Chapter Thirty-Five
As Erin had predicted, her day at school had been less than desirable. Her peers were mean, and although she did a reasonable job at outwardly ignoring their childish comments, their barbs still stung her and did nothing to improve her already poor mood. Hailey had risked her own reputation to intervene on the few occasions the comments got really bad, acts which she felt both grateful and guilty for.
What had surprised her was that Hailey’s “friend” Emily had joined in on the teasing. Erin hadn’t been too impressed with the girl when she’d met her at the movie theater earlier that summer, but the one thing that had stuck out was that she was horribly embarrassed about knowing other people performed bodily functions. Other people in the school’s “in crowd” had been within earshot at the time, though, so Erin figured that Emily must have managed to overcome her nervousness to insult Erin’s bowel control in order to score points with the popular girls. The teasing had seemed to be very awkward and forced, and although the girls Emily was trying to impress laughed, Erin got the impression that they were laughing at Emily’s uncertain teasing as much as they were laughing at Erin.
Amazingly, her final class of the day, gym, had brought some sanctuary. Although everyone in that class had been a direct witness to her accident, Mrs. Smitters had taken to giving glares that could melt rock to anybody who even so much as grinned at Erin. Erin knew that having the teacher stand up for her like that wouldn’t help her situation at all when the teacher wasn’t around, but for duration of class, she was happy to have someone on her side.
At least it was Friday; she wouldn’t have to deal with her fellow students again for another few days. All in all, though, Erin had decided she wouldn’t mind skipping the last thirty hours of her life. Her accident, the nightmare of her father’s death, and the other students’ new attitude towards her were weighing heavily on her. Thus, she was happy to finally be in her and Hailey’s secret place: the giant concrete pipe in the middle of the woods.
Hailey hadn’t even brought a diaper and supplies, although Erin had told her she could. If Hailey was going to be there to listen to her, the least she could do in return was make sure Hailey was enjoying herself. Hailey had insisted, though, that doing so would distract her from listening to Erin, and she wanted to make sure she was paying full attention.
So the two of them were now sitting in the tube next to each other, shoulder to shoulder. Erin hadn’t said much on the journey there; she’d been trying to think about exactly where to begin. She was still silent, and Hailey seemed to understand that she needed to wait until Erin was ready to speak, so she’d removed her watch and was now playing with it in her hands, trying to reflect light off the face to trace simple shapes on the roof of the tube.
Erin finally spoke. “I guess a good place to start would be the first bedwetting that I can remember,” she said, glancing over at Hailey.
Hailey stopped moving the watch around and held her hand still. “And when was that?”
“It was the summer a couple years ago, when I was nine years old,” said Erin. “And it was a few days after my mom died.”
“Oh,” said Hailey, her expression softening.
Erin swallowed and continued. “Looking back now, I think my parents both knew well before I did that my mother didn’t have much longer to live. I only found out a week before her death, when they took her to the hospital for what ended up being the last time. She never left the hospital alive again. So I guess it’s a good thing that I knew a little in advance that she would die, since we were able to say goodbye to each other, but even so, both me and my dad were pretty depressed for a while.
“So anyway, the morning of her funeral. I woke up, and my bed was absolutely soaked. I remember feeling terrified — I’d never had it happen before, at least not in as long as I could remember. Sure, I’d had accidents before, but never at night, and it was just… different.
“Well, anyway, my dad came in the room to wake me up, and he obviously found out what I’d done. He didn’t seem mad about it as he gathered my wet sheets and told me to go take a shower, but I got the distinct impression that he really didn’t want to deal with cleaning up after his daughter’s accident at the time. I couldn’t really blame him; after all, he’d just lost his wife, and I knew he was really busy in all the aftermath of that, but I still felt guilty and responsible.
“So anyway, frustrated and with nothing else to do, I focused so much on cleaning myself up that I nearly rubbed my skin raw with the bar of soap. I finally had the sense to stop when my dad knocked on the bathroom door; I knew I was clean, but I still felt dirty for some reason.
“I got dressed and me and my dad finished getting ready. We eventually went to the funeral, and I remember feeling creeped out looking in the casket; death just did not look natural. My dad didn’t let me look too long, which was probably a good thing, and he eventually went and sat down with me.
“What bothered me was I knew I should be paying full attention to the speeches that various people were giving about my mother, but I was having trouble focusing. I’d been sitting with my arms folded and head down, and the smell of soap on my skin kept tickling my nose and reminding me of what I’d done that morning. Here I was, at the ceremony for the final goodbye to my mother, and I couldn’t stop thinking about wetting the bed. I hated myself for it at the time, but try as I might, I just couldn’t stop getting distracted.”
Hailey had put her arm around Erin by this point. “That doesn’t make you a bad person, though.”
“I know it doesn’t,” admitted Erin, “but it’s hard not to think that at times. Anyway, the bedwetting continued, but luckily it wasn’t very frequent. Maybe a few times a month, nowhere near as often as it happens now. So it wasn’t pleasant when it happened, but I could deal with it.
“Anyway, it didn’t take very long before my father got married again…”
Hailey listened to Erin’s story with her emotions moving from pity to shock to rage.
[hr][/hr]
“…and so I spent a few hours at the police station, where they made me explain in detail everything I just told you, which at the time I wasn’t quite ready to do. It’s still hard, even now.”
Hailey looked over at Erin. She did seem to be visibly agitated; her face was red, and although she wasn’t crying, her eyes were watering.
Erin continued. “So after that, they sent me to some sort of shelter for a few days, until your parents came out to pick me up, which I’m really glad for. You and your parents have been absolutely wonderful to me.”
Hailey had suspected that Erin’s past had been troublesome, but she hadn’t expected it to be quite as bad as she now realized it was. Nobody deserved to experience that, but Erin had, and Hailey now fully understood why she seemed to be constantly surprised that anybody would want to help her.
“That’s… amazing,” she finally stammered. “I had no idea you went through that all.”
“Thanks for listening,” Erin choked. “It… it really helps to have someone I trust enough to be able to tell this to.”
Hailey squeezed Erin a little tighter. “And I’m assuming you don’t want me to share what you just told me with anybody?”
Erin looked over. “Please don’t.”
“Of course. Just… wow. I still can’t believe you went through all this, and you still came out okay. I think you’re the strongest person I know.”
Erin blushed at the compliment. “Thank you,” she whispered.
The girls sat in silence for a few more minutes, before Erin finally fished out her aunt’s cell phone and took a glance at the display. “It’s 6 o’clock, we should probably be heading back.”
Hailey didn’t correct her; her mother had said the girls needed to be back by seven, and it didn’t take an hour to get home. But if Erin was ready to go, she was too.
“Let’s go, then.”
Erin sniffled, lifted her glasses, and wiped the back of her arm across her eyes, removing most of the moisture. She then slowly stood up, Hailey still holding on to her, and the two of them left the tube and began to walk back to where they’d left their bikes.
Hailey was glad Erin had decided to share, but she’d be lying if she claimed that the story hadn’t put her in somewhat of a depressed mood herself. It was in the past, and nothing like that should ever happen to Erin again, but it was still really sad to think about. She needed some relaxation time. Luckily, she knew her parents would be going out to dinner and a movie later that evening. With Erin’s permission, she’d be able to indulge herself and relieve some of her stress.
[hr][/hr]
Hailey grabbed the last slice of pizza from the box after confirming that Erin was full, and was in the process of eating it when her mother and father appeared in the dining room again.
“We’re going to head out now,” Hailey’s dad said, “and it’ll probably be pretty late before we get back. It’s the weekend, so you two can stay up however late you want, but just make sure you clean up after dinner when you’re done eating. Call mom’s cell phone if you have an emergency.”
Both girls nodded; Erin, whose mouth was not full of pizza, answered. “We’ll be fine. Have fun tonight!”
Hailey was happy that Erin seemed to be in a better mood. While Erin couldn’t quite be described as jubilant, she did seem to be in better spirits now than she had any time in the last two days, as if sharing her burdens with Hailey had lessened the load on her own shoulders.
The adults left, and Hailey and Erin heard the garage door opening, the car starting, and the garage door closing again. Erin looked over at Hailey. “So, do you want to do this after we’ve cleaned up dinner?”
Hailey had told Erin that she wanted to use a diaper tonight while her parents were gone, and Erin had of course indicated that doing so was fine with her. Hailey was just about ready to go, too; she’d been taking frequent drinks of water since they’d gotten back from the concrete pipe, and the pressure in her bladder had now risen to the point that she knew she’d be able to have a satisfying accident. Maybe even a second one; her parents were going to be gone for a few hours, and she knew that not all of the water she drank would have gone through her system in the time it would take to throw away the pizza box and put on a diaper.
She swallowed what was in her mouth. “Yeah, I’ll be ready. Thanks again for letting me do this.” She took another bite from her slice of pizza.
“You’re welcome,” responded Erin. “After being such a good listener and friend for me today, it’s the least I can do for you.”
The remainder of dinner was quick, and soon enough the two girls found themselves in their bedroom, Hailey naked from the waist down and pulling on a diaper. She pulled her pants back up, discovered they were too tight to fit comfortably over the diaper, and removed them to put on some baggy sweatpants instead.
“So, is this just going to be wet?” asked Erin. “Or do you need to, um…”
“Do I need to poop?” finished Hailey. “No… we probably have enough time that I could get away with having a messy accident here, but I simply don’t need to do that yet. I’ll be fine with just peeing.”
Erin nodded. “Are you just going to do it here?”
“Well, I always go here in the bedroom in the morning,” Hailey responded. “I’d like to go somewhere else, since my parents aren’t home to see me.”
“Well, with those pants on, I don’t think they could tell you were wearing a diaper,” noted Erin. It was true; the sweatpants did a very good job of hiding what Hailey was wearing under them. “But I know what you mean… even if they couldn’t see the diaper, it would probably be very difficult to wet yourself when you know they could walk in on you at any minute.”
“Yeah. I don’t think they’d know what I was doing, but I don’t want to risk it. But we have the whole house to ourselves now.”
“So where in the house do you want to go?”
“Let’s go back down to the dining room. I’ve never had an accident there.” She grinned at Erin, and Erin smiled back.
The girls went to the dining room, taking seats next to each other. “So, you’ve never wet your pants at dinner?” Erin joked. “It seems like an appropriate place. After all, most of your food and drinks go in here, you’d think they could also come out here.”
Hailey smiled back. “No, I can’t say that I have. Maybe we should petition to have toilets installed in dining rooms, just for that reason.”
“Or we could just eat dinner in the bathroom,” said Erin. “Anyway, are you ready?”
Hailey focused her attention on her bladder; she wasn’t desperate yet, but she still felt very full. “I’m ready.”
“Go ahead, then,” said Erin.
Hailey closed her eyes, focusing all of her attention on her sense of touch, eagerly anticipating the sensations she was about to feel. She relaxed with minimal effort, and silently sighed as the warmth flowed out of her and spread through the waiting diaper, triggering the euphoria that came from both the physical comfort and the notion of naughtiness associated with her accident. The feeling was more amazing than usual, and as the urine washed around her, the general uneasiness brought on by Erin’s confessions was washed out of her mind.
She forced herself to remain relaxed until the last few drops had found their way out, and she opened her eyes to see Erin’s face, with just the slightest hint of both a smile and a blush. “It looks like you really were enjoying yourself,” her cousin remarked.
“That was incredible,” admitted Hailey. “I don’t know why, but it felt better than usual.”
Erin’s smile widened; apparently knowing that Hailey was having fun was sufficient to improve her own enjoyment. “Do you want to stay in it for a while, or were you going to get changed soon?”
“I think I might have to go again before my parents get home,” she said, taking another drink from the glass that was still on the table to highlight her point. “But although this feels good now, I don’t think it’ll hold another wetting, and I don’t want to wait that long to change anyway.”
“So maybe, what, half an hour or so and you’ll put on a fresh diaper?”
“I’ll probably be ready by then. And right now, it’s…” She glanced down at her watch.
Or at least, she glanced down at the pale band on her wrist where her watch usually was located, and felt a wave of panic course through her.
“My watch! Where’s my watch?” Hailey exclaimed.
