A.B.+D.L.=<3 (Interlude Pt 1/3 Posted 12/5)

[RambleLamb]

1 hour ago, Bluebird67 said:

So this story is a kind of eulogy as well as a love story.

You are an amazing writer, both in the literal sense - I am often taken aback by the the scope of your stories - and in the usual sense of really, really good.

Thank you so much for sharing your talent here.

(Bother. I seem to have run out of likes.)

Eulogy, huh? I could see where you would get that, but is your thought that it's a eulogy for Dawn herself or for the relationship between her and Alina?

Also, I'm most definitely not confirming or denying any guesses or suspicions, I'm just curious how you interpret the eulogy aspect.

Also, also, I'm very glad you like the story and greatly appreciate you reading and commenting on it!

[foofybabykitten]

Whoa, my heart literally fell into a chasm at the end. The beginning showed so much genuine care and understanding and love, only for it all to be thrown in Alina's face as she was betrayed. I legitimately teared up remembering the instances in my life where exactly the same thing happened, it's strangely beautiful how you can write a scene that yes has plenty of emotion and description innately, but makes the reader draw on their own experiences and fill in the emotions on their own seamlessly through the story. Maybe I'm just over praising and you didn't mean for that to happen, but I still very much stand by my statement as it did exactly that for me, I'm already so emotionally invested in this story and it's only three chapters in *phew* this is gonna be a ride for sure, I can tell.

    

[RambleLamb]

1 hour ago, foofybabykitten said:

Whoa, my heart literally fell into a chasm at the end. The beginning showed so much genuine care and understanding and love, only for it all to be thrown in Alina's face as she was betrayed. I legitimately teared up remembering the instances in my life where exactly the same thing happened, it's strangely beautiful how you can write a scene that yes has plenty of emotion and description innately, but makes the reader draw on their own experiences and fill in the emotions on their own seamlessly through the story. Maybe I'm just over praising and you didn't mean for that to happen, but I still very much stand by my statement as it did exactly that for me, I'm already so emotionally invested in this story and it's only three chapters in *phew* this is gonna be a ride for sure, I can tell.

    

One of the reasons I apologized in a previous comment for using children as the protagonists and having all this heavy and difficult emotional stuff happening between them is because it makes things seem all the more devastating. 

If, as an adult, a person you had met a handful of days prior said something about you to a person you didn't like would it matter? Probably not because, as adults, we rarely connect with someone instantly based on nothing greater than having the same shoes or whatever banal criteria is deemed fit to forge a bond the way kids do.

This story only works on the back of the main characters meeting as kids. It works because we learn so much about life and the experiences in it as kids and by dealing with other kids. These lessons shape us and make us the people we will become in adulthood, for better or worse.

While I won't claim anything that happens in this story is based on specific events in my own life, I will say that the emotions don't come from a vacuum, they come from something I've felt for one reason or another and drawing on past experiences for that to trigger memories of past events in the lives of others is absolutely intentional.

I hope you're okay after reading this, things will get easier as we press on, but just like life, we never know when that bump in the road is gonna come and we can't prepare for it. Thank you for commenting and sharing your feelings and praise, it's very much appreciated!

[Bluebird67]

3 hours ago, RambleLamb said:

Eulogy, huh? I could see where you would get that, but is your thought that it's a eulogy for Dawn herself or for the relationship between her and Alina?

Also, I'm most definitely not confirming or denying any guesses or suspicions, I'm just curious how you interpret the eulogy aspect.

Also, also, I'm very glad you like the story and greatly appreciate you reading and commenting on it!

I was thinking of a eulogy for Dawn. I thought Alina (as narrator) had told us they were friends (and more) for life. But I now see she actually said “Dawn started loving me until the day I die”. So it could be that D.L. stopped loving A.B. that way and that the story is a eulogy for the relationship.

The sentence I quoted made me think that the relationship is permanently over. Maybe it’s my age that made me assume that the end of a lifelong love was due to a death rather than a change of heart. Either way, it was the fact you slipped that sentence in that made me stop right there to post a comment.

[YourFNF]

Wow that was.... wow.. why Dawn?

[Wannatripbaby]

20 hours ago, RambleLamb said:

but I have yet to meet a child that didn't say something to a friend or a loved one at some point in time that makes you wonder why the spawn of the actual Devil is just cold chilling at some random playground on Earth when they could be running for president or auto tuning gold records

That's just because you never knew Me as a kid. I was a very sweet and gentle child who's anti-social tendencies leaned more towards sitting by myself reading and avoiding social engagements rather than acting aggressive towards anyone.

20 hours ago, RambleLamb said:

cherub smiles often part to reveal venom dripping fangs

That is an AMAZING line!

Also I was almost certain that final section would turn out to be another nightmare. I didn’t expect it to be real! I have no clue where this is going next!

[RambleLamb]

2 hours ago, Bluebird67 said:

I was thinking of a eulogy for Dawn. I thought Alina (as narrator) had told us they were friends (and more) for life. But I now see she actually said “Dawn started loving me until the day I die”. So it could be that D.L. stopped loving A.B. that way and that the story is a eulogy for the relationship.

The sentence I quoted made me think that the relationship is permanently over. Maybe it’s my age that made me assume that the end of a lifelong love was due to a death rather than a change of heart. Either way, it was the fact you slipped that sentence in that made me stop right there to post a comment.

These are very sound reasonings to support your guess, but I cannot confirm nor deny whether you're right or wrong. I will however say that the ending of a story, no matter how satisfying, isn't really worth much of anything without a solid story preceding it, hopefully this story is worth getting to the ending, and hopefully that ending is worth the journey.

2 hours ago, YourFNF said:

Wow that was.... wow.. why Dawn?

I know, right?! There better be a darn good reason for her actions!

1 hour ago, Wannatripbaby said:

That's just because you never knew Me as a kid. I was a very sweet and gentle child who's anti-social tendencies leaned more towards sitting by myself reading and avoiding social engagements rather than acting aggressive towards anyone.

That is an AMAZING line!

Also I was almost certain that final section would turn out to be another nightmare. I didn’t expect it to be real! I have no clue where this is going next!

You're the exception to the rule then, a gold star for you!

I was pretty pleased with it!

Not a dream, you'll know when we're doing dreams, trust me. As far as where this is going, probably somewhere is a fair guess.

[Wannatripbaby]

5 minutes ago, RambleLamb said:

As far as where this is going, probably somewhere is a fair guess.

Hmm... Somewhere seems too obvious though. I'm putting my money on Somewhere Else. 

[RambleLamb]

12 minutes ago, Wannatripbaby said:

Hmm... Somewhere seems too obvious though. I'm putting my money on Somewhere Else. 

You got me, the next chapter is about vampires, it makes sense if you think about it.

[aldl4811]

You are a fantastic writer. The detail is amazing 

[RambleLamb]

7 hours ago, aldl4811 said:

You are a fantastic writer. The detail is amazing 

Thank you very much! I'm glad you like it!

[RambleLamb]

This chapter was made possible with the help of Pandora and the following artists: Run The Jewels, Franz Ferdinand, Flobots, Flogging Molly, Green Day, Beastie Boys, Sublime, Crossfade, Childish Gambino, Linkin Park, Kendrick Lamar, Everlast, Macklemore, Kanye West, Fall Out Boy, Tag Team, Run D.M.C., Three Days Grace, Blink 182, Semisonic, Nirvana, The White Stripes, Def Leppard, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. I figured I'd include that information since otherwise I'd just be hitting you guys up for comments and likes again, and that's no fun for anyone.

I swear to all of you that we're going to get to happiness and love, but just like real life we have to go through some shit to get there. Hang with it? I can't promise you'll be happy you did, but I promise I'll appreciate you if you do. <3

 

Part One: About a Girl

 

Chapter Four: If I Could Turn Back Time

 

"The hint of these new tears are sharp.

I try to choke them back.

But it's useless.

I am useless against them.

They are beating me with ease."

Dashboard Confessional - "The Sharp Hint of New Tears"

 

When a friend wrongs you, that is, when a person you consider to be a friend says or does something that utterly devastates you on a personal level, how do you react to that? How do you deal with something like that when you're still learning how friendship and peer interaction works? Can something like that happen and you still remain friends with that person, or do you pull the ripcord and hope not to perish in the fiery plummet to Earth? Earth in this scenario being friendlessness and going back to being all by yourself. Maybe a more important question might be, whether or not a friend that would behave in this manner or treat you in this way is someone you really should try and maintain a relationship with.

 

We're taught to treat others how we want to be treated and to forgive those that wrong us, and on paper that's a great way to live one's life, but in practice it's much more difficult to not only weather the emotional storm of the inciting event, but to survive the fallout of it and come out the other side unmarked and whole. Couple this with being goddamned six years old, and you have yourself the makings of what we in the business call "A Bunch of Bullshit".

 

Let's get one thing straight, I didn't punch Amber Barrington in the face, breaking her perfect little nose, because my newly discovered best friend was sitting with her or talking with her or laughing with her, or whatever they were doing before I arrived, I didn't punch her in the face because I was jealous that my newly discovered best friend was cuddling up with the possible literal Anti-Christ, and I didn't punch her in the face because she made fun of me for having an actual medical issue. I punched that overprivileged little sow in the face because she talked about my dad, plain and simple. I was too young at that point in my life to know what a "trigger" was, or to know how to keep my emotions in check despite desperately wanting very bad things to happen to a person at my hands, but I will say that no person that I've physically hurt throughout the course of my life has brought even a fraction of the satisfaction that clocking Amber Barrington did.

 

Sitting outside the Principal's office after the "incident", as everyone referred to it, I realized that this marked the first time in my young life that I'd been in actual trouble. Sure, I'd acted up at home when I was overly tired or thrown a tantrum because things didn't go my way, but I'd never been to the Principal's office, and certainly never had my mother called away from work to come and meet with the Principal. This realization brought genuine fear into my chest and the pit of my stomach. My mind began to race with possible outcomes, suspension and expulsion not among them as I knew nothing of those words as consequences, but I knew what a spanking was, and I knew that being grounded was like timeout for older kids.

 

As it turned out, the pasts of myself and Amber ended up working in my favor. I was a good student that never had a blemish on her report card even for attendance, where Amber had a "checkered" past, which I would learn much later on was a nice way for an adult to call a small child a bitch without actually using the word. So it was that the school let me off with a slap on the wrist, two days of after school detention. My mother was an entirely different story, she spent the entire trip from Principal's office to our house completely silent. I expected yelling, tears from both of us, the phrase "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed", which was a parent's way of verbally slicing your belly open to dance in your viscera.

 

The silence broke as soon as our front door closed behind us, my mother tossing her purse onto the couch and grabbing me by the wrist roughly, pulling me up the stairs to her bedroom where she sat on the bed and pulled me across her lap.

 

"Is this where you want to be, Alina?!" she shouted, "Do you want to be over my lap ready to have your butt smacked?!" she again shouted.

 

I was terrified at this shocking shift in my mother's tone and demeanor. I'd only ever heard my mother yell a handful of times in heavy traffic or that one time when my aunt had babied me after my father's death. She had never yelled at me before, and the sound of it shook me to my core, causing me to wet myself from fear as I began bawling and apologizing and begging her not to spank me.

 

"Alina, stop!" my mother shouted in surprise, lifting me from her lap and hauling me, leaking helplessly onto the carpet, to the bathroom nearby. "I am at my wits end with you right now, Alina!" she declared in an exasperated tone.

 

I looked up at her, still crying from fear and now from shame as the last of my liquid rolled down my legs, a small puddle having formed beneath my shoe, a trail of yellow drips on the tile leading out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom. "Mommy, I-" I choked out between heavy sobs.

 

My mother shook her head. "I don't want to hear it, Alina." she said sharply as she began undressing me none too gently. "You're going to take a bath and then you're going to take a nap." she said.

 

"Please, Mommy, I'm sorry!" I cried.

 

She stood up and put her hands on her hips, looking down at me sternly. "Listen to me, Alina, I don't want to see or hear you right now." she said coldly. "I'm very angry and I'm worried about how I'm going to react to you, so I need you to take a bath and then a nap while I calm down and collect my thoughts, am I understood?" she asked me.

 

I sniffled and wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands. "Yes, ma'am." I told her, my head facing downward as more tears began to form and roll down my cheeks.

 

The water was turned on and gotten to the desired temperature before the drain was plugged and my mother left with my clothes to put them in the wash. When she returned she put some bubble bath in the water and let it fill before helping me into the water and down onto my butt. She mechanically bathed me from her seated position on the lip of the tub, neither of us saying anything to one another. Bath time was normally very nice, she would bathe me and talk to me about things we were going to do on the weekend or I would talk to her about school, sharing things I thought were funny or that she might like to know about, but now we were sitting in total silence save for the periodic plink of water dripping from the spigot into the water below.

 

The tub was drained and I was helped out of the tub and into the large bath towel she was holding. Normally she would wrap me in it and hug me as she dried me off, but the towel was wrapped around me and I was kept at arms length as she unceremoniously dried me off, again saying nothing and making no attempt to look at me aside from what was required to accomplish the goal of getting me dry.

 

After being hug dried, I was normally scooped up into a warm bundle in her arms and carried to my room so I could get dressed, but this time I was gently nudged out of the bathroom and prodded along by her as she followed behind me. The void left by the absence of her love was causing a heaviness in my chest and a dull ache in my throat as the overwhelming sadness I was feeling built and built with every little difference in our well practiced routine. She hated me, I knew it but didn't want to know it, I felt the distance between us, a deep pit of resentment and disappointment that my little body couldn't hope to navigate to get back to her.

 

"Lay down on the bed." she said simply, her tone emotionless and bland.

 

As she took the towel from me I finally lost my battle to keep my feelings in check, I was practically hyperventilating from the feeling in my chest and my legs suddenly felt like wet noodles beneath me as I turned to her and threw my arms around her, burying my face into her stomach as I clung to her desperately, my eyes pouring hot tears as I was wracked with sobs and babbled incoherently to her in a desperate attempt to convince her I was remorseful and wanted her to love me again.

 

She sighed heavily, as though I was some person off the street that had interrupted her to ask a banal question, and separated me from her gently, but with enough effort to make the break quick and clean despite my protestations. She turned me around and nudged me to the bed, turning me again and sitting me down on the edge of the bed and guiding me down onto my back with a press of her hand on my shoulder. "Don't move from that spot, young lady." she warned before she left the room.

 

I continued to blubber on the bed, completely unable to regain control of my emotions. My mind was a whirlwind of terrible thoughts and feelings of abandonment as I watched her through eyes blurred with tears return to the bedroom and to the bed, setting a small bundle of things next to me. I blinked and flushed the tears from my eyes a rubbery material entered my mouth, a moments confusion passed before I realized it was a pacifier. I looked up at her, trying to see if she was going to offer some sort of explanation for why this was something she even had let alone why she thought I needed it now, but she said nothing and instead moved to stand over me at the end of the bed, her hands grabbing my ankles and raising my legs up and pushing them toward my body.

 

"You're going to take a nap and you're going to stay in your bed until I come and get you for dinner." she explained as she performed the task of diapering me in a real baby diaper.

 

The scent of powder and rash cream filled my nostrils and brought the memories of my aunt rushing back to my mind, the pacifier bobbing rhythmically between my lips as I struggled to come to grips with what was happening, to understand why she was doing this to me.

 

She pulled me to a seated position and put a nightgown on over my head, threading my arms through the holes and moving me to the center of the bed as she pulled the covers back and watched me lay down before bringing the covers back up over me and then she walked out of the room and closed the door behind her, leaving me to cry myself to sleep.

 

******************************************************************************

 

I was an orphan now. My father had died and my mother was done with me on a parental level, her love for me having dried up like a puddle on a hot day, and now she was cold and indifferent to me. I'd been shipped off to a run down orphanage, sleeping six kids to a bed in soiled and tattered rags of clothing like some kind of Dickensian street urchin as we periodically were lined up to be displayed for potential parents. The parents for this particular viewing were Dawn's, with her standing next to them, a teenager now, disinterestedly tapping away on her cell phone.

 

"What about that one?" Mrs. Lassiter asked her husband as she pointed to me.

 

Mr. Lassiter approached me and knelt down in front of me, taking my chin in his hand and turning my head from one side to the other, examining me intently. "What's her development level?" he asked the sharp featured old woman that was running the child auction.

 

The woman folded her hands behind her back and walked down the line of children to stand behind me. "Despite her age, I assure you that she's little more than an infant." she told him. Her bony and gnarled hands clutched the garment I was wearing and tore it from me roughly, revealing a soaked and discolored baby diaper, the weight within causing it to droop almost to my knees.

 

Dawn looked up from her phone and her face lit up when she saw me. "Oh my gosh, I want that one, Daddy!" she squealed as she ran over to me and knelt down beside me.

 

Her father looked at her and shook his head doubtfully. "Dawny, this one is going to be so much work." he told her.

 

Dawn pouted. "Please, Daddy, Amber has one just like her!" she whined.

 

Her father stood up and looked down at me. "Well, we can't have our angel going without when her best friend has one." he said. "We'll take her." he told the old woman.

 

"Yay!" Dawn cheered happily as she picked me up and hugged me to her. "I promise I'll play with her every day!" she said.

 

Something inside me shifted and suddenly I was falling to the floor amid Dawn's screams.

 

"She got poop on me!" she cried out in disgust.

 

I hit the floor and shattered like a porcelain doll, my limbs scattering across the floor, my head spinning in a small circle, stopping near the exploded diaper I'd been wearing when I was whole. I looked up at the towering figures above me, their faces masks of disgust and disappointment.

 

"Sorry about that." Dawn's father said to the woman running the orphanage.

 

The woman put up a hand. "Worry not, sir, that one was already quite damaged, we should have thrown her out when she arrived." she explained.

 

Dawn looked down with disdain and sneered. "You gross thing, I'm glad you're broken." she spat before she raised her foot over my head and brought it down hard.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Sun dappled the room through the closed curtains as I woke with a start. The memory of my dream brought tears to my eyes and I frantically searched the bed for the pacifier I'd been sucking on when I fell asleep, finding it on the floor next to the bed and quickly replacing it in my mouth as I curled up into a fetal position and cried.

 

My mind began to run down a checklist of all the things I'd lost, my father, my mother's love, my friendship with Dawn, the acrid smell of urine reminded me of the loss of my continence both during sleep and when face with the fear of my mother spanking me. Maybe I really was just a baby pretending to be a big girl. Maybe my aunt had been right to do what she'd done. As far as Dawn, Amber and  Danicka were concerned I was a baby, and my mother clearly believed I was one as well given her readiness to pacify and diaper me. Even my father had died because of what a baby I was, his final moments on Earth spent completing a trip to the store for something to keep his daughter from ruining the sheets.

 

Why was I fighting against what everyone seemed so convinced was true then? Why was I trying so hard to cling to the notion that I was a baby that happened to keep growing on the outside? If everyone expected me to be a baby why not just give up and accept it? Maybe my mother would love me again if she saw that I accepted the role she expected for me. Maybe if I showed her that I was ready to be the baby she believed me to be things would go back to the way they were with bath time talks and drying hugs and love, oh god how I wanted her love back, I'd do anything just to have her hug me again and tell me she loved me.

 

Anything pressed against the interior of my diaper, forcing it to bend to its will and expand outward to accommodate its mass, and I just lay there sucking on my pacifier, my fear and sorrow leaving me as my bowels emptied, the last thought before I closed my eyes and went back to sleep being that Mommy would be so proud of her baby.

[YourFNF]

5 hours ago, RambleLamb said:

This chapter was made possible with the help of Pandora and the following artists: Run The Jewels, Franz Ferdinand, Flobots, Flogging Molly, Green Day, Beastie Boys, Sublime, Crossfade, Childish Gambino, Linkin Park, Kendrick Lamar, Everlast, Macklemore, Kanye West, Fall Out Boy, Tag Team, Run D.M.C., Three Days Grace, Blink 182, Semisonic, Nirvana, The White Stripes, Def Leppard, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. I figured I'd include that information since otherwise I'd just be hitting you guys up for comments and likes again, and that's no fun for anyone.

I swear to all of you that we're going to get to happiness and love, but just like real life we have to go through some shit to get there. Hang with it? I can't promise you'll be happy you did, but I promise I'll appreciate you if you do. <3

 

 

Part One: About a Girl

 

Chapter Four: If I Could Turn Back Time

 

"The hint of these new tears are sharp.

I try to choke them back.

But it's useless.

I am useless against them.

They are beating me with ease."

Dashboard Confessional - "The Sharp Hint of New Tears"

 

Wow these two need therapy. I feel so bad for Alina

[RambleLamb]

2 hours ago, YourFNF said:

Wow these two need therapy. I feel so bad for Alina

I swear, even though it may seem like it, I don't hate my characters and only wish for them to suffer unfathomable sadness and pain. 

I'm trying to make this story as "real" as possible, and "real" means pain, at least for me, but it also means hope for something better and how can you truly gauge what's better without having something worse to compare it to?

Things will get better and the feels will be happy, just don't give up hope.

[YourFNF]

7 hours ago, RambleLamb said:

I swear, even though it may seem like it, I don't hate my characters and only wish for them to suffer unfathomable sadness and pain. 

I'm trying to make this story as "real" as possible, and "real" means pain, at least for me, but it also means hope for something better and how can you truly gauge what's better without having something worse to compare it to?

Things will get better and the feels will be happy, just don't give up hope.

Sorry if it seems like I'm dunking on this. I guess I'm just feeling things for the characters. Also not in the best head space IRL so that's going that to effect my reactions

[Wannatripbaby]

I... I... damn. I think that's the closest I've ever come to crying during a story. ?

Also you don't need to apologize for making your readers feel things. To envoke emotion is the most powerful thing an author can do. The heart-wrenching, sickening sorrow in my gut and the tears poised just on the edge of my tear ducts are the greatest gifts you could've given me with this story.

[RambleLamb]

2 hours ago, YourFNF said:

Sorry if it seems like I'm dunking on this. I guess I'm just feeling things for the characters. Also not in the best head space IRL so that's going that to effect my reactions

Hey, no need to apologize, this story is dealing with some tough stuff and that's not something that everyone wants or is ready to tackle in their silly diaper erotica. I get it, if you need to bail or take some time away from it I totally understand and don't want you to feel like you're doing anything wrong. The story will be here if/when it's more palatable for you to read it.

You do what feels right for you and I'll do what's right for me, deal?

1 hour ago, Wannatripbaby said:

I... I... damn. I think that's the closest I've ever come to crying during a story. ?

Also you don't need to apologize for making your readers feel things. To envoke emotion is the most powerful thing an author can do. The heart-wrenching, sickening sorrow in my gut and the tears poised just on the edge of my tear ducts are the greatest gifts you could've given me with this story.

I'm not apologizing for the story so much as apologizing for someone having an adverse reaction based on their own preexisting condition. I'm going to write this how I want to write it and people will jump on and off accordingly. 

I was specifically apologizing to @YourFNF because I like them and don't want them to torture themselves reading this if it's upsetting.

I'm very happy with what I'm doing here, I think I'm building a very strong base with which to develop a character from and the story will be as powerful as I hoped it would be because of that.

It's good to know that people are experiencing feelings that aren't happy right now because the story isn't happy right now, but what if someone, not saying anyone specific, and not saying it's even in the realm of possibility, hurt themselves because of the feelings this story evoked? I'd never know, but if I found out that would suck.

My signature has a quote from Kimmy, and it's not there by accident, I'm writing what I want the way I want, and if people are hurting because of it then I'm succeeding in my goal BUT people need to feel like they can bail if things get too tough and not worry about how I'll feel or whatever. 

[RambleLamb]

This chapter was made possible by Pandora and the shuffle feature which including the artists: Linkin Park, Arctic Monkeys, Yellowcard, Beck, Nekromantix, Rise Against, The Offspring, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, Sublime, Tone-Loc, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kanye West, Green Day, Flogging Molly, Seether, Oasis, and Foo Fighters.

As always, it's very much appreciated if you share your thoughts in the comments and a like if you like the story. If you don't like the story comment that too, there's no wrong way to interact with me on here. Thank you for reading!

 

Part One: About A Girl

 

Chapter Five: Broken

 

"My shadow's the only one that walks beside me

 

My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating

 

Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me

 

Till then I walk alone"

 

Green Day - "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"

 

Here's something to think about, we all reach a point in our lives where we put away childish things and start on the path to becoming the adult we're going to be once enough time has passed. Some people maintain a small hold on that childhood, collecting things that satiate their nostalgia, playing games in video or board form, really there's too many examples to name, but they're on an end of a spectrum and adult babies are on another end, just as an example. There's a weird point in a lot of people's childhoods where they slip back to babyhood for whatever reason, some people do so to compete with a new sibling that's just been born, others do so due to trauma, again, the number of reasons it too high to calculate, but it's pretty common. What's far less common is a child rationalizing that they're seen as a baby by friends and family and should play that role to appease everyone.

 

I woke up suddenly when my bedroom door cracked open, the hinges having shifted over the years, going unrepaired without my father around, causing the door to press against the frame and stick. The sharp snap of the door freeing itself shook me awake, watching with wide eyes as my mother entered the room, her work clothes gone and replaced with her more comfortable at home wear, yoga pants and one of my father's old t-shirts with her hair loosely pulled back behind her head.

 

The moment between seeing me in my bed and smelling what I'd done in my diaper is one that stuck with me for the rest of my life. My mother's face had the look of love on it that she used to have before we'd come home from the Principal's office, she'd calmed down and the sharp edges of her emotions had smoothed out and I swelled with happiness, pushing the covers off of me and rising to my knees on the bed with my arms outstretched for the hug I'd wanted earlier, the one I needed now to reassure me that everything was back to normal.

 

Her nose scrunched up and her smile faded, contorting into a frown of disappointment and beyond that to a grimace of disgust. She moved to me and guided me so I was leaning forward on my knees, my shoulder against her stomach and my head facing down to the floor as she pulled the waistband of the diaper out and sighed heavily. "Alina Marie Benez, do you have something you'd like to tell me?" she asked, her arms folding across her chest as she looked down at me.

 

I was very confused. I was sure that she'd be happy to see that I'd accepted my role as baby without protest, but she seemed to be upset with me for doing the most babyish thing I could think of. I looked up at her, unconsciously donning my wide puppy eyes, and sucked my pacifier vigorously as I thought of what to say. A lightbulb went off in my head suddenly, an idea so simple that I kicked myself for missing it initially, I let my mind wander back to my actual baby days and tailored a response I was sure would seal the deal and bring her love flooding back. "Awina go boom boom!" I declared through my pacifier.

 

The silence in the room was deafening and dragged on for what seemed like an eternity. My mother's face openly showed her internal struggle with trying to rationalize what she was seeing and hearing, her mouth hanging open slightly as she was rendered speechless by the sight of her schoolage daughter wearing a soiled diaper, sucking on a pacifier and proudly declaring in near perfect babytalk precisely what she'd done. If it weren't so devastating to me emotionally, it would have been comical that she just backed away a few steps, her eyes not leaving me before she turned and bolted out the bedroom door, slamming it behind her.

 

Alone. Unloved. Wet. Messy. The silence in the room broke after several broken heartbeats, and my now genuinely infantile wails filled the air.

 

******************************************************************************

 

This is the part of the story where I skim. You may think it's poor storytelling, and you may be right, but this part of my life was scary, traumatic, and really just plain fucked up. In my memories it's a black hole, I can vividly recall the events before and the events after, but without therapy and regressive hypnosis, which we'll discuss later, I can't recall the details. I know that I was in and out of doctor and psychologist's offices, I know that I spent some time in a hospital, and I know that I missed the remainder of the school year, beyond that, I'm not really sure what specifically happened in that window of time.

 

What I can tell you is that my mother was different after that and our relationship never really recovered. She cried a lot after the time I can't remember, and probably did so a lot during that time too. Bits and pieces stick out to me, like rocks jutting out in a raging river that you try and grab hold of to keep from going over the edge, like my aunt being around a lot instead of my mother, terms like "psychological break" and "regressive behavior" were used a lot, though I didn't understand them at the time, and Dawn.

 

Amid the chaos and confusion of the time that can't be recalled she was there. I remember her visiting me in the hospital, enough times that it stuck in my memory despite a swirling void of blurred recollections and featureless shapes moving about me, she was there. In a time of scary situations and not understanding what was happening to me and around me, Dawn was there.

 

After I came home, but before school started back up again, I remember her visiting the house a lot. Her mother brought her and stayed with her the first few times, concerned that her daughter's playmate was, for all intents and purposes currently an infant, but after a few supervised visits her mother would drop her off and let her stay for a few hours under my aunt's supervision. I remember that she had a look on her face both in the hospital and right after I got out, it wasn't quite worry and it wasn't quite pity, but it was some kind of amalgamation of the two. Seeing a girl her own age dressing and behaving like a baby had to be shocking to her, but she never seemed like she was weirded out by it, she looked curious, but never in a way that made it seem like I was an oddity on display for her.

 

The first full fledged memory upon my return was sitting on the floor of the living room and seeing her walk over and being so happy to see her face, the animosity I felt toward her for betraying me erased completely by the far more pressing issues in my life. She smiled down at me and sat next to me and leaned forward and hugged me with all her might, her warmth and compassion filling me with so much happiness that it seemed like nothing in the world could ever match it.

 

"I'm sorry." she whispered in my ear. "I don't know if you know what I'm saying, but I'm sorry for telling Amber and Danicka about your bedtime problem." she said.

 

The words resonated, and I felt tears begin to form in my eyes, but the pacifier in my mouth kept me from responding.

 

She broke our embrace and took my hand in hers, looking me in the eyes, the cool blue orbs soothing me and drawing my attention to her, entrancing me.

 

"Before we moved here, I had a best friend, and she knew that I wet the bed and wore diapers, and she knew other stuff about me that you don't know, but she got mad that I was leaving and told everybody in class that I was a baby and she told all my secrets and it hurt me really bad and-" she stopped talking and started to cry, her beautiful little face contorting in sadness and anguish as she tried to finish her thought. "I was afraid that you were going to do the same thing and Amber and Danicka were talking about the other girls in class and I told them about you and told your secret so if you said something about my secret they wouldn't believe you." she confessed, her tears flowing freely now as she looked away from me and wiped her eyes with one hand so she could still hold on to mine. "I'm so sorry, Alina, and I know it wasn't a best friend thing to do, but if you can forgive me, I promise I'll never do anything to hurt you ever again and I'll be the best best friend you ever had!" she said pleadingly before she hugged me again.

 

The gears in my mind worked like someone had poured molasses into them, but I hugged her back, desperate to keep her from going back to not hugging me, and I gurgled something through my pacifier to her, though neither of us knew what it was supposed to be, she apparently believed it to be positive as her hug tightened and she thanked me. Just like that, Dawn and I were best friends again, and day by day, little by little, I crawled out of the pit I'd fallen into and back to solid ground with her holding my hand every step of the way.

 

******************************************************************************

 

By the time the first day of school began to loom on the horizon I was mostly back to normal. I still wore training pants during the day, and diapers at night or during naps, but the pacifier had gone back into hiding, and the floors of the living room and my room no longer looked like a daycare had thrown up on them. Dawn had stopped playing with baby toys with me and had started helping me get my reading and writing skills back to where they had been, patiently guiding me over tricky words that were now difficult for me to navigate on my own and showing me that writing was easy if I held my pencil between my fingers like chopsticks as opposed to in my fist like I was carving the words onto the paper with a knife.

 

We shared something that Summer, a connection that never faded, a bond usually reserved for sisters of vastly different ages with me looking up to her and her taking me under her wing to teach me how to be a big girl like she was and like I was supposed to be. I had bad days from time to time, but she handled them in stride, never making fun of me for having an accident or for slipping in my speech and reverting to simpler words or even just emphatic whines when I wanted or needed something. It was a process, and she was there for every step of it, never expecting anything from me, just being there to support her friend, her very best friend.

 

One night, a few days before school started she slept over, and after my aunt had tucked us in, the two of us sharing my bed, she rolled over to face me while I sucked down my bottle of warm milk and she stroked my hair and kissed my cheek before she hugged me. "Alina?" she asked, her head resting on my chest listening to my heartbeat as she stroked my hair softly.

 

I made a quizzical sound between sucks as a response to her question.

 

"I'm really proud of you." she said quietly. "You went away for a while and went back to being a baby but you grew up again and I'm really proud of you." she explained.

 

The bottle whistled softly as the last of the milk disappeared and air began to come through the nipple, and I dropped it to the floor beside the bed and nodded. "It was hard but you helped me do it." I said, a belch escaping me causing us both to giggle. "'Scuse me." I said quietly.

 

"That's what best friends are for." she told me.

 

I rolled to face her, scooching down so we were face to face. "You're not just my best friend," I said. "you're my only friend." I told her.

 

She smiled and hugged me. "Can I tell you a secret?" she asked quietly, her arm still holding her to me.

 

"Dawn, you know all my secrets, you have to tell me one of yours!" I said with a giggle.

 

She giggled too but quickly stopped. "I've been jealous of you." she confessed.

 

"Why?" I asked her, genuinely confused.

 

She parted our embrace and looked into my eyes, the cool blue shimmering with forming tears. "The other thing that my old best friend knew was that I-" she stopped, her eyes scanning mine in the nightlight glow of the room for some sign that I knew what she was about to say and would finish her statement for her to spare her having to divulge it herself. "I like to be a baby sometimes." she added before burying her face in my chest.

 

For the second time, my room was filled with deafening silence broken only by the crying of a little girl.

 

******************************************************************************

 

The first day of school arrived, and my aunt took me by the hand and walked me into the building. My mother was still MIA, no one telling me where she was or why she wasn't at home, save for the boiler plate response of "sometimes mommy's need to take vacations", which to a six year old that just spent most of her summer living like a two year old was about as helpful as a book on advanced thermodynamics.

 

Waiting in the office with my aunt, I watched the kids milling about out in the hall, hugging and laughing and generally just being excited to see their friends and wondered if anyone but Dawn would be happy to see me. I was obviously worried that people would know how I'd spent the remainder of the past school year and almost my entire Summer, or that they would discover the training panties under the Tartan skirt of my uniform, but if Dawn was there I knew she'd make everything okay.

 

The Principal stepped out of his office and gestured for my aunt and I to enter, and my aunt took my hand and led the way, sitting me down in one of the chairs in front of his desk before she sat down in the other one.

 

"First of all, I'd like to welcome you back, Alina, we missed you." he said with a warm smile that was partially obscured by his push broom mustache.

 

I smiled. "Thank you, Principal Wilkins, I'm vew-very happy to be back." I said politely, blushing at my infantile slip in speech.

 

His smile remained for the appropriate amount of time for someone to engage before having to deliver less than pleasant news. "Yes, well, as you know, you missed quite a bit of school last year because of your-" he paused as he tried to find a tactful way to tell a small child that she'd basically lost her damn mind. "incident." he finally said. "Your teacher Ms. Thomasson and I discussed this at great length, including the second grade teacher, Mr. Grant in the discussion, and we believe that it would be best for you to remain in Ms. Thomasson's class, at least for a little while to get a fair assessment of whether or not you're ready to join your peers in second grade." he explained.

 

A wet tickle formed in my training panties and I looked to my aunt for guidance and help dealing with this news.

 

"Alina, it'll be okay, all you have to do is show them what a big girl you are and that you're ready for second grade and then they'll move you to be with your friends." my aunt explained, patting my knee gently.

 

I heard her words and I saw Principal Wilkins nodding in agreement, but all I could think about was being separated from Dawn but knowing that if I cried now or if they found out I'd wet a little they might move me back to preschool or send me home entirely, so I put on my bravest face and forced my sadness and fear down deep and made myself smile. "I'll show you I'm ready, Principal Wilkins." I told him, hoping I wasn't making a liar of myself.

[Wannatripbaby]

Huh. I'm not sure if I've ever ready a story detailing a full-on mental breakdown before. Certainly not one that did it so well as this.

Normally I hate time-skips, but the decision to skim over the events of the summer was a good one both from a narrative standpoint (she repressed most of the painful memories) and from a storytelling standpoint (We've all been thoroughly made aware of her pain and continuing to show it through her regressed mind for several more chapters until she finally started coming back to herself would've been painful to both write and read I imagine.)

I did not expect the mom to also have a breakdown as well. Allow me to express my emotions towards her for just a moment. You put your daughter in a diaper with no explanation and told her not to move from her bed. What in the #@$/$*! Did you expect would happen when she had to poop????

*Ahem* anyway...

Also Dawn's explanation of why she betrayed Alina was quite unexpected, although I didn't have much expectations in the first place. In any case I'm glad they're still friends although I guess technically there was no chance of that not happening since we already know they end up together. But when you're reading in the moment your mind doesn't think of those things.

Once again, I love this story very, very much. It's probably my favorite currently-active story on DD. ♡♡♡♡♡

[RambleLamb]

4 minutes ago, Wannatripbaby said:

Huh. I'm not sure if I've ever ready a story detailing a full-on mental breakdown before. Certainly not one that did it so well as this.

Normally I hate time-skils, but the decision to skim over the events of the summer was a good one both from a narrative standpoint (she repressed most of the painful memories) and from a storytelling standpoint (We've all been thoroughly made aware of her pain and continuing to show it through her regressed mind for several more chapters until she finally started coming back to herself would've been painful to both write and read I imagine.)

I did not expect the mom to also have a breakdown as well. Allow me to express my emotions towards her for just a moment. You put your daughter in a diaper with no explanation and told her not to move from her bed. What in the #@$/$*! Did you expect would happen when she had to poop????

*Ahem* anyway...

Also Dawn's explanation of why she betrayed Alina was quite unexpected, although I didn't have much expectations in the first place. In any case I'm glad they're still friends although I guess technically there was no chance of that not happening since we already know they end up together. But when you're reading in the moment your mind doesn't think of those things.

Once again, I love this story very, very much. It's probably my favorite currently-active story on DD. ♡♡♡♡♡

Without spoiling anything, that time skip isn't completely skipped. Later in the story we'll revisit that as a means of advancing our protagonists journey into adulthood and bringing her more understanding of where she's been and what she's gone through so she can deal with it and move on from it. For now though, you're totally right, it's redundant and unnecessary.

Mom is an issue for me, mainly because I have very real mom issues in my own life and this story will exercise those for me via Alina, so we'll all be growing and maturing while also suffering and coping. I will say this, child abuse is a very real problem and my hope is that no one reading this thinks I'm taking the concept of a small child being put into diapers lightly or merely using it as a plot device. Forcing a toilet trained child to wear a diaper against their will for any other reason than a medical need, like bedwetting, is a hard no, and Alina's mother crossed the line from normal parenting, putting her bedwetting daughter in a diaper for a nap after she'd had a daytime accident, to abusive parenting, abandoning her when it was discovered that she'd not only messed her diaper but had also regressed for whatever reason. I have no love or sympathy for people that abuse children in any way shape or form, and I want it to be known that there will be very real ramifications for this behavior in the coming chapters.

Dawn is a funny little creature. She's very much me, as is Alina, in that she's fiercely loyal but makes dumbfuck choices sometimes when it comes to friendship. My belief, illustrated by the way I wrote it, is that she had a very real fear based on prior experience that Alina might betray her, and a preemptive strike, while admittedly foolish and wrong, was the best thing for her game in her mind at the time. We'll also be dealing with the ramifications of that later, as you probably already guessed.

I'll say this, nothing in this story happens in a vacuum. Often stories in this genre have things happen that end up playing out between two consenting, or non consenting, depending on the type of story, adults and that's the end of it, we roll credits and clean ourselves up and move on to the next story. Here, the events that play out when Alina and Dawn are kids impact, to varying degrees, their lives as adults, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively, but for better or worse we're seeing the choices and events of a life led shaping the person these women become.

I'm over the moon happy that you love the story so much, and I'm incredibly flattered that it's your favorite, I hope I can maintain that level of execution and keep bringing the thunder to you! <3

[Wannatripbaby]

24 minutes ago, RambleLamb said:

Forcing a toilet trained child to wear a diaper against their will for any other reason than a medical need, like bedwetting, is a hard no,

Couldn’t agree more. I generally avoid stories like that because it makes my skin crawl. I recently had someone ask me to do an RP about a mom putting her son back in diapers for "bad behavior" and I was like "I'm gonna check Nope in that box, thank you!"

26 minutes ago, RambleLamb said:

I'll say this, nothing in this story happens in a vacuum. Often stories in this genre have things happen that end up playing out between two consenting, or non consenting, depending on the type of story, adults and that's the end of it, we roll credits and clean ourselves up and move on to the next story. Here, the events that play out when Alina and Dawn are kids impact, to varying degrees, their lives as adults, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively, but for better or worse we're seeing the choices and events of a life led shaping the person these women become.

If you can manage to pull that off--and I very much believe you can--then this will without a doubt be one of the more impressive stories on this site! 

[RambleLamb]

14 minutes ago, Wannatripbaby said:

Couldn’t agree more. I generally avoid stories like that because it makes my skin crawl. I recently had someone ask me to do an RP about a mom putting her son back in diapers for "bad behavior" and I was like "I'm gonna check Nope in that box, thank you!"

If you can manage to pull that off--and I very much believe you can--then this will without a doubt be one of the more impressive stories on this site! 

The prospect of writing this story the way I wanted to was scary at first because of the bio child aspect, but I knew that if I made it clear that all of this had a purpose and I wasn't just like "Teehee, let's make a child suffer!" it would all be okay, and it has been, so mission accomplished.

That's a very big if, and I am fully prepared to whif it hard, but I'm going to try my very hardest to succeed.

[Bluebird67]

There really are some amazing stories on this board of late. Kimmy’s “Breaking the Girl”, Sophie‘s “Madison’s Code” and now this story. Authors who have shown that that they can write well  (and finish their stories!) are breaking out of the tropes and saying things that matter.

Thank you for taking the time to share so eloquently. The skill you have shown in everything you have posted here - and the variety of genres you have tackled - gives us confidence you will succeed in telling the story you have in mind here.

[RambleLamb]

37 minutes ago, Bluebird67 said:

There really are some amazing stories on this board of late. Kimmy’s “Breaking the Girl”, Sophie‘s “Madison’s Code” and now this story. Authors who have shown that that they can write well  (and finish their stories!) are breaking out of the tropes and saying things that matter.

Thank you for taking the time to share so eloquently. The skill you have shown in everything you have posted here - and the variety of genres you have tackled - gives us confidence you will succeed in telling the story you have in mind here.

Being included on a list that has Kimmy and Sophie on it is crazy to me, and I mean that in the best possible way. These are authors that hold a lot of sway here and have proven time and again that they're amazing at what they do. I personally don't think I'm worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as them, but I am incredibly flattered nonetheless, thank you very much!

I'm still really new to writing, and I'm still looking for my "voice", that thing that tells people even without looking that I'm behind what they're reading, but every single thing I write gives me a small idea about what I am as a writer and makes me want to discover more by trying different things and seeing what it says tome about myself.

I really cannot thank you enough for your message, it means so very much to me that you not only took the time to say something, but that what you said was so kind and complimentary that I actually had to take a knee for a second and collect myself before responding. You managed to render me speechless, that's no easy feat, my friend.

[RambleLamb]

Shuffle playlist for this chapter: 3 Doors Down, Digital Underground, Three Days Grace, Jay-Z, Green Day, Seether, Daft Punk, Dr. Dre, Flogging Molly, Beastie Boys, Jimmy Eat World, Foo Fighters, Saliva, Run The Jewels, DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, Guns N' Roses, Kanye West, American Hi-Fi, SR-71, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, The Offspring, Papa Roach, All-American Rejects, Childish Gambino, Bush, Horrorpops, Killer Mike

As always, if you have anything to say, positive or negative, leave a comment. If you like the story and have a like available, I'd appreciate you floating it my way, but I know how likes tend to disappear. Also, the next chapter won't come until the back half of next week because of my work schedule.

 

Part One: About A Girl

 

Chapter Six: Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble

 

"Perpetual motion, the image won't focus

 

A blur is all that's seen

 

But here in this moment like the eye of the storm

 

It all came clear to me

 

I found a shoulder to lean on

 

An infallible reason to live all by itself

 

I took one last look from the heights that I once loved

 

And then I ran like hell"

 

Rise Against - "Ready to Fall"

 

Over the weeks after school started I learned a few things, I mean, I learned a lot of school related things, but we're talking about life things right now. The most important thing I learned is that the divide between first and second grade is, well, it's like two separate planets, celestial bodies traveling millions of miles apart from each other but still within sight depending upon weather conditions and times of day. The times of day in question being lunch and recess, where I would finally get to see Dawn, but was also open to attacks from Amber and Danicka. With a new pecking order in place, me remaining in first grade and them having moved on to second.

 

The change in my peer group was also quite noticeable, the other girls in my class seeming so much smaller and younger in comparison to myself. I felt worse about my static position with each passing day. The first day was the hardest by far, having to look Ms. Thomasson in the face knowing that she'd mutually agreed with the Principal that I wasn't prepared to move on, couple that with the fact that I had to stand in front of a class of new faces in damp training pants trying to come up with something to tell them about myself that didn't involve "Hey, I had a massive mental breakdown and regressed to a two year old for the Summer, do you like me? Check "yes" or "no"!"

 

I slipped a few times into my littler speech patterns and felt another small tickle in my training pants, but the other girls were smiling and clapped politely when I finished, so I went to my seat with a good feeling in my heart. My seat this time was in the second row rather than the back and I felt weird about having people behind me, not knowing whether they could tell I was wearing training pants beneath my skirt or if they were making faces at me or giggling secretly about me because they somehow knew what had happened to me.

 

When that first recess period came I made my way out onto the playground, finding Dawn seated on our swings, looking to the door I'd come out of for me, her face lighting up as she reached over to the vacant swing beside her and patted it. As I started to move to her I tripped and fell flat on the ground, my hands and knees skinning. Getting up on all fours I felt my skirt pull up to the center of my back and heard a familiar, braying laugh and a malevolent giggle and knew instantly that my day had officially turned bad.

 

"Well look what we have here, Danicka, it seems the baby class gets to have playtime outside too!" Amber said in an overly exaggerated tone of syrupy sweetness bordering on the type one reserves for an infant that only knows tones rather than actual words being spoken to them.

 

Danicka guffawed once again. "She looks like she's getting ready to poop!" she suggested stupidly, laughing at her own joke just as hard as she'd laughed at Amber's.

 

I stood up, tears welling in my eyes from the stinging burn in my hands and knees as much as the feeling of helplessness I felt in the face of these two awful girls. My extended departure from maturity level interaction left me woefully unprepared to mount any kind of defense against them, and I felt myself breaking as I looked at them, wondering if they seemed taller or if that was just a trick my mind was playing on me.

 

"You gonna cry, baby?" Amber asked, her finger jutting out and poking me in the chest.

 

I was going to cry, I could feel it welling up in me, threatening to spill over with every passing moment. I knew I couldn't hit her again, that wouldn't help me in any way, and I worried that if I tried to go toe to toe with her verbally I'd slip and prove to her just how right she was about me being a baby. I wanted my pacifier more than anything in that moment, my thumb dirty from my fall and therefore off limits as a replacement. My eyes were starting to fill with tears, my vision blurring, the familiar tickle in my training pants returning and growing to a complete flow of liquid shame that I wondered momentarily whether it would overpower the garment and I'd feel the liquid run down my legs.

 

"Hey!" Dawn's voice called out from behind me. "Leave her alone, right now!" she shouted as she appeared beside me, her arm going around me.

 

Amber scoffed. "And if we don't?" she spat.

 

Dawn paused, clearly having come unprepared to go further than her initial defense. "I'll tell!" she finally said.

 

Best friend or not, this girl was terrible at defending me. I made it a point later in our lives to remind her of this moment and enlighten her that snitches were deserving of stitches and she really should have known better than to threaten anyone on a playground with tattling.

 

Amber and Danicka began to laugh at her and then Amber shoved her down to the ground, Dawn landing hard on her butt and continuing her momentum till she was on her back with her head hitting the blacktop with a thunk sound that made even Danicka cringe at. "You're just as much of a baby as she is!" Amber said with a sneer.

 

Dawn was crying now, and I turned to go to her and felt my skirt being grabbed again from behind me, a tearing sound filling my ears and suddenly there was air on my upper thighs and bottom. A look down showed my swollen and discolored training panties on complete display and by the time I managed to turn around to try and get my skirt back, the laughter of all the girls nearby was filling the playground.

 

"You should thank me, baby, now everyone can see you need a change so you don't get a rash." Amber said between her own giggles.

 

My legs were wobbly, my heart was racing in my chest, and Dawn was still crying, and I did the only thing I could think to do in that moment, I turned and lowered myself to the ground and crawled to my friend, the rest of the world falling away as I hugged her and we cried together until Amber and Danicka left and a teacher came to get us.

 

******************************************************************************

 

My mother had returned from her vacation, something I discovered when my aunt and I arrived home from that first day of school much earlier than intended given the events of recess. I sat in my carseat on the way home in a dry diaper, my training panties thrown out in the bin of the nurses office when my aunt arrived to pick me up. My scrapes had been treated and I had curled up in a little ball on one of the small beds that kids laid on when they were sick or injured, sucking my now clean thumb without hesitation or concern.

 

My aunt had brought my diaper bag and replaced my thumb with my pacifier, retrieved once again from its hiding place somewhere in the house, before she changed me into a diaper and put a pair of my pajama pants on me, carrying me out of the school with my head buried in her ample chest.

 

When we entered the house and I saw my mother sitting on the couch I was very happy to see her but also very nervous that she was going to be angry or disappointed with me for once again being very much a baby.

 

"Alina, honey, your Mommy has something she'd like to say to you." my aunt said as she set me down on my feet in front of my mother and removed my pacifier from my mouth.

 

My mother looked at me for a moment and then looked behind me to my aunt and then back to me, her face softening before she leaned forward and opened her arms, wrapping them around me and pulling me up from the floor and onto her lap as she hugged me tightly.

 

This was what I'd wanted all those months ago, my mother holding me in her arms and loving me, but it didn't feel right. It felt like mall Santa. It felt like knowing that this person whose lap you were sitting on was pretending to be someone they weren't, not for any nefarious reason, but just for the sake of general subterfuge in the name of keeping the fantasy alive. In this case, the fantasy was that my mother loved me and was once again on board with her role as caregiver and provider of nurturing compassion.  

 

My aunt cleared her throat. "Mattie, tell Alina what we talked about." she said, using my mother's first name, which I couldn't remember ever hearing before.

 

My mother shifted me from her embrace and sat me on her lap facing her. "Alina, Mommy-" she paused and looked up at my aunt again and then back to me. "I need to tell you that I'm sorry." she finally said, drawing out the simple statement over many grueling seconds. She wiped a stray tear from her eye and sighed heavily, looking back up at my aunt. "I can't do this!" she declared, her voice cracking as she shifted me off of her lap unceremoniously and onto the couch cushion beside her before she stood.

 

"Mattie!" my aunt said in a raised tone. "You can and you will." she added firmly.

 

My mother visibly froze and tensed at the calling of her name and slowly turned back around, her eyes now leaking tears down her makeup free cheeks. She was wearing my father's sweatshirt again, and loose sweatpants, and she'd sucked her arms up into the sleeves of the sweatshirt so only her fingers could be seen peeking out as she used the sleeve to wipe her eyes. "I can't, it isn't right to make me say this to her!" she protested.

 

My aunt crossed the room to her and took her by the arm and forcefully dragged her back to the couch and sat her back down. "Listen to me, Mattie, you owe this girl a proper apology and explanation for your actions and if you can't do that then you can just pack your things right now and go back to your "vacation home"." she said quietly, not actually using air quotes, but the emphasis was certainly there in her tone.

 

My mother sighed and turned her attention back to me. "Alina, I can't be your mother anymore, I'm sorry." she said, firing the words out as fast as she could to get them out of her mouth and off her mind, her apology sounding very hollow, like when your parents make you apologize to another kid for something you did but you don't feel the need to apologize but you do it just so they'll leave you alone about it. "It's just that every time I look at you, I see your father and I see you acting like a baby and it just reminds me of a life I don't have anymore." she explained as she broke into full sobs.

 

I had already stopped listening after "I can't be your mother anymore", if I'm being honest. Her resignation from the duty of being my parent brought a coldness to my heart that never faded after that day. Even at my young age I had decided that if she didn't want me I didn't want her either and knowing that her love was gone for real and certain meant I didn't have to worry about trying to attain it anymore. "Okay." I said quietly.

 

My aunt and mother both looked at me in stunned silence, my mother rubbing the tears from her eyes and looking like a cartoon character trying to get rid of the mirage they were witnessing. "Okay?" my mother asked.

 

I nodded and scooted off the couch, walking to my aunt and taking her hand. "You can go, we'll be okay without you." I said bluntly. "I'm hungry, aun-Mommy." I said, looking up at my aunt.

 

My new mother later praised me for being such a big girl with the way I handled my old mother's exit, and she made sure to let me know that it was okay to cry about the situation and talk about my feelings, but I just told her the truth, I was fine and wanted to get on with my life. I didn't see my birth mother for a very long time after that, but that's a story for another time.

 

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Returning to school the following day was a vast improvement over the prior day. For one, Amber and Danicka had both been expelled, I'd later learn that Amber had been sent to a very strict boarding school while Danicka's family moved so she could attend a school for kids that needed to learn to straighten up and fly right. Like my birth mother, I wouldn't see either of them for a very long time, but unlike my birth mother, the experience wasn't altogether terrible.

 

The second positive was that Dawn was there and was okay, she had a bump on the back of her head but thankfully didn't need to have stitches. I met her on the swings at recess finally, and we sat beside each other in contented silence for a few minutes before she finally piped up.

 

"I'm sorry." she said quietly.

 

I was getting a little tired of hearing apologies by this point, but I could tell she was sad about something and that wasn't okay with me. I twisted the swing around to face her and put my hand on her shoulder as a way to reassure her but also to keep from spinning back around like an idiot. "Why are you sorry?" I asked.

 

"I wanted to protect you from them yesterday but I just made it worse." she said glumly.

 

I shook my head. "No you didn't, they were gonna do what they were gonna do no matter what, you were sweet to try and rescue me." I said, thinking for a second and swinging toward her to kiss her cheek. "You're my hero." I told her with a small smile and giggle to accompany it.

She blushed and shook her head. "I'm not a hero, Alina, I'm weird." she said.

 

I knew what she was referring to, and the happy butterflies in my stomach that had, for reasons unknown to me at that moment in time, fluttered away because of the encroaching tightness and discomfort that settled in. "Dawn, if anyone is weird, it's me." I told her. "Just because you-well, you know, but just because of that doesn't mean you're weird." I added.

 

She remained silent and looking down at the dirt beneath her feet.

 

"Hey." I said to get her attention. "Would you like it if you could stay over this weekend and have my new Mommy baby you?" I asked.

 

She looked up in confusion. "New mommy?" she asked.

 

I nodded. "My old mom doesn't want me anymore so my aunt is my mom now." I said matter of factly, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

 

"Oh." she said simply. "Well, I'd like to, but my mom likes to be the one to handle that kind of stuff, she says it's important to re-goo-late my baby time so I don't stop being a big girl." she explained.

 

We both let the memory of my life over the Summer pass through our minds without saying anything and then I turned back around and got off my swing as the bell started to ring, going to her and hugging her tightly as she sat on the swing. "I don't care if you're weird or a big girl or a baby, Dawn, you're my best friend and I love you." I said and kissed her cheek once more and delighted as the butterflies returned and I made my way back to class.

 

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Dawn would later explain to me that I was her "gateway drug" into the world of diapers and playing baby, something that came up in more fights between us than in romantic moments, which I would then argue was bullshit and revisionist history because she obviously was doing this stuff before we even met, and round and round we would go. At any rate, she would also later explain that she knew she would never want to live without me after that moment on the swings, but I again call bullshit because she did plenty of living without me in the time between our present and that moment.

 

For my part, looking back with an adult mind, I knew that I loved Dawn then but I didn't know what love was, go figure, the twice abandoned Little Orphan Alina didn't know what love was. The butterflies are a dead giveaway, I get those anytime a girl flirts with me or romantic advances are made toward me to this day, but back then I just assumed I was happy, and for the first time in a while, I was.  The real concern was how long that happiness would last.