knew I was wet, but at least he wasn’t looking at me like I was going to get it. At least, he wasn’t looking like that just now. I shivered. Maybe we were in public. Maybe they had known I was leaking in my pants this whole time, and now, they knew I was wet. Maybe it would be embarrassing to them to leave me in wet pants, so they were going to change me, but when we get home, that would mean I’d really get it. We were walking into the restaurant. I felt a sting in my left eye, and a tear trailed down my face. I knew I was going to be discovered, and I was going to get it soon. I shivered. I felt the back of my pants, hoping it felt dry. I hoped it looked dry. I didn’t want to embarrass them. I knew if they were embarrassed, I’d really get it. “Mommy, that new girl is touching her bum with her hands,” the little girl told on me. I couldn’t help it. I was so scared and nervous now. I stopped and looked down, waiting for her to slap me for drawing attention to my shame in public. She came looming up before me. I put my arms up to guard my face. She reached around my body on both sides. I stiffened, and as I did, I drizzled pee into my diaper. The lady picked me up and she carried me. I had no choice. She was bigger. I dared not to yell at her to put me down. I didn’t want her to throw me to the ground. I could only stiffen as she pulled me to her, my face pushed against her bosom. She smelled like lavenders and her hair was fresh. She asked me to shush, but she did it differently than the last woman would have done. She didn’t touch my nose in a way that it would hurt. She didn’t sharply shush at me. She swayed with me, and she made the shushing sound, but it was a softer whisper-like noise. It was almost soothing. I couldn’t help myself. The rest of the pee was now in my diaper. I felt it leaking down my legs and collecting on my butt. She had me in her arms. I was wetting on her. She was going to find out. She was going to be disgusted and throw me any minute. The woman walked up near the man. “She’s wet,” the woman whispered to the man as they walked through the doors. “I’m afraid she’s getting me wet, too. Can you get my extra shirt out of the car once you get April settled, and bring it to the bathroom. I have to change our little daughter.” “Sure honey,” he said. He whispered. He didn’t yell, he didn’t glare at me. He didn’t even touch me with his hands. He leaned in and kissed my head. I had never felt someone do that when I was so disgusting before. He smiled at me when I looked up, like he… like he… I don’t know how to describe it. He wasn’t mad at all! Looking up at the woman, she wasn’t mad either. She was rocking me, and she took me right to the bathroom while the man and April sat down in the waiting area. The woman, whose name was Bridget, took me into a stall, before she sat me on my feet. She wiped my face with her hand, and whispered. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. Accidents happen.” I looked up at her and she smiled at me. “It’s okay, sweetheart. We were told last week that you have toileting problems. We are not going to get mad over a little problem that can be fixed. She must have realized I was looking at the wetness on her shirt, the place I had peed on her. “This?” she asked as she touched her shirt where I peed on her. “It’s nothing. Your new daddy is going to get mommy a clean shirt as soon as he gets April a table, and then it will be like nothing happened.” She had lovely green eyes, freckles that made her less perfect than a model, but down to the earth approachable. She was soft, and when she touched me, she was gentle. She put her hands on my hips, or the sides of my sweatpants, actually, and pulled them down revealing a soaking wet diaper that had layer upon layer of padding inside it. I had put those pads inside, to try to absorb my pee as much as I could. I had one front layer in case it sort of went to the front a little bit, and then I had three layers between my legs and two layers on my butt, all made up of four pads. The woman gently pulled my diaper down. It was one of those panty-like diapers. I don’t know if it has a special name or not. Sometimes, I think I hear people say pull-ups, but I’m not sure if that is the real thing it is called. She saw how wet I was. I knew that she knew I had wet myself several times by now. It was so soaked. I waited for her to ask me if I was gross, if I liked peeing my pants, or if I was just too stupid…. “Oh, baby,” is what she said when she saw how wet I was. “How long have you been like this, honey?” Then she suddenly hugged me, and put her soft cheek against mine. Her arms were warm and welcoming. She worked around behind me, pulling my wet pants and my diaper all the way off of me. She rubbed my back, as she whispered in my ear. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Mommy is going to check you more often.” I blushed. I didn’t expect her to be nice about it, and to take the blame for me leaking in my pants. It was my fault. I am the stupid one that should have told them I was wetting my pants earlier, even before they had come to pick me up. No one at that place where they got me really checked me. Why would they? I was ten years old. None of the other ten year olds were checked, were they? She helped me into a clean diaper, and she put less layers of pads on me. She only put two layers on me, one that came a little bit to the front, but not as far us as my other one I did for myself, and one that went all the way around my bottom. She hugged me after she had me in a diaper, but my pants were wet. There was a knock at the bathroom outside door. “You stay here a minute,” Bridget told me. “That will be daddy getting mommy a clean shirt. I’ll send him out for a clean pair of pants for you, honey.” The woman left me in the stall, where I stood, looking down, wondering why she wasn’t yelling at me, why she was so soft and so quiet to me, why she made me feel better after I peed on her. The woman came back smiling. “Well, it turns out daddy is a mind-reader,” she told me. “See? He got you a skirt from your things.” Like all of my things these days, it was dirty, stained, and had little holes in it, but mommy ignored that like everyone else did, and she slid it up my legs. She smiled at me. “We’ll get you some better things tomorrow,” she told me. “Daddy said all of your clothes were like this.” I nodded. I couldn’t deny that all my clothes were stained and had holes in them. That was just what you grew to accept after you’d been in the system for more than two years, even if you didn’t wet your pants like I did. Bridget changed her shirt, and then she took me by the hand, and we sat at the table. I was surprised to see that April was not eating yet. I looked up at Bridget and then I looked at Jack. Jack was the man that called himself daddy to me. “Well, now we are all at the table, we can order,” he turned and looked at April. The younger girl, by about a year, smiled and nodded. “Is Lauren all comfortable now?” she asked, her question much more sincere than bully-mocking like others had been. There was no sing-song to the question. Her face was serious as she looked over at me, as though to look in my eyes. I thought she was telling on me to get me in trouble when she told them I was touching my butt, but her face wasn’t disappointed at all, when she saw I wasn’t crying. She looked different. She looked like, she, really wanted me to be comfortable. I nodded at her. She smiled, and she looked at Jack. “I’ll have whatever Lauren has,” and she passed the menu to me. I stared at it. I couldn’t help my hand shaking as she presented the menu to me. I wasn’t allowed to touch the menu, ever, before. I accidentally didn’t take it in time, and it fell to the floor. “I’ll get it,” April said with a cheerful smile, and she dived under the table to get it. Bridget motioned for me, so I got up and went over and stood by her side as she put an arm around me, and she pointed out the stuff on the menu. “You can have anything you want,” she told me. I looked over at Jack, shaking. I couldn’t believe, that not only April, who might have been naive about how this really works with foster kids, but now, Bridget was telling me that I could pick stuff and showing me the menu with her arms practically around me, not in a threatening—going to choke me kind of way, but the way I’d imagined real mothers put their hands around their own daughters as they comforted them. Jack smiled and nodded as Bridget tried to draw my attention back to the menu. I stood there, shaking. My legs were tense. My arms were tense. Something was wrong. This is not how they were supposed to treat me. I wasn’t supposed to even see a menu. I was supposed to come out of the bathroom with a sore butt for wetting my pants, at the very least. I was supposed to be crying. I was supposed to be sorry that I embarrassed them. Bridget wasn’t supposed to be wearing a smile and a different shirt at the same time! Something was wrong. I couldn’t think. I just closed my eyes and pointed at something random. Mommy laughed, but it wasn’t mean. She shook her head and asked me: “Did you even see where you pointed?” I shrugged. “April, why don’t you order, honey. We’ll let Lauren eat what you pick. She’s too nervous to do it this time.” The younger girl smiled and nodded. She looked up at Jack. “Can I get dessert?” “Of course, you can, baby. But you know the rule. You eat regular food first, and then if you are still hungry, then you can order a dessert.” True to their words, they ordered two orders of what April asked for. I don’t really remember what it was, only that both April and I got the same thing. I felt like I was getting full. This was the first real filling meal I had had in a long time. Foster kids were supposed to get something simple, like a bowl of mashed potatoes, maybe a bowl of macaroni, and if I was good, maybe something in the mac like tuna. I started to slow down on eating, and April looked at me. “Daddy will get you get some dessert,” she told me. “I promise, he will. He always tells me the same rule, but I never finish my dinner, and he still gets it for me.” Jack laughed. “Wait, you know I will do that, do you?” he had a playful smile on his face. “You clever little goblin! Don’t tell me you order less than you can eat on purpose just so you can make sure you get dessert, too?” April shrugged. “Well, don’t all kids?” He laughed and looked at Bridget who laughed too. I looked down. I didn’t want to lie to them about what I could eat. He told me to finish my food. I tried to pick up another bite, but Bridget took my fork. “It’s alright, honey. You ate a lot. You can get dessert, too.” We must have sat there, a little while. April made a face at me, and I looked over at Bridget and Jack, but they smiled. They didn’t say anything about it. I didn’t know if April was making fun of me at first, but then she took me by the hands, and she showed me, as if teaching me, how to make the face she made. “Look at daddy, now,” she pointed at Jack. Jack smiled at me, and he stuck his tongue at me real quick. I looked at him for a minute. He was smiling. His eye had laugh lines in them, and he nodded at me. “That means it’s your turn to make another face at him,” April whispered to me, though as loud as she whispered I knew that Jack had to have heard. He seemed to pretend not to though. I felt a dark presence over me, and I shuttered. I wasn’t supposed to disrespect adults. I was not supposed to make faces at them. If he is having fun now, would he pay me back for being disrespectful? Suddenly, there was a hand on my shoulder. Bridget had come to my side of the table while I was looking down, and she picked me up from the chair and hugged me. “That’s enough for now,” she told April. Bridget sat in my chair and held me in her lap. “Lauren isn’t used to this kind of playing,” Bridget explained to April as she rubbed my thighs. “That’s why she’s stiff, with tears on her face, and she’s shaking?” April questioned. “Yes, baby. Lauren is scared.” “I’m sorry,” April told Lauren. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Daddy and me play like this all the time. Of course, I would never stick my tongue out at him seriously. He knows I’m just playing, that’s why it’s okay.” I looked over at April, who patted me on the leg nearest her. “Two chocolate cakes with a side of ice cream,” I heard Jack suddenly say, so I turned my head to see what he was doing. He was talking to the waitress. The misses wanted ice cream, and I’d just like a cream doughnut.” I turned my head and looked up at Bridget with a sting in my eye again. It wasn’t a scared or a sad sting. It was something I couldn’t explain because I never felt it before. But it caused my eyes to water and a tear went down my face. “Mommy, Lauren is crying,” April observed with her own face looking sad. “Did I do something to make her sad again?” “No, honey,” Bridget said putting an arm around April. “She’s just confused, and she might even be happy.” “People don’t cry when they are happy,” April said and in my experience, April was right. “Honey, sometimes, people cry when they have powerful feelings, even feelings of happiness or love.” April just looked down accepting her mother’s words, but I was curious if Bridget really believed that. Maybe she was just trying to make April feel better. Adults lied to kids all the time for different reasons, and I’ve seen parents lie to their real kids about a harsh truth, just to make them forget about the terrible thing they saw. Bridget turned me in her lap so I was facing the table when the desserts came, and she ate her ice cream around me, while she whispered and encouraged me to eat as much of the cake and ice cream as she could get me to eat. I looked at it at first, but shook my head. I wasn’t supposed to get cake and ice cream. That was a treat for someone’s real kids, not the foster kids. “We ordered this treat for you,” Bridget whispered in my ear. “No one is going to eat it but you. If you don’t eat it, it will just sit there, and then it will be wasted because someone else could have ordered it.” I looked up at her and then at Jack. He nodded. “That’s your cake, baby. Please, if you are still hungry, please eat it.” April took a fork of it, and I thought she was going to eat it, but she put it up by my mouth. “Eat,” she whispered. Another sting in my eyes, a sting that went down into my insides, a sting that I couldn’t explain, as the cake was pushed into my mouth, and I slowly closed my teeth over the sponge of chocolate and the fork rubbed my teeth as it was pulled out of my mouth, April smiling. I wasn’t really hungry anymore. I was neutral. I was satisfied. I could eat more though, and surprising myself, I ended up eating the whole cake, mom and April feeding it to me as I was just too stiff, and too shaky to hold the fork and spoon on my own. I would never have dreamed I’d ever eat cake again. The last time, I couldn’t remember exactly, but I saw another loving face looking at me at the time. I saw two people that I sometimes dreamed about, but knew I’d never see again. I don’t know for sure, but I think, they are memories of my real parents. I rubbed my watery nose on the lower arm sleeve of my sweatshirt. Bridget smiled at me, and she took a napkin, and she wiped my nose. She whispered in my ear. “Blow, honey.” I puffed my cheeks and blew and then looked up confused at her. “No, silly,” April was quick to speak up. “She means like this, and she took a napkin, and she blew her nose. I blushed. I should have known better. I really am stupid. Bridget smiled and got a clean napkin and she tried again, to which, I did what was expected. No one had ever blown my nose…. No, wait, maybe that was wrong. Maybe a long long time ago. Maybe the person in my dream had done it. I am not certain, but I somehow feel like it is something she would have done. “Take April to the bathroom,” Bridget told Jack. “I want to take Lauren and check her diaper again, just in case. We’ve been here a while.” He nodded. I didn’t realize we were there that long at all. But Bridget took me to the bathroom. She stood me in front of her while she went, and while she was going, she pulled my skirt and my diaper down. It felt dry. “Do you want to try on the potty?” she asked me. I had not heard it called a potty in a very long time. I nodded. I wanted to make her happy. She gave me cake, and she fed me so I was actually not hungry with tummy rumbles. I really wanted to make her happy. I was put on the toilet after she was done, and she stood there. I knew she expected me to do something. When others took me to the toilet, even a week ago, they made me sit there there until it came out, and they got mad when it didn’t come right away. I looked up nervously, but not because she might hit me, but because I didn’t want to make this nice lady mad at me at all. I concentrated, and pushed on my stomach. “Baby, what are you doing?” Bridget looked upset somehow. Her eyes were narrowed, but she was looking at me pushing on my stomach. “I’m going potty,” I told her through a grunt as I tried really hard to make my body behave. “I don’t know who told you to do that, but that’s not how you go potty,” Bridget told me. She picked me up off of the toilet. “You know what, I changed my mind. Don’t use the potty right now, baby.” I looked at her a little confused. “Just go in your pants if you can’t hold it for now. Mommy will try again later.” “Was I bad?” I asked stiffening. “No honey. I just don’t want you hurting yourself. You were not doing it naturally at all, and I am afraid you will hurt yourself if you push on yourself like that all the time.” “I can’t just go in my pants,” I whispered. “Because it’s embarrassing?” Bridget asked me. I looked down. “I know it’s embarrassing,” Bridget put a tender hand on my shoulder. “And I’ll let you sit on the toilet again to try, if you promise not to push your stomach like that.” I nodded. She sat me on the toilet again. She must have seen the look on my face or something, but she had more directions for me. “No, Lauren. Don’t force it like that, honey. If you need to go, it shouldn’t take that much effort to go. It should be as easy as when it comes out accidentally in your diaper, baby.” I nodded, and tried to stop myself forcing, then it felt like it was not going to come out. I shook, scared of not getting any out. I looked up at Bridget, and she smiled and prodded me off the toilet. “Honey, it’s alright. We can try when we get home, and if you are wet before we get home, then mommy can just change your pants.” I nodded and looking down, I let Bridget pull my panty-diaper up, and then she pulled my skirt into place before taking me out to wash my hands. She hugged me after we washed my hands, and then suddenly, I was being lifted into her arms, and we walked back to the car, where Jack discovered, I had wet on the seat earlier. It had leaked before I knew it had, but he was not mad at all. He told Bridget to wait a minute, and he got a plastic sheet from the back and put it on the seat. “That will keep her skirt dry,” he was speaking to Bridget, but he looked at me, too, with a little wink. “We don’t want to wet that cute little skirt of yours, do we?” I looked down at my stained skirt, and then back up at him. I wondered if he was joking, or if he really thought this skirt was cute. It was still a bit of a drive to get home. They must have driven over a thousand miles to come and pick me up! No one ever drove like that to get me before! If anything, someone took me to a closer place for the people to get me, and sometimes, even dropped me off at their door, but never ever had a foster family come so far to pick me up and take me to their house. I could see April falling asleep not long after we had gotten out of the restaurant. She had a smile on her lips, and the last thing she did, was move her lips, or at least the last thing I saw, and it looked like she said my name, though no sound came out. I drifted off a few moments later, and then I was in hell again!