✅ Over Protected

8. Sarah Makes Excuses

This bonus chapter is dedicated to Ross, with thanks for your support on Patreon. Thank you!

"Alice!" she called after me, closer this time. "Please, wait up!" I glanced back and saw that she still had a bottle in her hand. But I couldn't avoid her forever, and I didn't think she'd hurt me when her friends weren't around. Still, it made me nervous as I forced myself to slow down, and Sarah caught up with me.

"Are you going to wet the bed again tonight?" I asked. "You're drinking beer?"

"It's cider," she said. "And I'm not drinking it." As if to prove the point, she lifted the bottle up and poured it onto the grass at the side of the path as we walked.

"How much did you have already?" I asked. "You told Mum that it was only once, and you weren't going to drink again."

"Technically that was a lie," she admitted. "I've not been drinking cider. I mean... some of my friends got a few bottles, and came here to drink. And once there was a supply, I knew Bella was going to pick on anybody who didn't. So I got my own supply. The alcohol-free ones with a blue collar on the bottle. Did you see her just now? I swapped the bottle while she wasn't paying attention. Gave Sylvie the option not to drink, without being pressured by her so-called friends."

"Really? But... why?"

"Because it's hard enough when the world drops a ton of responsibility on you. We don't need some stuck-up queen bee making rules for everybody else. And seriously, don't tell her. Please? And don't tell Mummy I've been drinking?"

"Mummy?" I said before I could stop myself. I seriously didn't want to laugh at Sarah, but it took me by surprise and the word escaped before I even thought about it.

"Mum!" she barked back. "Sorry, I... in the mornings, she's been treating me like a real baby. Trying to embarrass me because I wasn't quite honest with her about things I can take care of myself. She wants me to call her Mummy, and it kind of stuck in my head a bit. It's a bad habit, and I have to stop doing that. But that book says 'Mummy' all through it as well, and maybe that's why it's always in my head."

I nodded, I didn't know what else to do. But Sarah kept on talking, just a few minutes later.

"Anyway, it's just Mum trying to make her point. I'm not going to lie to her, so it won't last forever. And then I'll never need to say 'Mummy' again. Don't you dare laugh at me for that."

"I won't!" I promised. "I want you to be happy, you just surprised me. It was like I was the big sister for a second, and I didn't know what else to say. But... what book's that?"

"It's this one Mum got me," she scowled. "Says I've got to read it, and it will help me. Don't see how a book can cure a virus, but whatever. I tried reading it, but it's just garbage. The worst-written book I've even seen. More boring than any of our school books, and I can't even get through a section without getting confused and having to start over half a dozen times. And after all that, I don't even remember anything useful in there."

"Maybe I can help?" I said, after walking for a couple of seconds. "I'm good with books, you know? I can read anything, even if it's really important, and I'll figure out some of the important stuff for you. Give you a summary."

"I wish," she said, and shook her head. "I don't think there's anything useful in there at all. I'll keep trying, but I think it's just trying to make money out of a captive audience. Typical late-stage capitalism."

I couldn't answer that, because I didn't even know what the words meant. It was something I'd heard Sarah say before, but it was one of those phrases where everybody who used it assumed that you already knew what it meant. Like it was the self-contained punchline to any joke. So I decided not to think about it too much, and told Sarah her secret was safe with me. I wouldn't tell anyone about her problem, especially not mean girl Bella. And I wouldn't tell Mum about her lack-of-drinking problem.

But when I got home, I couldn't just let it be. I needed to know what I had missed. I had so much curiosity, and I had to understand this book that had made my sister so embarrassed. I thought that Mum had mentioned it that morning as well, so I had to try to understand what was so important about a book. Did anybody really think that reading a book was able to cure the virus? Or was there more to it than just a book?

Mum wasn't there when I got home; she must have been out at work. She was here more often than she had been when we were younger, and she'd had to leave us with neighbours while she was working three jobs to make ends meet, but she still had a lot of work to do. So I went into Sarah's room, and immediately found the book. For something that she was ashamed to admit, she hadn't done such a good job of hiding it. It was right there on her desk. Although the fact that it was dead centre on the middle of the desk clued me in that she had probably left it somewhere out of sight; Mum had lifted it out when she came in to tidy up. Sarah would never have left anything so neat, or square with the edges of the desk.

The title of the book was "Potty Training For Teens". The cover showed a weird little cartoon of a girl wearing diapers and sucking her thumb; but with enough curves to make it clear that this was supposed to be a teenager and not a little girl. The tagline on the cover proved that it would teach any cool teen to "conquer temporary setbacks in your potty training", words which made me cringe so hard, even when I was so much younger than the book's intended audience.

But I wanted to help my sister, so I started reading. There was so much in there, it was hard to know where to start. But like Sarah had said, it started out with an intro saying that if your Mummy had told you to read this book, then it was good to start from the beginning. That it contained meditation exercises that would help you to keep control while you slept, as well as practical advice to cut down on embarrassing accidents. The intro sounded like it was really supposed to help, but I couldn't point out any specific detail of what it was promising. Still, Mum had presumably found good recommendations for it, or she wouldn't have been so serious about getting Sarah to read it.

I turned to one of the chapters in the middle, to see if it would give me anything more concrete than platitudes and affirmations. And within fifteen minutes, I thought I had some idea why Sarah was reluctant to keep reading this. It was probably one of the worst-written textbooks I'd ever tried to read. There was so much repetition in it; it seemed to be restating the same thing in a dozen different ways. And somehow, it was still confusing enough that I kept having to look back to the paragraph before to try to understand what I was reading. And then just when I thought I was making progress, there would be a reference to something in an earlier part of the chapter that I remembered reading, but wasn't sure what it had actually said.

This chapter didn't seem to contain practical advice, in any case. It seemed more like those affirmation things, where you're supposed to repeat words to yourself saying that you're strong and successful, or whatever. It kept on talking about how only babies wet the bed, and babies need Mummy to look after them, and talking about how there should be some kind of emotional connection between bedwetting and childish behaviours. Like if you wet the bed, you would also feel comforted by Mummy taking care of you; and if you were a baby you would always try to do what Mummy said.

It was just platitudes, talking on and on about how bedwetting was for babies. Was that like an affirmation that would help a teen girl get back to normal? That was the only reason I could imagine it including language like that; but if it didn't work, wouldn't it also make her feel bad about that? Especially when the problem had been set off again by a virus?

I was just about to try flipping through the book in search of a more helpful section when I heard the door open downstairs. Mum was home; and even if I was trying to help, I didn't want to explain why I was in Sarah's room, going through some of her stuff. I looked up the clock in surprise; it really didn't feel like I had been reading for more than an hour. I guessed that I must have gone back and forth on those three pages more times than I had realised. Well, I could check back later. I put the book back where I had found it, and went downstairs to see if there was anything Mum needed some help with.