All My Mother's Rules

Chapter 15: Pinkie Promise

My dreams were filled with variations of all my fears from the past few days. I was standing in front of the TV in Samantha's basement trying to play the same video game Tommy had been playing. I was concentrating so hard on it that I was completely oblivious to my surroundings. I felt a pull on my pants as they got tugged down to the floor.

The pull-up I was wearing was now fully exposed, but it wasn't one of the blue ones that Tommy had been wearing or my sister's pull-ups with the Disney characters on them. It wasn't even one of the plain white ones like I had found in the school bathroom. No, the floral design was that of the pull-ups I had worn as a bedwetter myself when I was Tommy's age.

I turned around and Samantha and Desi were staring at me.

"Aww, baby has a diaper on," they said, laughing.

"I'm not a baby," I shouted back at them.

I reached down to pick up my pants, but they had disappeared. Desi and Samantha just laughed even harder, holding their phones up to videotape me. I tried to cover the pull-up with my hands, but that was pointless.

I turned and ran up the stairs in only a pull-up and t-shirt. As I came to the top of the stairs, the dream shifted, and I was no longer in Samantha's house but at school. I found myself in a bathroom stall. I had my clothes back at least. My pants and pull-up were draped around my ankles as I kept trying unsuccessfully to pee. The stall door swung open to reveal Claire, who stood looking down at my pull-up.

"Aww, baby has a diaper on," she said in a mocking, sing-song tone.

I slammed the door to the bathroom stall shut in her face. I closed my eyes. I wanted to be anywhere but in the bathroom stall, with my nemesis waiting outside for me. I was now back in my own house, laying face-down in my bed. I felt a sensation beginning on my hand, like it was in a bowl of warm water. The sensation spread to the rest of my body, and I felt myself begin to relax.

"Sarah. Sarah!" someone yelled at me; the voice came from outside the dream.

I woke up incredibly confused. Where was I? What? I was on the couch? My hand was dry, but my bladder felt like it was on the verge of giving up. I jolted into an upright position, jumped off the couch, and started to run for the bathroom. But it was too late. I began to pee. The flow of urine was too strong to stop. I halted at the edge of the living room and the hallway, unable to run and pee at the same time.

I was still so tired that my mind wasn't thinking straight. I turned back toward the living room to see Mom staring at me. Oh no! She was watching me pee myself. I looked down at my pants to see there wasn't a wet spot in sight. Everything from the previous day came back all at once. The sleepover. The game of Truth and Dare. Tommy's pull-ups. Samantha making him wet the bed. I was still wearing one of Tommy's pull-ups. I could feel now feel how full it had become. I hope it wasn't showing beneath my pants.

"It's about time you're awake, Sarah," Mom said tartly, her arms held across her body and a look of disapproval on her face. "What startled you so much?"

"Nothing. Nothing. You woke me in the middle of a bad dream," I stammered. "I need to go to the bathroom."

I skipped the bathroom and into my bedroom. Thankfully, Emilia wasn't in there. I changed myself into a clean pull-up. I wanted to lie in bed and cry. Why? Why was I wetting myself like this? I couldn't understand how my body had decided to betray me over the past couple of weeks. My heart was still racing from the moment of terror in which I had thought that I'd peed myself in front of Mom. I felt better after taking several deep breaths to steady myself.

I hurried back to the living room, not wanting Mom to notice that I hadn't gone to the bathroom when I had said I would. A growl from my stomach reminded me that I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast.