Megan decided to go home and sleep. Fuck him. He wasn’t worth it. She hurt, yes, but she’d been hurting anyway and just didn’t have the strength to deal with it anymore.
When she got home, she found her entire family playing a board game. They were getting along. They even seemed to be happy. It was surreal. Why? Why was everything else only OK when she wasn’t?
“Care to join us?” Nancy invited.
Megan shook her head. She retreated to her room and climbed into bed, neglecting to change her soaking wet diaper. She just didn’t care anymore.
She awoke an hour and a half later to Jessica nudging her.
“What?!” she asked groggily.
“I was informed that you require a change,” Jess said in her awkwardly formal way of speaking.
“I’m fine,” Megan replied. She wanted to be left alone.
“Well then, answer me this: are your sheets wet by default?”
“What?!” Megan abruptly sat up and cast off her sheets. Her diaper had leaked. “Great! Just what I need…”
Jessica smiled. “Fear not. I’m here to assist you.”
“I don’t want your help!” she snapped.
“Of course you do. You, like I, am just too stubborn to admit it. Besides, coming home proved to help a great deal and I don’t like feeling indebted. So you’re stuck with me.”
Megan sighed. “Fine. Do what you want. Whatever.”
“Judging from your attitude, I’d say there are a variety of things nagging at you. We’ll get to that in a minute. Now lift up.”
Megan obediently raised her butt and stripped her of her wet diaper.
“I remember when you changed my diapers for real,” Megan remarked. “You weren’t very good at it. You keep putting them on crooked and Mom kept having to correct the lousy job you did.”
“Does that surprise you?”
“What? Mom correcting you? Gee Jess…not at all.”
“No, I meant me not having a shred of maternal instinct.”
Megan’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“I would have made a lousy mother,” she confessed. “It was…I mean, let’s face it: I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just not ready. I thought I was, but that was largely because Mom thought I wasn’t.”
“Don’t worry,” Megan assured her. “You’ll get another chance.”
“Let’s hope Ric’s not too traumatized to make his contribution.”
Megan giggled as Jessica went to retrieve some fresh diapers.
“Laugh all you want…he’s quite a skillful lover.”
“Blech…I don’t even want to think about that,” she replied. “Or any guy at the moment.”
“Suffered a letdown, did you?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It always is.”
The diapers that Jessica put on Megan were cloth rather than disposable. Megan was bewildered at first.
“What? Where did you get these?”
“A medical supply store,” Jessica explained. “I took the liberty of pursuing a more cost-effective, not to mention environmentally sound alternative.”
“Oh.” Megan rolled her eyes.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s just that ever since you walked in the door, you’ve been changing everything. No one is arguing anymore, which is a good thing, I suppose, but I’m really annoyed that you talked to Josh.”
“Why? Do you harbor a secret crush?”
“No.”
‘Then why does it concern you?”
“Come on, Jess. He has a good job and he’s good at it. Bledsoe’s would fall apart without him. Suppose he takes your advice and decides to take up acting. Suppose he doesn’t make it. Then we’re both fucked.”
Jessica chuckled. “You give me too much credit. Trying his hand at acting was something he wanted to do already. I merely guided him; I didn’t push him into it. Besides, wouldn’t you think he’d have enough sense not to throw it all away?”
“Yeah,” Megan sighed. “I guess you’re right.”
Jessica held out a pair of plastic pants and she stepped into them. The new diapers were soft but bulky. She had avoided cloth since she didn’t want to be burdened with washing them. Since Jess had made it clear she wanted to help, Megan decided that she could pick up the slack.
“So,” Jessica said as she tucked Megan’s diapers into the plastic pants. “You are disgusted with the male race because…”
Megan gave her a brief synopsis of her history with Ron.
“I don’t even care anymore,” she concluded. “I mean, I kinda knew it wasn’t going to work. It still pisses me off. No warning or anything. And he was my best shot, too. Ugh.”
Jessica smiled knowingly. “Do you know why I am so intent on marrying Ric?”
“Umm…. to piss off Mom and Dad?”
“Well, besides that.”
“No, Jess, I don’t. I really don’t know what you see in him.”
“He idolizes me,” Jessica explained.
“No offense, but he looks like a rat.”
“That’s why he idolizes me. Because he thinks I could do better. And while yes, I’m sure I could land myself someone of more Herculean proportions, I doubt I’ll find anyone as intelligent or articulate, or, more importantly, more caring as him. That’s why I’m getting married.”
“So what are you saying?” Megan asked. “I should only date losers?”
“This Ron…he clearly knows his way around women?”
“Sort of,” Megan explained. As impossible as it was for her to do so, she tried to take the stripper incident out of the equation. Ron knew his way around women all right. Especially, as it seemed, women named Megan or Meghan.
“He’s confident?”
“Yes.”
“Assertive?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps even aggressive?”
“A little.”
“That is his problem then. He doesn’t value you. You are a conquest, a means to the end of his fulfillment.”
“Nu-uh,” Megan contended. “He does. I used to think the same thing, but then he was really nice to me and…”
“If he does, then those feelings only developed in accordance with his primary interest. Your previous boyfriend, on the other hand….”
“Ted?”
“I get the feeling he valued you.”
“Oh please….can we not get back into that?”
“Very well. All I am saying is choose wisely, little sister. Sometimes, a bad choice is better than none at all.”
Megan giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Jessica asked.
“Here you are saying I should go for the sensitive types when the only guy to offer me any affection lately is an ex-Marine who could kick anyone’s ass.”
Megan called Ron. She didn’t feel like doing it, but she knew it had to be done. She vowed she wouldn’t go apeshit, but nor would she let the conversation end without getting some satisfaction. Grace was a luxury that would be afforded only by how good his excuse was.
“Hello.”
“Hey,” Ron replied. He sounded surprised to hear from her.
“Whatcha up to?”
“Nothing much. Going to lift some weights in a few.”
“Oh.”
“I was going to visit you at the pharmacy the other day, but you weren’t around.”
“I know,” Megan said. “I saw you.”
There was a moment of strained silence. She could almost reach out and grab his surprise.
“Meg…”
“Don’t tell me to calm down,” she said coldly. “And don’t even think of saying I’m sorry.”
She thought that would humble him. She thought wrong.
“You know what?” he told her. “I’m not sorry. I spent weeks trying to be with you, WANTING to be with you and it was always something else. You didn’t feel like it. You didn’t trust me. Shit with your family. Shit at work. I couldn’t take that anymore!”
“Oh, and I suppose shoving your tongue down Meghan Cole’s throat was very therapeutic for you?”
“Look,” he said. “I came there looking for you. That’s no lie. I figured…give it one more try and if it don’t work, that’s it. You weren’t around; she was. End of story.”
“That’s such bullshit! You could have called. You could have…”
“If I’d called, I’d still be waiting. Something else would have come up. Face it: it wasn’t working.”
“I know that,” Megan said. Despite what she told herself, she DID feel hurt. “I just…nevermind.”
“By the way, fucking her was great. But being with her besides that…not nearly as good as it was with you.”
“Thanks a lot,” she replied sardonically. She didn’t know whether to be offended by the former sentiment or honored by the latter.
“You do what you want to do,” he told her. “I still want to be friends. If you don’t…. that’s OK.”
“No, Ron, it isn’t.”
She hung up and groaned in disgust. Her journal entry for the day was a mere three syllables:
I HATE THIS SHIT!!!
Megan thought it was over. Two days later, she discovered it was not. Ted called her. He was brimming with concern.
“Meg?” he asked. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah. What’s up?”
“I found out what happened with you and Ron. We got into a fight over it.”
Megan seemed surprised. “You mean you got into a fight over me?”
“We sure did. I’m not going to let anyone treat you like that, even if they’re a friend of mine.”
“Well…it wasn’t all his fault…”
“I know,” Ted said sourly. “It’s mine.”
“What are you talking about?”
Ted chuckled. “Remember how you were nervous about me being OK with the two of you hooking up? I wanted that to happen. After we…. broke up, you seemed kinda down and I felt bad. I was hoping Ron could get you back on your feet. I had no idea this would happen. Geez, Meg, I’m sorry.”
“Ted,” she said. She was touched, but at the same time she found it ridiculous that he was being so hard on himself. Of all the angst she’d been forced to deal with this summer, he was the least of it. “It’s OK.”
“No,” he insisted. “It’s not. I still care about you, Meg. Ron knew it. Anna knows it. It’s not right that this happened to you and I want to make it up. If there’s anything I can do, anything, just let me know.”
Megan froze up. She didn’t know what to say. All summer long, she had been chasing after her own wants while bending over backwards to make sure everyone else’s were fulfilled. She had given it her all at work and home and had such little to show for it. Now she was finally being offered something for herself. She knew what she wanted, of course, but could she bring herself to ask Ted for it? Even if he did agree to it (which, knowing Ted, he probably would), would he understand it? Also, she didn’t want to screw anything up between him and Anna. Then again, it didn’t have to. It could be fine. With all that had gone wrong, it could be the one thing that would go right.
A.)“No,” she said, sighing slightly. “I’m fine. But thanks though. It means a lot and I appreciate it.”
B.)”Actually….”she began, searching for the right words. “There is one thing, but its kind of…. umm…. could we meet and talk about it?” With nothing left to lose, she would ask Ted to baby her.