All My Mother's Rules

Chapter 30: Revelations

I looked down at my pants. I shouldn't have looked down at my pants. That was a dead giveaway. Consciousness of guilt. But the response had been reflexive. I couldn't have not looked. But in the same sense, there wasn't any point in looking. Either my pull-up was showing, or it wasn't.

I had been smart enough at least to make sure that my look down hadn't been anything more than the briefest of glances at the front of my jeans, which, to my great relief, were completely obscured by my hoodie. The zipper on my jeans was up. The cupcake pull-up wet, but fully hidden. But how did she know I was wearing a pull-up? Lisa's question wasn't so much a question as it was a declarative statement with the wrong punctuation mark tacked on at the end.

That is to say, the nature of how Lisa's question was phrased was perplexing. She hadn't asked me if I was wearing a pull-up. Had that been the case, I would have issued an immediate, flat-out denial. Embedded in her question was both the acknowledgement on her part that she knew I was wearing the pull-up and the gumption to make me aware that she knew it. She wasn't giving me any room to deny what I was wearing beneath my jeans.

But the question was perplexing in another way. Asking someone why they are wearing a pull-up is like asking why water is wet. What else would a pull-up be for if not for handling bodily fluids that someone isn't able to control? That left me both uncertain of how to answer Lisa's question and wholly unwilling to engage with her on the topic. I decided to throw it back at her.

"I'm sorry, what?" I said, doing my best to sound confused, as if I thought I had misheard or misunderstood her question.

That should have been enough to throw Lisa off balance. I liked the friendship we had developed, but I also had to be fair in my assessment of her. Being assertive and forward is far out of her normal social and emotional range. My thoughts scrambled­ through a range of ways I could extract myself from this situation. If I pushed back on her enough — gently of course — perhaps I could get her to drop the topic and rethink whatever assumptions had led her to believe I was wearing a pull-up. I'll risk wearing panties the next time I see her and make sure that they show at some point. Everything was going to be OK. I could still keep my secret safe and get out of this situation without being outed.

Neither of us said anything as the conversation turned into a silent stalemate. I stared back down at my feet. I couldn't bring myself to make eye contact with Lisa. Was there any way to break the ice that wouldn't be disastrously awkward? As the seconds ticked by, I prayed fervently that Lisa would allow the topic to drop.

I had misjudged her. Badly.

"Hey. I. Um. Didn't mean to embarrass you," Lisa said with a stammer. "But, I wear them too, so, it's OK."

"Wait? What?"

This time, my confusion was genuine. Lisa sucked in her lower lip and appeared to bite it before giving me a reply.

"I'm wearing a pull-up too."

"No way," I said, not intending to refute her so much as to express my surprise at this turn of events.

"I can show you."

The mental image of Lisa hiking up her dress to reveal a pull-up was more than I wanted to picture.

"There's no need. I believe you."

Instead of pulling up her dress and flashing me, Lisa turned around and took a couple of steps toward a dresser that was almost as tall as me. She pulled open the top drawer and removed a white pull-up, turning back around to face me with a cautious grin on her face.

Everything came together at once. The mysterious pull-up I found in the school restroom that looked just like the one Lisa was holding. How Lisa had always been in a rush to go to the bathroom. That time her uncle, the history class teacher, had casually told her she could have wet herself instead of rushing off to the bathroom in the middle of class. And that time where I was sure she must have snooped in my backpack. That must have been when she saw my own pull-ups.