All My Mother's Rules (Ch. 70 & Epilogue - 2/13/24)

[bubble-pop1]

Another great chapter. I just can't wait to see whether she will overcome her current situation or fall even deeper into the swamp of regression. Also it's rather suspicious that Emilia isn't teasing Sarah as much as expected when her mother is trying to humiliate Sarah inside the house to teach her.

[spark]

The one thing I thought about after reading this chapter is how mom and Sarah's relationship would never be able to recover from something like this.  It seemed to me that Sarah had sort of a Stockholm Syndrome going on when it came to her mom, but she would realize mom's behavior is now over the top.

Some how I think that final scene is going to stick in Sarah's mind for a long time.  That's just pure evil, with mom telling Sarah that she could do anything she wants and Sarah has no option but to comply.

[AB_DeLane]

22 hours ago, Arendeth said:

Thanks for the chapter, with her incontinence issues she is going to be doomed to diapers.

You're welcome. Yeah, things aren't looking to good for Sarah at the moment.

22 hours ago, Sarah Penguin said:

?

21 hours ago, Night Rain said:

Sarah should just tell her mom the truth about what's been happening. But knowing her mom she'll think that Sarah is lying.

From the looks of it, I think some holes might continue to be dug a bit deeper for a while.

19 hours ago, spark said:

Any normal parent would have figured out that there was a serious issue going on.   I get the feeling mom would blame Sarah if she broke her leg and think she is old enough to be able to walk by herself.

Yeah, empathy isn't a strong suit for Sarah's mom.

6 hours ago, bubble-pop1 said:

Another great chapter. I just can't wait to see whether she will overcome her current situation or fall even deeper into the swamp of regression. Also it's rather suspicious that Emilia isn't teasing Sarah as much as expected when her mother is trying to humiliate Sarah inside the house to teach her.

Yeah, I think there are a couple of explanations for Emilia's actions. Kids her age are a bit more self-absorbed in what they want to do, and this type of treatment by mom has been normalized for her (it's all she's known) so it isn't coming across as unusual as Sarah might understand it to be from her interactions with people outside of her family.

2 hours ago, spark said:

The one thing I thought about after reading this chapter is how mom and Sarah's relationship would never be able to recover from something like this.  It seemed to me that Sarah had sort of a Stockholm Syndrome going on when it came to her mom, but she would realize mom's behavior is now over the top.

Some how I think that final scene is going to stick in Sarah's mind for a long time.  That's just pure evil, with mom telling Sarah that she could do anything she wants and Sarah has no option but to comply.

I think it's correct to say that we've reached a point where mom's treatment of Sarah has arrived at the point of no return.

[spark]

2 hours ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

I think it's correct to say that we've reached a point where mom's treatment of Sarah has arrived at the point of no return.

The lap conversation with mom was mom's way of saying "It put's the lotion on it's skin."

If this was a TV show, I would be binge watching.   FTR- the first episode of this was posted in March of 2020, and most of use seem to remember what was happening in March of 2020.  

[Allman90]

Really glad to see this continue.

it's hard to say exactly where this is going, but I'm pretty sure its gonna get there soon. I would like to see such a good story go one forever because who doesn't want to read good stories. But that would mean Sarah would be in diapers forever. That would be too mean.

 

but her mom bothers me. i'm a supporter of strict discipline, but it also has to make sense. even since the beginning, Sarah follows the rules just to avoid punishment. She knows how dumb most of the rules are and how pointless some of the punishments are. that means they haven't taught her the one thing they were supposed to. She doesn't follow the rules because the rules lead to the right way to behave, and she doesn't obey her mother because she respects her wisdom and experience. She just doesn't want to get smacked in the face or spanked or humiliated even more. a lot of people these days think spanking is just violence. Sarah's mother is a prime example of why people think that.

 

I dont need to tell you you're doing a great job writing this. But I just did.  

[Little Sherri]

This story is intriguing to me because it represents exactly how I wasn't parented, for the most part; my parents never used diapers as a punishment, and they never treated me in a babyish way, or deliberately put me in humiliating circumstances. They did sometimes allow for subtle social pressures to be brought to bear, such as when they would not entertain arguments about if I needed to wear diapers when we were at other people's houses and such. Either I needed them, or I didn't, and either way, the situation, and who was there, didn't matter. My mom was very matter-of-fact about it and just didn't think it was a big deal to wear diapers, if you needed them, whereas my self-image was very entwined in that lack of control over myself and inability to "grow up" and be "normal". She grew up with 10 siblings in a tiny house so everyone seeing everyone in diapers or underwear or various states of undress was just par for the course, and privacy wasn't "a thing". 

Of course, now, as an adult somewhere on the ABDL spectrum, part of me wishes I had "enjoyed" being able to wear diapers more, as a kid, and that I wasn't so knotted up with anxiety about my predicament, believing that the world would end if anyone knew I was still being put in diapers after dinner. So the idea of a parent who "leans into it" is interesting, because mine did not. 

All I want for Christmas is some more chapters. 

[MilesP]

Like many have said, this is a great story. While some aspects are a bit difficult to read, I think some folks have forgotten the times Sarah's mother has been very loving. My main hope is that Sarah and her mother both have a happy ending. It would be a nice contrast to the events of Lisa's story, who also happens to be in this one. So if anyone would help Sarah getting her mother to understand, it would be her. I don't imagine she'd want to see another family torn apart.

[spark]

45 minutes ago, MilesP said:

Like many have said, this is a great story. While some aspects are a bit difficult to read, I think some folks have forgotten the times Sarah's mother has been very loving. My main hope is that Sarah and her mother both have a happy ending. It would be a nice contrast to the events of Lisa's story, who also happens to be in this one. So if anyone would help Sarah getting her mother to understand, it would be her. I don't imagine she'd want to see another family torn apart.

I don't know how mom and Sarah's relationship would recover from what happened.   She already didn't trust mom enough to let her know about her sudden incontinence following the fall, and she a good reason not to trust her mother.  I think mom might care in some perverted way in that she is thinks she is doing the right thing.

Lisa/Annabelle's parent's were sociopaths.  They flat out went out of their way to make her life miserable, including trying to institutionalize her after she had found a loving home.     Lisa wanted nothing to do with her previous, and changed her name to start over.

Sarah's mom might be a psychopath.   She seems to enjoy the control and tormenting her children.   What she did to both Emilia and Sarah was more about control, rather than teaching them a lesson.  Even before this, she wouldn't let Sarah make her choices, and limited her access to friends.   She was spanked for getting a bad grade (I think a 'C') on a quiz

[MilesP]

Psychopath is a very strong word. I'm reasonably sure she's doing what her parents likely did with her and since it worked with her she would expect it to work with Sarah. I'm not a fan of the physical punishments, but I also believe it takes a lot more to break a bond with a parent than that. If she was as bad as you say, she would have forced Sarah to do babyish things while they were out, and she didn't. Heck, she even held back from the baby punishment the first time Sarah was diapered for the day because it was pretty clear she didn't want to take it that far.

 

Sure, she could do some things better and be more understanding, but Sarah being unwilling to even try talking to her isn't helping. This sort of thing goes both ways and I think if Sarah, maybe with some help, approached her mother about the ongoing issues, it could turn out well for her. That's my hope, anyway. Short of full-on horrific abuse, like we saw with Lisa, anything can be mended.

 

One thing I forgot to mention, she's a single mother. We don't know why she's a single mother or what happened to the father, but being a single mother of two girls is extremely stressful. The only hint of their former life is the notes about how they had to move into a smaller house. Sometime, as terrible as it may seem, a controlling mother does so because they feel the need to control the situation, since whatever incident led them to be single was likely beyond their control. The last thing she would want as a mother is to lose her kids, although I'll admit she goes about it poorly. fear does terrible things to a person.

[GQLF]

I always think Sarah has a big problem. Even if her mother puts her in the diaper without asking the reason, she hardly thinks about the cause of her incontinence, but just conceals the result and uses Amelia's pull-up to hide the fact of incontinence. It doesn't solve the problem at all. On the contrary, the longer it takes, the bigger the problem may be. In the end, it may be too serious to hide. At that time, it's obvious that Sarah doesn't want to face it, but if she just continues to hide and doesn't solve it, it's only a matter of time for Sarah to be treated as a baby by her mother.

[spark]

On 12/17/2021 at 5:06 PM, GQLF said:

I always think Sarah has a big problem. Even if her mother puts her in the diaper without asking the reason, she hardly thinks about the cause of her incontinence, but just conceals the result and uses Amelia's pull-up to hide the fact of incontinence. It doesn't solve the problem at all. On the contrary, the longer it takes, the bigger the problem may be. In the end, it may be too serious to hide. At that time, it's obvious that Sarah doesn't want to face it, but if she just continues to hide and doesn't solve it, it's only a matter of time for Sarah to be treated as a baby by her mother.

This is primarily a bump.  I just want to let the author know I'm looking forward to the next installment.

There is an element of horror in this story.  Sarah is not helping herself, but that is very common trait among teenagers.  We get a little hint into the writing style of @MinnesotaWriter in Diapers Never Lie.   He takes you on good journey, and you don't always know where you will end up.  As a reader- this is like stopping The Rear Window  when Grace Kelly is stuck in the apartment and the murderer is coming in.

[Diapeered]

Well considering that Sarah doesn’t really have access to Amelia’s Pull Ups anymore or risk getting caught or having an accident at school, she would probably find it best to continue the baby treatment since she wouldn’t be getting medical help unless she sneaks off and goes herself and that is if they allow her to without her mother’s presence or consent.

Given she has to either sneak out and get her own protection without getting caught or try and remain dry at home and school as if she had an accident at school they would probably contact her mother or find a way to get Amelia to start having accidents again so she can sneak Pull Ups again.

I like how you had Sarah rebelling against her punishment by giving herself small victories like putting in the paci before mom put it in or walking/standing while mother doesn’t see her.

[Little Sherri]

I thought that I'd touch base on this to see if there is another installment pending...

[diaperboymi]

It would be Great to see a new chapter to this Fantastic story. 

[AB_DeLane]

Hello again!

Can't believe it's been 10 months since the last chapter I posted. Didn't realize my hiatus had gone so long. But I'll have some new chapters to post soon, either this week or next.

[spark]

2 hours ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

Hello again!

Can't believe it's been 10 months since the last chapter I posted. Didn't realize my hiatus had gone so long. But I'll have some new chapters to post soon, either this week or next.

Thank You.  I've been patiently waiting.   I know with my story, a little nagging would probably help me finish.

I can't wait to see it.

[diaperboymi]

AWESOME ????  Looking forward to it?????

[Bonsai]

Good to know that you’re back from hiatus! I hope the rest of your life is going well and looking forward to the new chapters.

[AB_DeLane]

I made a synopsis earlier in the story, and it seems like it would be a good idea to post an updated once since it has been 10 months since the last chapter.

Synopsis: The Story so Far

Sarah’s mom follows an extremely strict potty-training regimen with her youngest daughter, 3-and-a-half-year-old Emilia, who isn’t fully potty trained, but that strict sense of rules and discipline is similar in other aspects of her parenting, as 14-year-old Sarah often is the recipient of thorough spankings if she gets poor grades or misbehaves in other ways. For Emilia, too many potty-training mishaps result in being put back into pull-ups, or worse, being put into diapers and treated like a baby, which is often her fate.

Sarah’s friends at school, Samantha and Desi, invite Sarah to a sleepover in a couple of weeks. Sarah’s mom has always forbidden sleepovers, in part because Sarah had been a bedwetter up until several years ago, but Sarah feels like she might be able to convince her mom about it for once now that she is in high school.

At cheerleading practice, Sarah has to deal with a fellow freshman, Claire, who is jealous that Sarah has gotten the better assignments with the team. At one of the first practices, they are going through a maneuver where Sarah is tossed in the air, but the girls who tossed Sarah fail to catch her, letting Sarah take a hard fall onto the ground.

Later that day, while doing some research on her computer into some new things they could attempt to finally get Emilia potty trained, Sarah wets her pants for the first time since she was a toddler, but as she is alone in her room, she is able to clean up the accident. And with being responsible for washing her own clothes, she can hide that from her mom as well. Besides that accident, Sarah is discovering that she is needing to go to the bathroom much more frequently and urgently than before.

Sarah is able to convince her mother to allow her to go to the sleepover, but only after she turns 15 in a few weeks. Sarah wets the bed that night. For Sarah, who had been a bedwetter as an older child, this was her first bedwetting accident in years. She is able to hide the accident by falsely claiming that Emilia’s diaper had leaked, as her little sister had snuck into Sarah’s bed in the middle of the night.

After those two accidents, and a close call at school the following day, Sarah takes the step of trying on her little sister’s pull-ups, testing them out to find out that they appear able to hold one of her bladder accidents. Sarah continues her scheme of using the pull-ups both at home and in school to hide future bladder accidents, though getting away with hiding her new underwear while being on the gymnastics team requires a lot of stealth and care.

At school, Sarah befriends Lisa, a shy fellow freshman who is getting bullied by Claire. Desi is welcoming of having someone else take part in their friend group, though Samantha is leery of that development.

While disposing of one of her own pull-ups in a school bathroom, Sarah discovers that another student appears to have thrown away an adult-style pull-up, leading her to wonder who else in the school is experiencing a similar problem to herself.

Sarah decides to go to a try-out for a newly created Fortnite team at the school, and Lisa is at the tryout as well. Both girls make the team, though Lisa is far and away the better player.

At the sleepover, the Sarah, Samantha, and Desi play a game of Truth or Dare, where it is revealed that Samantha’s younger brother is still a bedwetter who wears pull-ups at night. Upon that discovery, Samantha gets dared to wear the pull-up, while Desi gets dared to urinate in it. Sarah sees the pull-up as an opportunity to be able to avoid the risk of wetting herself during the sleepover. Once she thinks all her friends are asleep, she sneaks off to grab a pull-up from Samantha’s brother’s bedroom, only to discover that Samantha appears to be making her brother wet the bed by holding his hand in a bowl of warm water. Sarah takes the pull-up but doesn’t let Samantha know what she had seen.

While her sister’s pull-ups are mostly reliable, Sarah finds herself becoming overconfident with them, resulting in a leak that her younger sister notices, and immediately alerts her mother about. Her mother is upset about the accident and is frustrated that Sarah is setting such a poor example for a younger sibling she is working hard to potty trained. Sarah’s mom requires her to go back to wearing the pull-ups for a week, as a way to show that she was consistent in applying the same rules to both sisters.

One daytime accident means needing to wear a pull-up until you are dry for a week. Two accidents in one day mean being put back in diapers for the rest of the day and the following day. Nighttime accidents are counted separately.

Sarah has another bedwetting accident the night after being put back into pull-ups, but this time she is unable to hide it from her mother as the pull-up leaked all over the bed. She continues to have nighttime accidents, which she is unable to hide from her mother. Daytime is a different story, Sarah is able to continue to take some of Emilia’s pull-ups, and wear those during school, which is where most of her accidents happen as she isn’t always able to leave the classroom every single time she needs to go to the bathroom.

At the end of cheerleading practice, Sarah gets into a fight with Claire, who had looked inside her backpack to find Emilia’s pull-ups. While Sarah is able to explain away the pull-up as being something for her sister, the cheerleading coach tells both girls that any future fighting could result in their dismissal from the team.

Sarah’s nighttime wetting continues, with the pull-ups remaining completely ineffective. Her mom orders a package of adult diapers to use for Sarah at night instead and requires Sarah to keep them on the entire night, with no getting up to ask for a change or use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

At school, Sarah goes to the library and uses a computer another student had accidently stayed logged in to do some research about her bladder issues but wasn’t able to find any clear answers to her problem. Her mother is leery of going to doctors, and Sarah is unwilling to see the school nurse, as that would result in her mother finding out that the extent of Sarah’s problem is much worse than she is aware of.

With the aide of her sister’s pull-ups, Sarah is able to go a week of hiding all of her daytime accidents from her mother and is rewarded with being able to go back into her regular panties, but another accident at home just a couple days later has her right back into pull-ups again.

While Sarah normally gets assigned to do any group projects with Samantha and Desi, she instead gets assigned to do a group project for history class with Lisa, who happens to be the niece of the history teacher. Lisa, who lives with her aunt and uncle, invites Sarah to come over to her house for a study session.

While studying (and playing videogames) at Lisa’s place, her friend works up the courage to confront Sarah about her pull-up use, before revealing excitedly that they both share the same condition. Sarah avoids going into the actually details of her bladder issues and the way her mom has handled the situation, instead letting it appear that it has also been something she’s dealt with her entire life.

Lisa tells Sarah about her background (Note: This part is covered in the story, “Diapers Never Lie”), about how she has had incontinence issues her whole life and how the abuse she suffered from both her parents led her to live with her aunt and uncle.

Sarah’s streak of being able to avoid her mom noticing two accidents in one day comes to an end, and her mom follows through with the same punishment that Emilia would get for that offense. Sarah gets put back into diapers for the day.

Sarah’s mom then turns to more drastic measures to get both of her kids out of diapers. She ordered laxatives as constipation can be a cause of bedwetting and bladder issues. Both Sarah and Emilia have to take the laxatives while wearing diapers, which they were required to mess in.

The school bully, Claire, manages to get a hold of one of Lisa’s diapers from her backpack, and taunts Lisa about it in the hallway after school. Sarah decides to get revenge against Claire, taking note of the threat from the cheerleading coach that any additional fighting between her and Claire would result in both getting tossed from the team. Sarah instigates a fight between them, resulting in detention plus a suspension from the team.

Other drama at school quickly eclipses the incident with Lisa’s diapers, and the introverted freshman is able to avoid unwanted attention from her classmates. Samantha, who had at first been annoyed with Lisa joining in with their friend group, is now much more at ease with Lisa taking part in activities with herself, Sarah, and Desi.

The laxatives that Sarah’s mom used appear to be helping Emilia get potty trained, as Sarah’s younger sister is almost completely accident free. This puts Sarah in a bind as she doesn’t have the ability to take any of her sister’s pull-ups without her mom noticing a suspicious decrease.

Sarah is too afraid to wear a pull-up to school, seeing how her classmates had tormented Lisa makes her dread what would happen if she wet her pants in class. Sarah decides to have one accident on purpose at home, to get mom to at least put her back in pull-ups, figuring that as long as she can avoid having two daytime accidents on the same day (that would mean going back to diapers the next day) that she would then at least have the ability to have a pull-up on while going to school.

Sarah’s plan backfires when she has a second accident that evening, this time into the pull-up, which leaves her going to bed fearful of how she is going to be wearing diapers the next day at school.

Instead of making Sarah wear diapers to school, her mom calls the school to say that Sarah is sick, and has her daughter stay home for the day. Sarah is thoroughly treated like a baby, being made to drink from a bottle and sit in a highchair for meals. Emilia, whose potty training has finally been successful and now is wearing underwear full-time, has been enlisted to help with the babying of her older sister.

[bubble-pop1]

Welcome back. Can't believe that my favorite story is actually resurrecting after 10 months. I was so curious about how Sarah will go through her current position of revesed role in potty training. Looking forward for the next episode of our poor baby Sarah and her "now big sister" Emilia. Keep On with the awesome writing!

[nadine_enough]

I was just thinking about this story again, crazy how the world works! Thanks for the updated synopsis. I hope you have been well during your hiatus. Any update is worth the patience we as readers can offer.

[spark]

I've been waiting for 10 months (it felt longer) to find out how this will go.  Sarah will have more accidents, and mom has already used nuclear weapons (baby treatment) to deal with it.

I noticed this started back in March on 2020, and a lot of us remember what we were doing in March 2020.  (FTR- not much).

 

[AB_DeLane]

On 9/27/2022 at 8:43 PM, diaperboymi said:

AWESOME ????  Looking forward to it?????

Chapter 41 is nearly done, should have it posted tomorrow.

22 hours ago, Bonsai said:

Good to know that you’re back from hiatus! I hope the rest of your life is going well and looking forward to the new chapters.

Oh yes, I had (and have) plenty of wonderful things to distract from writing, but fall/winter is best timewise, and finger's crossed, I'll get things wrapped up before another hiatus.

10 hours ago, bubble-pop1 said:

Welcome back. Can't believe that my favorite story is actually resurrecting after 10 months. I was so curious about how Sarah will go through her current position of revesed role in potty training. Looking forward for the next episode of our poor baby Sarah and her "now big sister" Emilia. Keep On with the awesome writing!

Oh yes, we've got some very very exciting chapters coming up. And this is where I'm glad I kept very detailed notes and outlines saved, as I'm still on track with where I want the story going.

9 hours ago, nadine_enough said:

I was just thinking about this story again, crazy how the world works! Thanks for the updated synopsis. I hope you have been well during your hiatus. Any update is worth the patience we as readers can offer.

I think the wait will be worth it. I'm excited as well to be back and working on it.

52 minutes ago, spark said:

I've been waiting for 10 months (it felt longer) to find out how this will go.  Sarah will have more accidents, and mom has already used nuclear weapons (baby treatment) to deal with it.

I noticed this started back in March on 2020, and a lot of us remember what we were doing in March 2020.  (FTR- not much).

 

Yes, all that downtime with the start of Covid made starting a writing project seem a lot more feasible. Crazy to think it has been that long. 

[AB_DeLane]

Chapter 41: 28 Days Later

I winced slightly as I felt a sharp jab to my ribs. Couldn’t they leave me be? Still, I didn’t stir from the position I was resting in, with my head drooped forward and tucked into my arms. Just please let me keep my eyes closed a few more moments longer. Pretty please.

I felt another wave of drowsiness settling in when it was rudely interrupted by a series of rapid pokes to my side.

“Wake up,” Samantha whispered urgently as she gave me yet another poke.

My head bobbed lazily after I jerked it upright from my school desk.

“What’s wrong with you? I’m tired,” I replied back to her in a low whisper.

“What’s wrong with you?” Samantha whispered back. “You should have taken the iced coffee I offered earlier instead of sleeping in class.”

Before I could think of a good enough retort, the teacher’s eyes moved from the whiteboard to the back of the class, where Samantha, Desi, and I were seated. I hastily shut my lips and used all of my remaining willpower to look up at what I needed to copy down into my notebook. Three more classes left. How was I supposed to stay awake until I got home?

Yesterday had been the fourth day in the past four weeks that Mom had kept me home from school. Supposedly, it was because I was sick, which was what I overheard Mom telling the school nurse when she called her in the morning. Actually, I had been held home from school each of those days because I had wet my pull-ups twice the day before, resulting in Mom putting me back in diapers for the whole day.

And the diapers weren’t the worst of it. Mom insisted on treating me completely like a baby, making use of Emilia’s old highchair, bottles, sippy cups, and other leftover baby paraphernalia. And Mom had Emilia playing along with it as well, using my now-potty-trained sister to check my diaper, hand her wet wipes during changes, and even spoon food into my mouth during meals.

I shifted a bit painfully in my seat as I struggled to keep my eyes focused on the whiteboard. The teacher’s monotone voice did nothing to aid my tentative attentiveness.

The combination of missing school and missing sleep as I was staying up later to catch up on homework was resulting in poorer grades than I, almost exclusively an student, would typically get. Those poor grades had been accompanied by spankings at home. On my bare bottom, of course, as the only time I would want my mother to put me in a diaper or pull-up would, of course, be the only time she would have it off.

My eyes were almost completely shut again when the jarring sound of the bell went off to mark the end of the class period. I felt like a zombie as I shuffled my feet through the door and into the hallway. At least it was lunch period. Eating a sandwich while half-asleep was a lot easier than trying to pay attention in class while being this drowsy.

“I think someone needs to stop playing Fortnite past midnight,” Desi said as she followed me into the hallway.

“I’m not,” I muttered back while rolling my eyes.

“Oh really,” Samantha said.

“I would know if she was online that late,” Lisa interjected.

We all turned to look at Lisa. I hadn’t noticed her join our group as we were walking toward the cafeteria.

“What?” she said. “My aunt and uncle don’t care if I’m up late, as long as I’m up on time for school. And I never see Sarah online that late.”

“I’ll join you guys in the cafeteria in a bit,” I said, as I started to split off in a different direction. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

I hadn’t liked the direction that conversation was going. While Lisa had been able to save me from some of the inquisition, I wanted to get away before it resumed. That, and I did really need to pee, even though I really shouldn’t have.

During breakfast, I had managed to pour out most of my glass of orange juice in the sink while Mom was distracted, and I was careful to avoid drinking almost anything else until I got home from school. The dryness in my mouth seemed to be worse every time I passed a drinking fountain in the hallway. I allowed myself just the smallest sip of water from a drinking fountain before heading into the restroom.

I sat on the toilet for several minutes but was only able to make a small trickle. I didn’t understand why the urge to pee was coming so strong when my bladder wasn’t needing to empty out much. True, I wasn’t needing to go between every class, but I was still needing to go more frequently than I expected, especially given how little I was peeing once I got to the toilet.

Not that peeing a small amount made any difference if that happened as an accident in my pull-up. Mom didn’t differentiate between a pull-up that was a little damp and one that was fully soaked. Still, my pull-up was one hundred percent dry when I examined it. Wetting myself while dozing off to sleep was my biggest concern for the remainder of the school day.

---

“Is everything all right?” Desi asked.

I had barely taken a seat at the cafeteria table in the spot that my friends had saved for me when the inquisition resumed exactly where it had left off in the hallway.

“Yeah, I just needed to go to the bathroom, that’s all.”

“Sarah, this was the fourth time that you’ve missed school in the last few weeks,” Lisa said.

“We just want to make sure you’re OK,” added Samantha.

Leaving my friends alone together had been a bad idea, given how they’d managed to turn a budding inquisition into an intervention.

“I’m fine, really,” I added. “I’ve just been feeling under the weather a lot lately. You don’t need to treat me like I’m dying.”

“So, it’s not cancer then?” Desi asked.

I snorted so badly in the middle of taking a sip of water that it splattered all across the table.

“What?”

“Don’t look at me,” Desi said, while grabbing a napkin to dry off a few watch patches on her shirt. “That’s what Samantha was speculating about. She just didn’t want to ask.”

Samantha turned to glare at Desi. Thankfully, the long boring days of being babied at home had given me plenty of time to mentally plan out an alibi.

“No, no, it was just different stuff. One day, I had a fever. And another time I had a stomach bug that I promise you don’t want any further details about. Just bad luck, really. Not anything bad enough to see a doctor, but enough to need to stay in bed all day.”

“Well, when you’ve decided to be done being sick, we could finally have that sleepover we were wanting to do,” Samantha said.

“You’re forgetting something.”

“What?”

“Remember, I’m grounded?”

I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of Lisa’s face turning red. She remembered exactly what had led to me getting grounded.

“It’s been like a month. Surely that’s over already.”

“Maybe not. You know how my mom could be. I’m ungrounded when she says that I’m ungrounded. And not a moment sooner.”

“Can you just ask her?” Desi said. “Lisa’s never been to a sleepover, and it’s her first time to do one.”

Even if I wanted to go on a sleepover, which, with the bedwetting issues I was having, I had no desire to do, there was absolutely no way I could imagine Mom letting me spend the night at a friend’s house until I had demonstrated that my bedwetting issue was again a thing of the past.

But I couldn’t explain any of that to them, so throwing my mom under the bus was the only other option.

“I’ll ask again about a sleepover, as nicely as I could, but if not, then perhaps we could hang out all day on a weekend.”

As Samantha and Desi slipped off to the bathroom before the next class started, Lisa hung back with me in the hallway.

Lisa glanced left and right before grabbing my hand and pulling me closer to the wall.

“You’re going to need to tell them.”

“Tell them what?”

“You know what.”

“No, I don’t.”

“The reason you don’t want to do a sleepover was because you don’t want to tell them about the bedwetting. And even if your mom is strict, you’re using her as an excuse.”

I took a deep breath. Why did Lisa have to be so perceptive? I could tell her the truth... partially. I had never told Lisa that my bladder issues were a recent occurrence. I had just let her assume that, like her, my issues had been something I’d had my whole life.

“My Mom doesn’t like other people knowing about my bladder issues.”

“But she let you go on the sleepover before.”

“I had a dry stretch and got lucky enough to convince her to let me go, as a special thing for turning fifteen, but I’ve had more accidents lately, so I don’t think she’ll want me to stay overnight anywhere.”

“Well, I did talk to my aunt and uncle, and they said that if it didn’t work to do a sleepover at someone else’s house, that they would be OK hosting instead. Probably better to stay in my own bed since it’s got the mattress protector. You could even tell your mom that I wet the bed as well if that would make her more comfortable. And then before bed, we could tell Samantha and Desi together about your bedwetting, and it won’t be an issue at all.”

“But...”

But then I hesitated for a second. Lisa had put a lot of thought into the request, and I really didn’t want to make her feel bad, certainly not before I had a chance to think through the scenario she had proposed.

“Yeah, I’ll see if I could catch Mom in a good mood to explain that.”

---

I succeeded in one of my two goals for the school day. I didn’t fall asleep in any of my three afternoon classes. But I did wet my pull-up in the first class after lunch break. I should have gone to the toilet after having a small amount to drink with my lunch, but I had gotten caught up in the conversation with Lisa.

Mom had given me extra pull-ups to bring to school in my backpack, but the downside was that she would be careful to count them when I returned, and the missing pull-up would let her know I had an accident.

One accident wasn’t the end of the world, but if I had a second one, either at school or once I had returned home, I would have a fifth day where Mom would keep me home and force me to wear diapers all day long.

The bus ride home from school was too uncomfortable to get any sleeping in, so Desi and Samantha instead let me copy some of their notes from the classes I had missed yesterday so that I knew what I needed to study for future tests.

As I got off the bus and stepped into the house, Mom greeted me with the same question that she had asked the past four weeks. And I gave her the answer that I had unfortunately had to give way more times than I would have liked to.

“Did you stay dry at school today?”

No point in lying, not when counting the pull-ups would reveal the truth. Best to just limit the damage.

“Only one accident.”

Thankfully, accidents at home were extremely rare, with Mom making me sit on the toilet every thirty minutes. Most of the days where I had been punished with diapers had been the result of wetting multiple pull-ups while I was at school. Class periods lasted a bit longer than thirty minutes there. Still, I needed to be extra careful this afternoon, so that I wouldn’t be spending the following day stuck at home in diapers.

Mom counted the remaining pull-ups in my backpack. True to what I had said earlier, I was only missing one pull-up. Mom then had me remove my pants to keep a watch on the pull-up I currently had on, and after confirming it was dry, sent me off to use the toilet and do some homework.

Ever since I had begun taking the bus home from school again, I had made sure to track how long it took Mom to leave to grab Emilia from preschool. The quickest she had ever been was 32 minutes from the time the car left the driveway until the time it pulled back in.

As scared as I was of what the consequences would be if I failed, I couldn’t deal with this cycle of being put back into diapers during the day any longer. I couldn’t stand another humiliating day of being babied by my little sister, and I wanted the freedom to go and hang out with my friends again.

I started the countdown timer on my phone immediately as the car started backing out of the driveway. I had thirty-two minutes to do what I needed to do before Mom got back home with Emilia.

[Sarah Penguin]