When a pinch failed to wake me up, my mind finally got the better of me, and started to consider what this meant. I knew I had seen the bag before we left, though I couldn’t recall if it had been before or after she’d finished putting the costume on. It could just be a part of whatever spell had been on that… Or it could be something new, something he’d done for revenge with his dying breath, or whatever. Either way, with him gone now, seeing those diapers there on the floor made the whole situation feel much more permanent.
I kicked out at them, scattering them across the floor even further, before grabbing a throw pillow and squeezing it to my heaving chest, curling into a ball on the couch and crying. I really had done it this time. I’d doomed my best friend to a life of going to the bathroom in her pants and needing bibs to keep her clothes clean when she ate and afternoon naps for at least another few years – or maybe the rest of her life. I’d only wanted to protect her… I hadn’t meant to kill him, or even hurt him that badly. I just wanted him to leave us alone, that was all, and I’d screwed up everything because of that. I couldn’t even ask for her forgiveness – though I knew I didn’t deserve it – since that blank stare of hers was all I could really hope for in response.
How was I going to break this news to her family? How do you explain something like that? They’d probably just think I’d let her get brain damaged some way, which was certainly easier to explain, if not any better of an alternative. And how would I explain it to -my- parents, as hers would certainly tell them what they thought I’d done to their daughter. I don’t even know what kind of explanation they’d come up with for her state, but I had a feeling it would be the sort of thing you could get thrown in jail for… As far as I could remember, I’d never even seriously thought I’d wind up in prison for something I’d done, before that night, and yet in those few hours, I’d been worried about it twice, and for pretty good reasons both times.
I forced myself to stop thinking about it, and once I’d managed that, to stop crying about it. Yes, things looked grim, but I had things to take care of before I could allow myself to break down completely. I knelt down, gathering up a diaper, the wipes, and the powder, then picking up the pink thing, realizing that it was a onesie, the ruffles centered on the butt. It was actually kind of cute, and while I probably could have found something of mine she could fit into, I had a feeling it would work much better. That was assuming, of course, that it wasn’t cursed as well.
I stared down at it, feeling the thin material in my hands, along with the cool, smooth surface of the diaper. They’d just magically appeared in Nancy’s bag… What were the chances that they -weren’t- enchanted in some way? Who knew what would happen if I put them on someone already under a spell. It could make it even worse, though I wasn’t sure, off the top of my head, how that was possible. Then again, I didn’t have many other alternatives, and, all in all, it would be easy enough to test the magical-ness of the clothes.
I swallowed, setting them down on the couch and standing up, starting to shed my costume. It was the least I could do for Nancy, after all. In the back of my mind, I almost wished that the clothes were cursed, that I deserved it for what I’d done, though part of me pointed out that the real reason I wanted that was so I could escape the burden of the various sins I’d committed that night. Leaving her locked up in the bathroom probably wasn’t the best idea, but I wasn’t sure where else she’d be any safer, without any supervision. I’d be the one with the whole run of the house, after all – no telling what I could get into. It was getting surprisingly late, though, so chances were decent that we’d both fall asleep before getting into too much mischief, and then my parents would be home sometime the next morning to find us. A rather humiliating prospect, but I wouldn’t care, not then. I wouldn’t care about anything anymore.