I awoke to a tugging sensation. iPod still blaring, I opened my eyes. Various objects blurred across my vision, slowly going into focus. As the images began to clear up, I felt stinging pain in my lower region as the nurse pulled out the catheter. I let out an audible grunt.
“Oh. Sorry.” the nurse apologized. “You’re leaving today, so we needed to take out the catheter. I know it hurts a bit, so I tried to do it while you were asleep.”
“That’s OK. It just startled… wait… It’s Monday already? I must’ve fallen asleep at four o’clock yesterday.” I responded as the nurse put various things away. For some reason, I wasn’t too annoyed that someone was pulling that tube out of me while I was sleeping.
“Yup. You were out like a rock. You’re body needs all that rest to heal. The medication you’re on doesn’t help much either. Doctor Morrison was already in and checked on you and said that you could go home today, unless you’d feel safer staying another day.”
“No. That’s fine. I really want to go home, actually. No offense.”
“None taken. You just have to promise me that you’ll rest and take it easy. No leaving the house for the next few days unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“I promise.”
“Good. Now that that’s settled, let’s get you ready to leave.” She then moved to a cart on the other side of the room. There was a diaper and some changing supplies laying on top of it. I then remembered the conversation I had with Dr. Morrison yesterday. A chill went down my spine when I realized it was actually reality. For the first time since I was two, I needed to wear diapers. I felt humiliated, like I was less of a man. (Thinking back on it now, I realize how ironic that is since diapers were the effect of taking a bullet. I think most people would say that’s pretty manly.) The nurse grabbed the supplies and brought them over to my bed. It wasn’t until she was moving my hospital gown out of the way that I realized that she was going to put it on for me. This was more than I could take.
“Oh. That’s OK.” I quickly inserted, reaching down to my gown. “I can put it on myself.”
“Actually” she said sternly, catching me off guard. “This time, I’ll be doing it. I want to make sure you know how to do it correctly. You’ll get a rash if you don’t do it right. Don’t worry. I’ve done this to many people your age.” She then moved the hospital gown up and out of the way. She then grabbed the baby powder and proceeded to powder me up, all while she explained what she was doing. My face burned with a fury of embarrassment as the smell reached my nose. Next, she lifted my butt up and slid the diaper underneath as I closed my eyes. This was too much for me. I’m a leader. I like being in control of things and now, I felt completely helpless. It seemed like ages until she finished pulling the diaper between my legs and taping all four tabs down.
“There. All done.” She stated with a friendly smile on her face. “See? That wasn’t too bad. Was it?” I just kind of blankly stared at her. I wanted to correct her, but I couldn’t really speak. I had way too many emotions going through me. I was never so embarrassed in my life. I felt so little. I hated it, but yet… it was pretty comfortable. It was snug and well-padded. It almost brought this sense of comfort and security, but no… That couldn’t be right.
I don’t know how long I stared at her until she recognized that I was not going to respond and left the room. An hour or so later my parents checked me out and took me home. As soon as I walked through the door, I headed to the basement to play my guitar. My dad had to help me get down the stairs because I was so weak, but I finally was reunited to Leslie. That’s what I called my main guitar since it was a Les Paul. I had a knack of naming things I was attached to, and it didn’t seem right giving it a guy’s name.
At first, I was having a ball, rocking out to some of the songs I usually warmed up with, but after a little bit I lost any ambition to play. This was really odd. I hadn’t felt that way since eighth grade. Now that I was pretty good, I really enjoyed playing. For some reason, I just had no motivation. I was really glad to be home, but something just didn’t seem right. I tried blaming it on the diaper, but it wasn’t that. I felt cold inside, like something was missing. As I just sat there, idly holding my guitar, my thoughts shifted to Tori. I really wanted to see her. Granted there wasn’t much time for her to visit me, I was surprised she didn’t. You would think that you would visit someone in the hospital if they just saved your life. But that was it. It would almost be better if she just forgot the incident. Any visit or conversation she would have with me would just be obligatory to her. It would only be pity.
The next morning was like any ordinary day. And by ordinary, I mean awkward, uncomfortable, and completely abnormal. Something about waking up with a cold, soggy lump between my legs just didn’t seem right. Groggily, I proceeded to change myself. It was very awkward. I hadn’t even changed a baby before.
After the morning changing process, the day went fairly well, though. I had an excuse to be lazy and play video games for hours without moving from my chair. Time flew by as I mindlessly killed virtual bad guy after virtual bad guy. Finally, a little after two o’clock, my phone started singing it’s favorite ringtone. I quickly picked it up and saw that Tori was calling me. My heart skipped a beat. Suddenly, my tongue became dry as if I just took a three-hour hike in the desert without any water. Do girls like her know what they put guys through with just the simplest of actions? I even felt ashamed of myself for how much she was getting to me. I just stood there, gazing at my phone for a few seconds until I realized what I was doing. I quickly pulled myself back together and answered the.
“Hello?”
“Hey Steve. It’s Tori.”
“Hey! Anything new?” I asked nervously.
“Eh. not much. Just had a friend save my life the other day.” she joked.
“Really? Is that so?” I played along.
“Yeah. I heard he just got out of the hospital yesterday. I was pretty bummed that I didn’t get a chance to visit him, though. Do you think he’d like it if I came over and talked to him?
“I think he’d love it.”
“I’d better head on over then. Do you by chance know his address?”
“You know, I’m pretty sure it’s 942 Mapleview lane.”
“Really? I thought Chris lived on the other side of town.” Tori said bluntly. I could tell she was joking, but I was still at a loss for words. I never was charismatic. “I’m just kidding, Steve. I’ll be right over.”
“OK Tori. See ya soon!” I said before hanging up. It was a very odd conversation, but that’s just one of the many things I loved about Tori. She could make anything awkward seem like it’s the coolest thing in the world. Sadly, I doubted that she could help me with my problem.
And that’s when it hit me. What if she found out that I was wearing a diaper? Should I avoid the awkward question of why I was wearing one, or should I just flat out tell her right away. Of all people, she’d have the right to know. She was directly connected in the chain of events that imprisoned me in them. Maybe she’d have some sympathy for me. But, then it popped up again. The single word that was haunting me even more so than the D-word: “Pity.”
If I told her everything, I would know that any time we’d spend together would be completely out of pity. I know this coming visit was already at least partially a guilt-trip, but wanting to repay someone for a single action eventually wears off. If she found out that this deed I did for her had lingering consequences, she’d surely feel obligated to spend more time with me. Sure, I just wanted to spend time with her, but I wanted to move our time together from obligatory to voluntary as quickly as possible. I decided I would tell her that there weren’t any repercussion from my heroics. I just hoped that she wouldn’t notice the diaper and not mention it, assuming I’ve always had bladder issues. Either way, I knew this was not going to be easy.
About five minutes later, I heard the doorbell. I hobbled over to the door (I was still in a bunch of pain) and opened it to reveal Tori. She looked more angelic than ever. The sun was shining just right upon her face and a gentle breeze waved her hair a little. I couldn’t help but return her smile.
“Hey Stephen. Feeling alright?”
“Eh, I’ve been better, but I’m doin’ OK. Why don’t you come in? We can talk in my room if you’d like.”
“Sounds like a plan.” she said as she entered and quickly slid off her shoes. I slowly led her up the stairs and turned to the right, towards my room. Tori was obviously impressed with the house. She was looking this way and that, looking at all the pictures and getting a feel where everything is.
“You have a really nice house, Steve. Very homey.”
“Thanks. I really like it.” I replied as I walked in my room. I was then horrified to see that there was a package of diapers just laying on the ground in front of my closet. I must’ve forgotten to put them back. I rushed to kick the plastic case into my closet as I tried to discreetly close the door to it. Why didn’t I check to see if my room was OK while I was waiting for her? I was convinced that she had seen the package, but when I turned around, she was still looking at a picture of my family on the wall opposite to my room.
“I really like this picture. Where was this taken.”
“In the Rockies.” I answered, relieved to see that she didn’t notice my blunder. “My family’s camped there like four or five times. We really like the mountains.” Tori finally dragged herself away from the picture and came into my room. She jumped into my bean bag chair as I hopped onto my bed. we made a bunch of small talk for a few minutes. It was nice catching up with what all happened socially the past few days. Then, it shifted to the topic I was trying to avoid.
“You know, Stephen. It was really brave of you to take that bullet for me… Thank you so much. If it would’ve hit me, I’d probably dead.”
“Oh. No problem.” I was starting to blush. “I would do it any day. And I’m not just saying that.”
“That’s what I like about you, Stephen. You’re always so nice to me. You’re always thinking of others before yourself.”
“That’s not true. I can be pretty selfish at times.”
“You’re also very honest, then.”
“Well you know me, Tori. I can’t really lie to save my life.”
“Yes, but you can push me out of the way to save mine.” she said, making me laugh. I did not really know what to say. Finally, Tori broke the silence again. “Can I ask you something kinda personal? You don’t have to answer if you don’t feel comfortable with it.”
“Yeah, sure. Shoot away.”
“Did the bullet leave any permanent injuries?” I was blown away by this question. She asked it, almost like she already knew the answer. Maybe she did know it already and just wanted to test how much I trusted her. Or maybe she really didn’t know and was just curious. I thought about not answering the question, but I figured that would be as good as saying yes. I decided to stick to my guns and deny it.
“Nope. Doctor’s patched me right up! I’ll be fine in no time!” It wasn’t completely a lie. My condition wasn’t permanent…
“That’s good. I’d feel really bad if it did.” she replied, confirming my hypothesis from before. “Mind telling me where exactly you got shot?”
“Nope. Not at all. It was right here, about two inches below my belly button.” I pointed to where the wound was. “Wanna see the mark?”
“Eww. That must be nasty.” She scowled at the thought, but then she got excited. “I’d love to!” I immediately got equally excited. I reached for my shirt and started to pull it up. Now, you may think that I’m really stupid, completely revealing my padded undies to her. The thought just didn’t occur to me. I was so entrance in Tori. She was giving me all this attention, and she seemed so interested on the topic. I wanted to do anything to make her think I was cool and tough.
It was only when I started pulling the front of my athletic shorts down far enough to show her the wound that I realized that the diaper covered it up. Just before I revealed my new secret, I pulled the shirt back down and the shorts back up. Tori looked back up at me with a questioning look.
“Oh. uh, Sorry Tori.” I said, trying to come up with a good excuse. “I wasn’t really, er, thinking. I’d be, um, exposing myself , uh, a little bit too… much.” It was rough, but it came out.
“Oh. that’s OK. I understand.” she said. She smiled, but I could tell she was pretty disappointed.
We talked for another thirty minutes about this and that. We mainly talked about music, seeing as we both loved it so much. She was an amazing singer. She just had this beautiful voice. Between her passion for singing and my obsession for guitar, it made a pretty good conversation despite the fact that we had completely different tastes of music. Time just flew by as we discussed the topic. Eventually, at about three, Tori said she had to get going. I escorted her to the door and opened it as she put her shoes back on. Then it hit me. Should I ask her out on a date right now? It may seem a bit over the edge, but we just had this great conversation. I finally decided that I had to man up somehow in order to counter the infantile influence of the diaper. Just as she was walking through the door way I started to speak.
“Hey Tori.” I started.
“Yeah?” she replied, turning around.
“I was wondering. We never did get to see that movie. Would you possibly want to go watch it with me this weekend.”
“Yeah.” she answered, smiling. “I’d love to!”
“Sweet! I’ll call or text you later then! See ya!”
“See ya, Stephen.” She walked to her car and drove away. It took me a little while to realize that she just said that she’d go to a movie with me. My heart burned with joy. I was so happy, I didn’t even care if it was a pity date or not. It was progress. Thinking unnaturally positive, I headed back down to my guitar. I’ve only wrote one song about a girl before. Now there’s two.