Julia had one of those nights where you close your eyes, and then in what seems like 5 seconds, your alarm is waking you up. She actually thought for a brief second that something had gone wrong, but quickly figured out it was morning. Without much of a second thought she hopped out of bed and slowly shuffled her way downstairs.

Mom was already in the kitchen and was drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper. “Morning mom.” Julia managed to say as she opened the fridge and took out the milk.

“How did you sleep honey?” Shirley responded without even looking up from the paper.
“Oh, fine. Actually I don’t really even remember falling asleep. I was really out I guess.”

“Ok.” Shirley replied. She was obviously really not paying much attention and was really taken by whatever she was reading.

Julia picked up on this. “Except when the aliens came at like 2 in the morning.

“That’s good to hear… wait what?” Shirley stopped reading and looked up and saw Julia stifling a laugh. “Very funny.”

“Just checking to see if you were even listening there mom.”

“Well, I’ll let you know that I was, although I was reading a very interesting article. Well interesting to me at least.” With that she stood up and walked over to Julia and pulled open the waist of the pajamas and looked at the diaper Julia had on underneath. “Did the aliens have anything to do with this wet diaper?”

Julia gave her mom a sarcastic look. “Ha ha mom, very funny.”

Up until her mom had said something, Julia hadn’t even remembered that she was wearing a diaper. It just hadn’t entered her mind. She waited until her mom turned around and then used her own hand to check the diaper. It was wet, her mom wasn’t kidding. Julia tried to remember when that might have happened, but didn’t remember anything other than getting into bed. ‘I guess I really am getting used to wearing diapers again.’ She thought to herself. ‘I just wet the bed. Although I am sure I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t been wearing a diaper. I probably woke up in the middle of the night and just don’t remember.’ Although as she had that final thought, another part of her wasn’t totally sure that was the case but she quickly dismissed that thought.

Julia finished making herself a bowl of cereal and started eating. Mom went back to her paper, but was finished before she was. “Hurry up and finish your cereal. I want to get you out of that wet diaper so you can shower since you didn’t shower last night.”

And that is exactly what happened. After she showered it was up on the changing table for a dose of nursery jelly and baby powder that was immediately followed by a dry diaper. “Ok, my job is done. Get yourself ready for school so I can drop you off.” Twenty minutes later Julia said goodbye and hopped out of the car and started walking towards her first class.

Wednesdays and Thursdays were different at Julia’s school. She only had half of her of classes each day, but the classes were twice as long. This was supposed to help certain classes, like Biology, do stuff that took longer to set up and get done. And Biology is where she started her day. The teacher explained that today they were doing an experiment, something about measuring how fast a plant uses water. Julia was partnered up with another girl, Sandy, who she knew from class but not much more. It was the first time they had worked together. They had to create 3 unique setups to simulate different conditions. Julia went to work on setting up a plant that was being blown by a fan while Sandy set up a plant that was supposed to sit under a bright lamp. The last plant was the control plant, and didn’t need much set up.

Julia was trying to measure out the exact amount of water for the plants roots to sit in when she first felt it. It came as a bit of a surprise and after a few seconds of thought Julia felt her stomach tighten up. “Oh no.” she muttered under her breath.

“What? Is everything ok?” Sandy asked.

“Oh, no. No, everything is fine. Sorry.” Julia replied. Apparently she needed to learn to mutter a with less volume.

“Oh, OK.” Sandy said as she went back to her own plant.

Of course, everything was fine as far as biology class was concerned. It was Julia’s own biology that was the problem. Julia had butterflies in her stomach because her body was telling her it needed to go to the bathroom, and it wasn’t going to be a “small job” as her mom had put it the other day. Julia started thinking and her thoughts started going in a bad direction.

‘Look, it’s one thing to wet my pants, well I mean wet my diaper, here at school. I mean, I doubt anybody can tell. But I can’t poop my… my diaper. People will be able to tell, I mean mom can smell it from the other side of the room.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ asked another voice inside her head.

Julia had to take a deep breath. ‘I’ll just hold it.’

‘We aren’t supposed to hold it and you know that.’

‘I know, I know. But I can’t do it here at school. I just can’t. People will be able to tell and then they will probably be able to figure out it’s me. And if they do then everyone will know that I wear diapers and that I crapped my pants in biology class! And I will never ever hear the end of it.’

‘We’ll see.’

Julia went back to work on the setting up the experiment. Shirley had her part done pretty quickly, but Julia was having a bit of difficulty getting the fan set up in such a way that it didn’t blow the plant completely over when she turned it on. By the time she finally got it all set up, Shirley had finished with the control plant. They started the experiment and dutifully recorded the data. The experiment was hardly shocking. Both the lamp plant and the wind plant used more water than the control plant.

When the class ended Julia walked over to where she and Fiona and a few others usually met. They had a 15 minute break or so before the next class started. The girls chatted a bit, but Julia was really distracted. The need to go had not gone away and had in fact gotten worse. As the bell rang telling her and everyone else to head to class Julia had her first doubts about her plan.

Her next class was literature. The teacher, Mr. Shemkee, was nice, but boring as all get out. But happily they were actually watching a movie today. It was a low budget film about a couple of different Edgar Allen Poe stories. The first one was about The Raven.

It was when the bird first croaked out ‘Nevermore’ that Julia began to realize that her plan to hold it simply wasn’t going to work. The dark tale of sorrow and loss did nothing to help her mood and Julia began to get really worked up.

‘I can’t believe I did this to myself.’ She thought. ‘Mom made it totally clear that this is how it was going to be. And I knew it. And I intentionally chose to ignore it. Cross that bridge when we get there huh? Oh my gosh why did I agree to this? Why did I stick my head in the sand.’

That other voice in her head spoke up. ‘It’s not the first time you have done that you know?’

‘I know. And the worst part is that I think I knew I was doing it at the time. I mean, I really wanted to start wearing diapers, so I just refused to think about the bad part. And now I am paying the price. Oh my God, what have I done? I can’t believe this is happening.’

Julia started to really feel scared. And a bit angry with herself for letting this happen. For the first time she really wanted to not have to wear diapers, to be just a regular girl who could take the hall pass and leave to go the bathroom as she always had.

‘OK, OK. Look, get a hold of yourself. Freaking out isn’t going to make anything better here. Breathe! Calm down.’

Julia decided to do just that and tried to focus her attention on the movie. Maybe that would distract her. Julia looked and saw that the Raven was firmly lodged atop the chamber door, and despite the characters request, begging, fear and anger, it wasn’t going anywhere.

`Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!’ I shrieked upstarting –
`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!’
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’