Chapter Thirty-Seven

The pain in Hailey’s leg had dulled somewhat; she suspected that it didn’t actually hurt any less, rather, it seemed that she was simply getting used to it. It was still horrifically uncomfortable, but at least she was now able to ignore the pain for long enough to allow other thoughts into her mind.

Unfortunately, the thoughts that did come into her mind weren’t any more pleasant. The wet diaper she was sitting was becoming less and less comfortable, and without anything to change into, the diaper was going to become a liability. Her pants hid what she was wearing, but one of her parents was going to have to carry her out of the woods, and it seemed likely enough that someone carrying her would end up feeling the diaper through her pants at some point.

She’d briefly considered simply taking the diaper off, but without being able to move from where she was sitting, she’d have nowhere to dispose of it. A wet diaper sitting immediately next to her when her parents came would be pretty damning evidence. She could always claim it wasn’t hers, but really, how likely was it to find a diaper in the woods big enough to fit a twelve-year-old? The only reasonable explanation was that it belonged to the twelve-year-old sitting next to it.

So as much as it wasn’t an attractive option, she had no choice but to leave the wet diaper on and hope that her parents either wouldn’t feel it through her pants or wouldn’t notice out of worry for her well-being.

Hailey also felt horrible for putting her cousin through this. The watch had been a gift from Erin, and it would have been bad for her to lose it, but not as bad as making her cousin go get help for her because she’d been a complete idiot. She deserved the broken leg she had, but Erin didn’t deserve all the trouble she was now going to go through on Hailey’s behalf. Erin was surely going to be worrying about her, and she’d have to explain to her aunt and uncle why she’d deliberately broken their rules. Hailey, of course, fully intended to accept all the responsibility for what had happened, but poor Erin was probably worried that she was going to be in big trouble.

Her thoughts were cut short by the sound of voices. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but there was definitely a lower voice and a higher voice. There wasn’t really any reason for anybody else to be in the woods this late at night, so it was probably her father and her cousin. She saw a flashlight beam dancing along the creek bed wall from around the corner, and soon enough, the flashlight was shining on her.

“Hailey!” her father exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

She looked up at him, both glad and nervous to see him. “We think my leg’s broken, and my wrist’s bruised pretty bad too.”

“Let’s see the leg,” said Martin.

Hailey pulled up on her pants leg again, wincing as she yet again revealed her injury, and her father shined the flashlight on it. The skin around the bulge that the girls had looked at earlier was now beginning to turn very ugly colors.

“Yeah, I’d say that it’s broken,” Martin said, motioning for her to put the leg of her pants back down. “We need to get you to a doctor.”

He placed the small strip of wood under her injured leg, and used the cloth to tie it in place above and below the injury. It was just tight enough to make Hailey feel even more uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry, dad, I was stupid,” she said, grimacing.

“Hailey, this isn’t the time for that. Right now, I just want to make sure you’re okay. You said your wrist hurt too?”

She held out her arm to her father; he shone the flashlight on the bruise. “I don’t think it’s broken, but it’s kind of tender,” she explained.

“Can you move your fingers?”

“Yes,” she said, demonstrating for him.

“We’ll have the doctor look at that too, but I think you just bruised it pretty bad,” said Martin. “Now let’s get you back to the car.” He handed Erin the flashlight, and bent down to pick her up.

Hailey felt a wave of nervousness as he reached down for her; as much as she knew she needed to be carried out, she really didn’t want him to feel what she was wearing in the process of carrying her. She needn’t have worried, though; he picked her up with an arm behind her back and an arm under her knees, lifting her so that she was sort of sitting facing one side in front of him. Her bottom hung safely down away from his arms; her secret was safe, for now at least. She leaned her head against his chest.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a relieved look on Erin’s face. Apparently her cousin had realized the same problem with her being carried.

“Should I grab Hailey’s bike?” asked Erin, looking down at the vehicle with the now slightly-bent spokes.

“It’s going to make us go slower,” said Martin. “We can come back and get it tomorrow; nobody’s likely to come through here and steal it before then.”

Erin briefly felt a desire to gloat to Hailey that she’d been right; Hailey could have waited to get the watch. As soon as she realized what she was thinking, though, she felt guilty. Even if she was right, there was no reason to be mean to Hailey. Silence was the best option; Erin was certain that Hailey understood that she’d been wrong, and hopefully she’d think twice before pulling a stunt like this again.

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Even without pulling a bicycle next to her, this trip out of the woods took longer than Erin’s previous trip had. Hailey wasn’t huge for her age by any means, but she was still old enough that her body wasn’t significantly smaller than an adult’s, so carrying her back to the road proved difficult for her father.

They reached the car and he had Erin take the keys and open the back passenger door for him. As he situated Hailey sideways in the back seat and attempted to buckle her in as best as he could do for her in that position, Erin took her own initiative and attempted to place her bicycle, which she’d left on the street while taking her father back to Hailey, in the car’s trunk. Luckily, her front tire didn’t require any tools to remove, and she had the trunk closed again before her father was able to shut Hailey’s door. As much as she wanted to sit with Hailey, she knew Hailey needed the whole backseat for her leg, so Erin climbed into the front passenger seat as her father took the driver’s side. He handed her his wife’s cell phone as he sat down.

“I don’t know the phone number of your aunt’s friends,” he said, turning the key in the ignition. “And for some reason she doesn’t have it saved in her phone, I already looked. Just keep calling home to see if she’s there yet.”

Erin tried a few times during the drive to the emergency room; every time she did, she ended up hearing the answering machine, and she hung up. Between phone calls, she kept looking back at Hailey, who always managed to smile weakly at her but never said anything.

She knew Hailey was still wearing the diaper from earlier, and was very glad that her uncle hadn’t discovered what his daughter was wearing while he carried her — or at least, if he had, he hadn’t said anything about it.

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