Bella's Accidents

The Ruined Recital

The days and weeks that followed the long Thanksgiving weekend were not quite as excruciating as Bella had feared they might be. She was forced to endure a modicum of teasing from a handful of her peers, but most of her classmates seemed to have forgotten all about her embarrassing accident in class the week before, or else had ceased to find it interesting. A couple of boys had taken to coming up to her in the hallway between classes and making "pssssssss" sounds in her ear, but after her friend Jessica saw it happen for the fourth or fifth time, she put a stop to it by hitting one of the boys hard about the head with her notebook and threatening to inform the teacher that he'd cheated on the last history exam.

During French class, when their elderly instructor's back was turned, another boy mimed her desperation, dancing back and forth in his seat as he held his crotch with one hand and raised the other high in the air. This little performance made Bella blush profusely and drew giggles from a number of her classmates the first two or three times the boy enacted it, but when people stopped laughing at it, he stopped doing it. Otherwise, however, school life had returned basically to normal. She still cringed and grew red in the ears every time she entered the classroom where it had happened or made eye contact with her algebra teacher, but all in all things were going better than she had dared to hope.

Bella turned in her homework on time, usually receiving top marks, and spent much of her free time practicing relentlessly for her upcoming piano recital, which was scheduled to take place on the Saturday evening immediately after the last Friday of school before winter break. She still awoke most mornings to a wet pull-up, but as it had been nearly six months since her nighttime accidents had started, this had begun to feel more like just an ordinary part of daily life. She had even begun to seriously reconsider the notion of potentially attending one of her friend's sleepovers. She still didn't like her mom's idea of calling her friend's parents in advance to let them know that she would be bringing protection, but she also couldn't see how she might go about disposing of her protection in the morning without the complicity of either one or more of her friends or else of one of their parents, and knew she'd rather it be the latter than the former.

On the last Friday before the end of term, the second to last Friday of December, Bella was walking to fourth period when Bethany approached her, mousy hair bouncing jauntily around her freckled ears. "Hey," she said, "Jessica, Anna, and I are having a sleepover at my house tonight and I was just wondering if you wanted to come. I know you've been grounded a lot lately and haven't been able to come out, but I thought since it's the last day before the holidays and all..."

"Yeah, sure. I'd love to!" Replied Bella, almost before she knew what she was saying. A sudden courage and the acute allure of spending an evening outside of school laughing and playing games with her friends, which she had in previous years so enjoyed doing, overtook her better judgement. She knew the risks, and she remembered that she had her piano recital the following evening, but decided all the same that it was time to stop hiding and to let herself enjoy some much needed time with her friends.

"Great!" Said Bethany, smiling. "I wasn't sure you'd say yes, that's awesome! We all miss hanging out with you. Jess is coming straight home with me after school gets out, but Anna's mom is dropping her off around five o'clock I think. You can come with me and Jess if you like, but I suppose you'll have to ask your parents first and everything."

"Yeah," Bella said. "I need to ask them if it's okay, but I think it will be. How about we plan on my being there around the same time as Anna?"

***

When Bella's mom picked her up from school and Bella told her that she had accepted an invitation to a friend's house for the night, her mother was delighted. "Oh honey, I'm so glad! What time should I drop you off?"