Published: August 12th 2021, 2:00:05 pm
It was always a tough decision, even though it shouldn't be; it was only natural that she ought to bring a spare Pull-Up with her wherever she went. That was what she was wearing nowadays, after all, when she wasn't in full-blown diapers at the daycare.
And yet, every morning, Vivien had to debate with herself over whether it was worth it or not, whether she ought to slip a few extras into her backpack, and risk a repeat of what had happened, so long ago, with Danielle, when she'd seen them there and known she could pants her to reveal her secret and take the heat off herself. She liked to think that her classmates would be more mature about it now, but, on the other hand, if Dani hadn't let herself become a baby, she could be in those classes with her, so clearly age did not necessarily have anything to do with maturity.
As a seasoned babysitter, she knew it was better to be safe than sorry, that the smart thing to do was to have one or two, just in case, no matter how well potty trained the charge seemed to be... This wasn't a charge, however, it was her. She was a confident young woman, one who, before all this had started, hadn't had an accident for years, and wasn't used to them being a basically daily - not to mention nightly - occurrence anymore. She felt like she ought to know herself better than she did anyone she babysat, and that she knew herself better than they had known themselves, that if she said she wasn't going to wet herself, she could make that happen... If her time at the daycare had taught her anything, it was how mistaken she was about that.
Even so... She also wasn't used to trying to keep the contents of her backpack a secret anymore, and it would be so simple for her to accidentally reveal her extra Pull-Ups to whoever was sitting behind her as she got out her textbooks, or her laptop, or whatever. Which brought her right back to the beginning, to worrying that the reaction would be the same as it had been when Dani had humiliated her.
Of course, she mused, nowadays, things were different... There weren't many reasons back then for her to have Pull-Ups, besides needing them herself. As long as she didn't get her pants yanked down again, like Dani had done, those could be for a younger sibling, or a babysitting charge. The latter wouldn't even have been totally a lie, at one point, since she'd been using Tessa's old ones, though now those were long gone. She could, theoretically, talk her way out of the discovery, if she didn't get so flustered that she gave the game away... But she wasn't sure if she trusted herself not to do that, not to turn bright red at the sight, or mention, of training pants, knowing she was back to wearing them instead of underwear at her age...
But, today, the more practical side of her brain had won the argument, and she'd packed a couple spares. She didn't want a repeat of leaving behind a puddle in her chair and having to drop another class because of it, and her trainers had been getting awfully soggy by the end of her school days lately... It probably didn't help that she only had two of those a week, with her other three weekdays spent at daycare, in diapers, not even trying to make it to the potty.
Was she going to stop going to daycare, though? Certainly not... She didn't know what she would do with herself those three days otherwise. She could probably find something, track down friends whose classes happened before she dropped Tessa and Dani off, or after she'd have to leave to pick them up... There was something nice about the daycare, however, something relaxing that she didn't think she'd get anywhere else...
Honestly, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it was difficult for her to drive away and leave Dani there so she could go to college. Things were so much easier at the daycare, and, even with only a few classes, college was starting to feel more and more intimidating and overwhelming. She always could miss a couple days, and the absences wouldn't hurt her grades, so long as she kept up with the work, but, after what had happened the last time she'd tried that, she was doing her best to be more careful about it, to save those absences for when she really needed them.
And yet, she had no real excuse for why she didn't pull out of the daycare's parking lot right away, or why she looked over at her backpack, with its waiting Pull-Ups, and asked herself if she actually wanted to go face her own school today with it. She didn't have an opportunity to decide on an answer before she saw something else, sitting in the backseat.
"Oh, Tessa," she sighed. She couldn't be too upset at the girl; she was very mature for her age, and this didn't happen often at all, but she was still a kid, so it was natural that, once in a while, there could be a slip-up. And Vivi was partially to blame, since she should have seen the girl wasn't wearing her backpack when she got out of the car... Dani probably should have, too, for that matter. They'd all dropped the ball this time.
Vivien especially, though. Switching back and forth between college and daycare was tough, and her more permanent change in underthings had made it all the tougher. She didn't want to show up at daycare looking like a college girl, but she also didn't want to show up at college looking like a toddler... It had been easier to distinguish between the two modes of dress when she was wearing something different between them; now, the outfits she wore to daycare were creeping their way into her college wardrobe more and more, sometimes because they were better at keeping her padding hidden, sometimes because she wore them more often, so she'd put them on without thinking about it.
That was exactly what had happened today... The jumper dress she'd chosen was one from the very back of her closet, that, before this had begun, she'd long forgotten about, and probably should have donated at some point. It had re-entered her normal daycare rotation after Miss Katie had complimented her on how cute she looked in it, and it had been the first thing she saw this morning. It wasn't that far off from things she'd seen other young women at college wearing, other than the pink gingham it was made out of, and how high the waist was, but after she'd caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on her way out the door, she'd wished she wasn't already running late so she'd have time to change.
The thing she hadn't spotted in her reflection was her shoes. They were evidence of how much she'd been on auto-pilot that morning, not thinking, because these were certainly the shoes she'd always worn with this dress, yet they also should have alerted her, in that case, that she was getting dressed for the wrong school. She was supposed to wear laces to college, not Velcro!
The jumper didn't have any pockets, naturally, so, when she parked outside of Tessa's school, she threw her keys into her own backpack, slinging it over her shoulders and grabbing Tessa's bag from the back seat. She didn't give any of it a second thought, didn't consider how she must look, marching into an elementary school.
"Oh, hello, dear," the receptionist smiled at her. "Did you miss the bus, sweetie?"
"Huh?" Vivi frowned, not understanding what the woman meant. "I'm dropping this off..." She held up Tessa's backpack. "Should I sign in, or can I just give it to you, or..?"
"Well, isn't that nice of you?" the receptionist gushed. "Do you know what class your friend is in? I can tell you how to get there from your classroom, or I can walk you there, if you'd like."
"My frie..." Finally, it hit Vivien what was happening, her face turning bright red, warming up... And it wasn't the only thing. She only got more embarrassed when she felt an anxious dribble in her Pull-Up, the sensation of moisture absorbing into her padding sapping away a bit more of her confidence, making it harder to remember that she was supposed to be a college student today, not a toddler. "N-No," she shook her head. "I-I'm not... I-I don't..."
"Oh, I see your friend has her backpack tag filled out, so we can use that to find her. What about you, sweetie? Turn around and let me see if your Mommy filled your tag out, too."
Vivi froze completely, the receptionist probably totally unaware that she'd picked the exact right combination of words to send her into a shame spiral that she couldn't immediately pull out of, that made her head duck, staring at her Velcro sneakers, made her hands clutch at the hem of her dress. She had never had any messy accident at daycare, was nowhere near big enough a baby for that, and yet, whenever anyone around her did that, she'd have to get checked to, would be told to turn around, let the workers see if she'd filled her pants... She knew that wasn't what this woman was asking, but it was much too close for comfort.
Especially after what had happened that past Saturday. It had been happening a lot lately, and she wasn't sure why, although, thankfully, she'd gotten lucky, and the worst of it had been happening on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays, the days after she was at daycare, almost as if it was taking her body time to process something that had gone on there, not that she made the connection. It had been creeping in on the other days, too, but more slowly. On Saturday, however, she'd been lying on her bed on her stomach, typing a paper up on her laptop when she felt a rumble.
It was no big deal, she told herself. She might have suddenly started having some trouble holding it as long as she used to be able to, but she was on a roll, and she could at least make it until she rode out the train of thought she was on. And then, she'd felt a push, so gentle she almost hadn't noticed it, or thought anything about it...
She was lucky the shorts she was wearing were tight, holding her Pull-Up tight to her bottom, or she might not have felt something oozing into the seat of her pants, slowly but surely... She'd gasped, hopped off her bed, raced to the bathroom, making it mostly on time... If she was being charitable, she could consider what happened to her training pants skid marks, though if one of her charges had come to her with those, she doubted she would have been so kind... And if that had been the state of her Pull-Up now, would this woman feel the same?
Before she could snap out of it, the receptionist was on her feet, was behind her. "I don't see it... Maybe she put it inside?" Vivien's eyes widened as she heard a zipper being undone, and she sprang to life, trying to turn away, to tear herself free of the woman's grip, doing too good of a job, sending textbooks flying... Along with her spare Pull-Ups.
Without thinking, she dove for the latter, desperate to keep them from being seen, only to feel her skirt billowing behind her at the motion. She winced, catching her thumb moments away from it planting itself in her mouth, silently praying that the woman hadn't noticed...
"We'll just make a quick stop at the nurse's office, too," the receptionist said. "That's all right."
This couldn't be happening to her... Vivi could feel her Pull-Up warming again, could practically feel the designs fading away, proving how much she needed the trainers. She was supposed to be at college... She couldn't let herself be led by the hand to Vivi's classroom, for her babysitting charge to see her being treated like they were the same age, before getting taken off to the nurse's office for a change, and then... Well, who knew? She didn't go here, obviously, but would the receptionist believe that? Would she take her to every classroom until she found the right one? What if one of the teachers made a mistake, and said that she was one of their students?!
In a way, it was better than daycare... On the other, it was so much worse, because at least there, she knew most everyone else in her class was in diapers or Pull-Ups, too. Here, she'd possibly be the only one, and if they found out, they definitely would tease her, like they had when Dani had exposed her. And, whether she was in the same class as Tessa or not, they might run into each other in the cafeteria, or at recess, and how was she possibly going to explain this to her?!
"Let me help you," the receptionist offered. "My, where did you get these books, sweetie? Did you take these from an older sibling, or... Did you take your big sister's backpack today?"
Vivien finally broke away from her anxiety over what the rest of the day would bring to glance over at the woman, seeing that she'd found the wallet she kept in her bag, her driver's license in a slot on the outside. Vivi swallowed, watching the receptionist's eyes move from the picture on the ID to her, eyebrows raising as she began to put two and two together.
"I-I was just dropping the bag off," Vivi said quietly. It wasn't her fault the woman had assumed she must be one of the students! Or, rather... It kind of had been, thanks to what she'd worn today.
"Sorry," the receptionist looked embarrassed, too, going back to gathering up the fallen contents of the backpack. "I-I'll make sure she gets it."
Vivien hurried out of the school, heart pounding. She probably could have made it to her first class if she'd driven fast enough; instead, she slunk back home to change - both her Pull-Up and the rest of her outfit - and self-consciously take the rest of the Pull-Ups out of her backpack.
The first thing she did when she got to campus was drop the class she'd missed. She didn't think she was at the limit for absences in it, and she hadn't humiliated herself in front of the professor like she had last time that had happened... But the thought of the teacher even casually asking why she'd skipped today's class, no matter how unlikely that was, was too much for her. She'd rather not see the professor again than risk having to sit there in class, squirming and blushing, reliving this morning's events as she attempted to make up a lie about why she hadn't been there.
Besides, she told herself, it wasn't that big of a deal. Sure, she'd dropped three classes this semester now, but that meant she could concentrate all the harder on the last couple she had left... And, overall, these were the only ones she'd ever dropped. By now, most other students had probably dropped just as many, they simply spread them out a little better than her.
And this was it, she told herself sternly. This was the last time she was going to let herself do that... Although... If she were to drop all of them, would that be so bad? She could just consider this a gap year, and there was nothing wrong with giving herself a break, taking one of those... What could possibly go wrong?