The Greatest Milestone

Chapter 3

The rest of the week was mostly uneventful. That is, until Language Arts class on Friday.

Miss Middleton was lecturing us on impromptu fiction writing. She believed many of her students overthought their projects, and this was the cause of their blank pages. She went on to talk about the Bronte sisters and how they used to write freely together without restraint or judgement. Apparently, this meant more practice overall, and more quality work in the long run.

"Am I making sense so far?" Miss Middleton asked.

I nodded along with the rest of the class, trying my best to look awake. It really was an interesting subject, but I always get antsy toward the end of the school week.

"Great." She clapped her hands together. "Now everyone find a partner. We're going to do some impromptu writing together."

Oh, joy. Group assignments were never my favorite thing. I didn't even bother looking for a partner. People always rushed to find their friends, and I didn't have any friends in this particular class.

"Hey," a male voice said from behind me.

My head pivoted around. There, sitting in the desk behind me, was the best looking boy I'd ever seen. He had an easy smile, with short black hair and bright blue eyes. I'd never seen someone with that combination before, and it made butterflies dance in my stomach.

In fact ... wasn't this was the fifth day of class? Why was I just now noticing him? Miss Middleton had us all standing up for ice-breakers on the first three days of class. I should have noticed him then.

"Wanna be partners?" he asked.

"I..." What was happening? Cute guys didn't ask me to be partners.

Well don't mess this up, I told myself. Say something.

"Sure." I smiled back at him with casual shrug. As if this momentous occasion were nothing but a typical day in class. As if I talked to cute guys everyday.

"Cool," he said. "I'm Nathan."

"I'm Claire," I replied. "Are you new here?"

"Yeah, my parents just moved here this week. I was supposed to start school on Monday, but things got delayed with the moving."

I was about to ask where Nathan was from when our teacher spoke up. "Alright, looks like everybody has a partner. I've already written the rules on the whiteboard, so just let go over them really quick..."

The rules were pretty simple. Miss Middleton had a stopwatch, and she wanted us to take turns writing as much as we could in one minute intervals, then the other person took over the story.

She also suggested that each partner took the role of a different character, but it was only a suggestion. From what I could tell, the rules weren't that serious, and we wouldn't be sharing these out loud.

"Makes sense," Nathan said as he spun his pencil between his fingers. He'd already opened a notebook between us. So prepared! Normally, it was me who had to explain assignments to my group. Either that, or I just did all the work as they talked.

He leaned forward, and his legs brushed mine under the desk. "Want me to start?"

"Sure." I gave him a nervous smile, and my voice came out calm despite my racing heart. His leg was still grazing mine, but I didn't move away. Not only did it feel nice, but I didn't want him to hear my diaper when I shifted. If this was really his first day of school, he might not know my reputation.

Then again, I'd probably shifted or adjusted my waistband a dozen times over the course of the class. No one told there was a cute boy sitting right behind me, after all. But maybe he hadn't noticed? Would he really ask to be my partner if he had?

The stopwatch rang, followed by Miss Middleton's voice. "Switch."

Nathan sat back and spun the notebook around to face me. I read over his work, and it was actually pretty good. He'd introduced a character named named Mark. Mark had lost an expensive Rolex watch in the parking lot, and he was looking for it.

I grinned and introduced a character of my own: Kate. Kate was a legendary jewel thief who frequented parking lots, hoping to find lost watches which she promptly fenced on the street for cash.

The stopwatch rang again. "Switch."

When I turned the notebook back to Nathan, his eyebrows went up. "Well then," he whispered, "I see how it is."

Eventually, our characters met in the parking lot. Kate pretended to help Mark search, feigning concern to Mark's face, while inwardly imagining how she would spend her money. Meanwhile, Mark innocently reminded Kate of how his mother had given him the watch on her death bed, and how only the most stone-hearted individual would consider selling it.

The stopwatch rang a final time, signaling an end to the session. We struggled to contain her laughter, and I wished the story could have gone on. I don't normally warm up to strangers this fast, but this was different.

Miss Middleton used the last few minutes of class to go over the assignment and let us share our thoughts. Eventually, we all wrote our names at the tops of our pages and turned them in as we left.

"You're pretty good," Nathan said as we walked out. "Do you practice a lot?"

"Not really," I replied, "but I used to role play a lot with my friend Britney. This back-and-forth writing felt kind of like that."

I don't know what possessed me to say I role played. Why couldn't I just say that I read novels like a normal person? Nathan wouldn't even know what roleplaying was. He'd probably ask, and then I would have to explain, at length, what a dork I am.

"No way," he said. "I did that last summer on Darkstar Forums."

Darkstar Forums was a pubic sci-fi message board where people role played in larger groups. It was different from what Britney and I did, but also similar.

Nathan paused in the hallway, then leaned down to tie his shoe.

As he did, I took casual step behind back. Hey, don't judge me. You'd probably do the same if you were walking with a cute guy or girl.

My heart raced with anticipation as his shirt lifted. We already had role playing in common. Why not something else? What if he was a late bloomer who also wore diapers? That would make him more accepting of me, right?

My hopes faded as I caught a glimpse of his dark blue pull-up. I don't know much about guys' brands, but this was basically the male equivalent of what the popular girls wore. Even the pull-ups I wore around the house were plastic-backed with plenty of padding. Meanwhile, this was cloth-backed, with minimal absorbency. Popular kids wore these incase they lost a few drops here and there. Meanwhile, I would leak through this a single wetting,

In other words, he was on the top of the social totem poll, and I was on the bottom.

"I have Alegbra next." Nathan said as he stood. "Room 203. What about you?"

"Same," I replied. "I can show you the way if you..." I trailed off as I felt my diaper growing warm. I'd been so engaged in our conversation, I hadn't even felt the urge coming on. The stream continued until the diaper started to swell between my legs.

Nathan stopped walking beside me. "Everything okay?"

I nodded. "I actually need to..."

Get changed. That's what I should have said. After all, I'd been honest with him up to this point, and everything had gone so well. He was going to find out I wore diapers sooner or later.

But I couldn't bring myself to admit it. I'd talked to boys before. But there's talking, and then there's talking. This was the start of something big. This conversation was the sort of thing that happened to other girls, but not me. These last few minutes had felt like a fairy tale, and wasn't about to slam the book shut.

"...use the bathroom," I finished after several long seconds.

"Oh, sure." Nathan said with a nod. "I'll see you in class then."

"See you there," I said. Then I turned to head down the staircase.

"Hey Claire?" Nathan said from behind me.

I turned around, and he gestured to the bathroom behind him. "There's one on this floor."

"Oh." I'd almost forgotten. There was only one changing room on the first floor, but there were bathrooms on every floor. "Right. Thanks."

My body made it's way toward the door on its own. A freshman girl stepped out, and she held the door open for me as I shuffled inside. Three senior girls stood in front of the sink, doing their make-up and making subtle adjustments to their outfits.

I opened a stall door and awkwardly stood inside, waiting for them to leave.

They didn't leave. They just kept talking and giggling.

Well, I couldn't just stand in the stall. That would look weird. So I lowered my leggings and skirt to the floor, but kept my diaper on. I would have taken it off, but the tapes make too much noise.

Changing your diaper in the bathroom is against the rules. There are only so many stalls, and the school doesn't want the freshmen (or late-blooming juniors) filling them up with lengthy changes. I understand the reasoning. If this wasn't a rule, then every freshman would change in here, hoping to avoid the exact situation I'd found myself in yesterday morning.

And then there were the stalls themselves to deal with. Unlike the changing rooms which had real doors that extended all the way to the floor, there was basically no privacy in here. Anyone could walk by and see you through the crack in the door.

Technically, you weren't even supposed to change wet pull-ups in here, but I knew people broke that rule all the time. Britney had even seen the popular girls do it.

Eventually, the second bell rang and the girls cleared out. They were going to be late, but not as late as me.

Way to go, Claire. Serves you right for stretching the truth.

I undid the tabs on my diaper one at a time. When I reached the last one, the front rolled free and almost splashed into the toilet. I caught it just in time. After that, I wiped myself down and pulled a fresh diaper from my backpack. Not trusting myself to change on the toilet, I unfolded the diaper, and stood with my backside against the stall's wall.

Adrenaline raced through my veins as I worked, half-expecting someone to open the door and hear the crinkle of plastic.

When no one did, I took a few deep breaths and adjusted the tabs into a more comfortable position. Thankfully, this wasn't my first time changing while standing up. While I've never been rebellious enough to do this in a school bathroom, I've experienced my share of bathrooms without changing tables. Almost every public place has one, but it's not guaranteed.

I was almost ten minutes late when I walked into algebra class. Joy. Nathan would probably think I was constipated or something. Oh well. That was better than having him think I wore diapers because I messed myself. People always assumed that for some reason, even though my bowel control was as good as any high schooler.

I drew a few stares as I walked in , but the teacher didn't say anything as I took the free seat in the front.

The rest of the class passed by uneventfully after that, but Nathan walked over after the last bell.

"Hey," Nathan said. "I like the way you dress."

"What?" I glanced down at my skirt and sweater. "Really?"

He nodded with the same easy smile as before. "The other girls are all just trying to show as much skin as possible, but you look more sophisticated."

Heat rose to my cheeks. My hands looked for something to fidget with, and I ended up grabbing a strand of my own hair. He thought I was sophisticated! Me—the girl who was still in diapers. Well, this proved he didn't know about that.

Idiot. He just complimented you! Say something back.

But what could I compliment? His eyes? His smile? His hair?

No. That was too much, too soon. I could compliment his outfit back, but that would look cheap. Like I'm just copy and pasting what he said.

"Well," I finally replied. "You have excellent taste." Half of me wanted to cringe, and the other half wanted to applaud myself. By some miracle, that actually came out sounding flirtatious.

"You're also really cute," he said. "And funny."

My heart beat faster, and I'm sure my cheeks were bright red by now. No one had ever said anything like that to be before. I stared down at my black and white Converse shoes, unable to meet his eyes.

Still, I couldn't keep the smile from my lips. I took a deep breath to summon my courage. "So are you."

"If you're not seeing anyone," Nathan said, "Would you consider going on a date with me this weekend?"