Jessica lay awake, she could hear Kevin’s heavy breathing beside her. He had fallen asleep what seemed like hours ago, although Jessica knew it probably hadn’t been more than half an hour since they’d climbed into their sleeping bags. Time always crept slowly when she was the only one awake. And it seemed to be moving forwards even slower than usual tonight, perhaps because there was nothing she could do to occupy herself. It was just the two of them in the tent, and Jessica knew Kevin was a light sleeper. The night before she had woken him several times, climbing in and out of the tent, alternating between wandering around the maze of other tents and sitting in her own tent listening to her iPod, all when she should have been asleep.

This was the first festival Jessica had ever been to. It was only a small affair, she knew that it didn’t compare to the larger festivals, Glastonbury, Reading, V and the others which made newspaper and magazine headlines and had famous bands playing; this was a local festival, free to all and consisting of only 2 fields. The one field housed a handful of large tents in which the bands performed; all local and mainly made up of teens still in college who hadn’t yet given up on the dream of making it big. They were joined by an assortment of burger and chip vans and stalls selling various items, from hand-weaved garden ornaments to legal and herbal drugs. The other field was a sea of tents for the campers. Jessica’s tent was in a far corner of the field; she and Kevin, plus a group of their friends, had arrived early on Friday morning and set up camp before many other people had been around. However, a steady stream of people had arrived throughout Friday, and then throughout Saturday as well, and Jessica was glad that their tent was in a corner where it could easily be found. It could have been easy to lose her tent in the dark amongst all of the others, especially during her late-night wanderings.

Jessica thought back to the night before, Friday night, she’d only caught about an hours sleep. She, Kevin, and the large number of friend’s they’d joined, had stayed up until the early hours of the morning sitting around the campfire a group of the boys had made. They’d drunk a large amount of alcohol between them, and had smoked quite a few joints as well. When they had finally retired to their tents to sleep Jessica didn’t allow herself to fall asleep right away, she’d lain awake for about an hour, and when she found that difficult she’d taken a walk outside, and when the cold proved too much for her she had returned to the tent and put on her iPod. She had alternated between the two activities, slipping outside when she was too sleepy in the tent, and returning when she got too cold, until the iPod’s battery ran out and she could see that the sun was beginning to rise. Jessica had finally allowed herself some sleep then, knowing that she would be awoken by her friends within an hour or two.

However, on Saturday morning Kevin had complained that Jessica’s constant unzipping and zipping of the tent doors to get in and out had kept waking him up, and when Jessica pleaded insomnia Kevin had argued that if she kept getting up of course she would never get to sleep. Jessica knew she would have to stay put, inside her snug sleeping-bag, tonight.

Jessica allowed her thoughts to travel back again, although her memory of Saturday was hazy. She had taken a couple of E’s at about midday. Her lack of sleep had started to catch up with her, and as well as accentuating the festival atmosphere she knew they would be guaranteed to keep her awake throughout the day and into the evening. They had worked, Jessica’s day had been amazing, and she’d had no trouble in staying awake.

However, now the post-E insomnia was wearing off, and Jessica was finding it increasingly difficult to stay awake. She’d never had a problem in staying awake all night, whenever there was a party or sleepover Jessica would always stay awake for most of the night, allowing herself at most an hour or two’s sleep. However, she wasn’t usually faced with the problem of having to spend another night awake straight after the first. When Kevin had asked her, at the last minute, to come to the festival she’d thought it would be easy, she was used to keeping herself awake, and so she hadn’t hesitated in saying yes. Especially after Kevin had suggested they share a tent.

Jessica had liked Kevin for several months, and he had finally started showing signs of liking her too. Whilst they’d been high earlier that day they’d spent a large proportion of their time, away from their friends and the bands, making out and, in-between kisses, talking and connecting in that way people only can when high; opening up completely, telling each other everything. Or almost everything. There were some things Jessica didn’t share with anybody, not even at her most open. Jessica hoped that it would lead to something more, that Kevin wouldn’t just put the kisses down to them being high, but would see them as the beginning of something beautiful. Jessica wanted to be with him, all of the time, and she wanted, needed, him to feel the same.

linking blearily, eyes groggy from sleep, Jessica tried to focus on the face just inches from her own. She smiled to herself when she realised it was Kevin, he was stroking her hair gently, having been watching her sleep.

“Morning sleepy head, I wondered when you were going to wake up.” He looked deep into her eyes.

Jessica felt her whole body turn cold, fear replacing her blood, as the realisation of what had happened hit her, hard. She had fallen asleep. And now she had awoken. Wet. She had hidden this from everyone for her entire life, in 18 years she had never had an accident around one of her friends, she had always succeeded in staying awake all night. Why did it have to happen now? Why did it have to happen in front of Kevin, how would she hide this from him when he was lying less than a foot from her?

“Sleep well?” Kevin asked.

Jessica nodded; she knew if she tried to speak she would burst into tears. She had never felt so humiliated in all of her life, and that was just from thinking about what was to come, she hadn’t even had to face Kevin’s reaction to her soaked sleeping bag yet.

“Last day today,” Kevin said, “I reckon we’ll leave at about midday, I don’t think much is going to be going on this morning, there’s no bands playing or anything. We’ll check and see what everyone else is doing, but if nothing’s happening I don’t think people will want to stick around for too long.”

Jessica nodded, she still couldn’t say anything, she was choking up, how could she avoid what was coming next? Her eyes were welling up with tears, she couldn’t look at Kevin, she knew he would notice.

“Still,” he said, “It’s still early, we could stay in here, just the two of us, for a while. There’s no rush to get up and go.”

Why was he making this even more difficult, why was he prolonging it? Did he know what had happened, perhaps he could smell her pee, maybe he wanted to make this even more uncomfortable for her. Maybe he was hoping that if he kept her in here long enough, unable to get up due to her soaked trousers, their friends would come into the tent to find out what they were doing. Maybe he was waiting to humiliate her in front of everyone. Jessica had never really thought that he would be like that, but she supposed you never could tell.

“Are you okay?” Kevin’s eyes appeared to be full of concern, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Jessica couldn’t stop the tears from cascading down her cheeks, she felt so helpless. Stuck inside a cold, wet, smelly sleeping-bag, with no obvious way out that didn’t involve telling the boy that just a few hours before she’d been imagining might become her boyfriend. There’s no way he’d be interested in her once he found out her shameful secret. Her horrible, dirty secret.

Kevin scrambled out of his sleeping bag in order to enable him to move closer to Jessica and to wrap his arms around her, for a few minutes he didn’t say anything, he just let her cry into his T-shirt. However, when her tears showed no sign of subsiding he spoke, “Jessica? What’s wrong, it’s not me is it? I haven’t upset you?”

Jessica shook her head, “No, it’s not you,” she managed to say between sobs.

“Is it someone else? Did someone say something to you yesterday?” Kevin asked.

“No, no-one’s done anything. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Kevin said, “I can see you’re not okay, do you want to talk about it.”

Jessica didn’t answer, she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to talk about it, she wanted it to go away, but she knew it wouldn’t, and so she knew she would have to talk about it, she would have to say something, sooner or later, because when she climbed out of her sleeping bag it would be obvious to him, and it was worse that he found out that way. And yet how could she explain it to him, how would she possibly find the words to tell him that she wet the bed? That, in fact, she very rarely had a dry night ever.

“I…” Jessica began, and then stopped. Her brain wasn’t connecting to her tongue, she couldn’t find the words she needed to say, “It’s…” She stopped again.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Kevin said.

Jessica wished that were true, but she knew that this would be the slightly less humiliating way for him to find out. She just hoped that when he found out, and vowed never to speak to her again, he would do it quietly and without telling everybody else.

“I do, have to tell you.” Jessica said.

Kevin’s face paled, “It is about me, isn’t it. I’ve done something wrong. Shit, I’m sorry, I can’t even remember what we did yesterday properly, but I overstepped the mark didn’t I? I didn’t force you into anything did I, oh shit, what did I do? What happened, I’m so sorry. I just… I’ve liked you for so long, Jess, and I’ve always been too scared to tell you, I mean I’d hate to wreck our friendship, but I’ve done that haven’t I? I got carried away yesterday, what did I do? Shit, I’m so sorry.”

He was making it even harder to tell him the truth, now she knew that he definitely liked her it was going to be even harder when he realised what a disgusting little kid she was. “It’s nothing you’ve done,” Jessica said, “I enjoyed yesterday. A lot. But… I, I don’t think you’ll,” Jessica bit her lip, she’d never found it so hard to speak before. “You won’t… You’re not going to like me after I tell you this.”

Kevin took Jessica’s hand, “Don’t be stupid, you can’t have done anything that terrible.” He tucked a stray lock of Jessica’s long, dark hair behind her ear.

“No, but… I’ll understand if you hate me after I tell you this.” Jessica said, she had the crying under control now, but she still didn’t know how to tell Kevin, she was procrastinating, and she knew it.

“I won’t hate you, I promise. Just tell me what it is.”

Jessica looked away from Kevin, she couldn’t face looking at him, seeing his reaction when she admitted her secret. She felt her face grow red, hot and prickly as she tried to tell him what had happened, “I, I… I’ve,” Jessica paused, she picked at a loose thread on her sleeping bag, and the tears started to fall again, looking down Jessica managed to say in a tiny voice, “I, I wet the bed.” Jessica felt as if time was standing still, there, she’d uttered the words. She’d said it.

Kevin let out a loud laugh, and then his hand flew to his mouth, “Shit, sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you, it’s just… shit, I thought you were going to tell me something awful, I thought you’d… I don’t know what I thought you’d done. But I wasn’t laughing at you, I promise I wasn’t laughing at you, but I was just so… so relieved I guess, that it wasn’t something awful.” He took Jessica’s hand again, “Don’t feel embarrassed about it, it doesn’t matter, it’s no big deal. Happens to people all the time, there’s no need to get upset. I don’t like to see you cry.”

Jessica didn’t know what to say, she knew it was a cliché, but she felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off of her. She didn’t care that Kevin had laughed, he didn’t mind, he didn’t hate her; he didn’t think she was disgusting, and that was all that mattered.

“I’ll leave you to sort yourself out,” Kevin said, “There aren’t any showers here, but Lucy brought some baby wipes, she said they’re a festival essential, do you want me to ask if you can borrow them? I won’t tell her why.”

Jessica nodded, “Thanks,”