Gurgle–

(I’m such a fucking–)

GURGLE–

“Ow–dammit. Dammit.”

GURGLE–

(–fucking, fucking idiot.)

Blrblrbl–

Molten, putrid fluids poured out of her, into her fourth diaper of the hour, staining the seat a pale brown. She just lay there, on the bathroom floor, staying on her changing mat–why leave, when she’d just be right back on it in a minute?

Her intent had been to take an intense dose of laxatives and purposefully induce repeated messy accidents, so that Pearce would have to change her every few minutes until he gave up. Technically, that had worked, but that was just the start.

Grace hadn’t bothered to read the box, she’d just taken the laxative chocolate and committed to her plan. Four rectangles of slightly chalky almost-candy, swallowed in a few bites, because she didn’t want to risk chickening out and sulking for another week. She had to end the bet immediately–or, at least, that’d been her thought at the time.

She’d been impulsive, and stupid, and not considered the side effects, not planned on how hard it would hit her. By the time she realized she’d made a mistake, it’d been far, far too late to back out.

Now she had to lie on her back and try to decide which aspect of her situation made her more miserable.

The pain, obviously, was a strong contender–she’d never felt cramps this bad in her life. Even before she started birth control, when her periods had been regular and painful, the cramps had never been this bad. Even compared to the worst day she could remember, it was a walk in the park compared to this.

Her intestines felt like they wanted to come alive and strangle her, and since they were regretfully trapped inside her tummy, they’d chosen instead to self immolate in protest. Every few moments, she’d feel a spasm, and her body would uncontrollably release into her diaper, an act as painful as it was humiliating. She was thirsty, and sweaty, and overwhelmed by signals all over from a body in revolt.

The only thing that could challenge the pain for the top spot in her personal hell was the deep, personal, and utterly consuming shame.

She’d proven herself as thoughtless and selfish as Pearce probably assumed she was, and she’d pulled herself into a self destructive spiral. A whimpering, crying mess on the floor, in need of constant attention, constant care, constant disgusting diaper changes.

If her point already hadn’t been proven, it would be now. She’d become the perfect burden, the kind nobody would care for.

Pearce was going to hate her after this.

And he’d be right to do so.

Another cramp hit her, but her body was out of contents to drain, so nothing poured into her diaper–though the cramps did force tears down her cheeks.

(Fuck. Fuck.)

She wanted to get creative with her vulgarity, to at least come up with a cleverly phrased tirade, but she lacked the mental bandwidth for that. Too much of her brain was overtaken by one-note ideas and impulses; Hurts, and Cry, and Shame, and Push, and (I’m so fucking stupid.)

“Grace?” Pearce pushed the door open, phone in one hand, and a bottle in the other. “I just talked to poison control. Good news is, you’re going to be OK.”

(No I’m not,) Grace thought. Out loud, she asked, “How long?”

“It’s…they weren’t sure.” Setting down his phone, Pearce rubbed at the back of his neck. “A few hours. Maybe, like…a day? We just have to wait it out, there’s not much else to be done. The guy said to make sure you get plenty of fluids and electrolytes, you’re going to get really dehydrated. And diaper rash is a concern.”

Grace’s eyes widened and she sat up suddenly–a move she regretted as another cramp sent her right back down to the bathroom floor. “You told him?” she asked, sniffling. “About the bet?”

“No.” Pearce knelt by her, nose wrinkling slightly as he got a whiff of her latest sloshy accident. “That was unprompted, but…I mean, the bet doesn’t help. Here.”

He passed Grace the baby bottle, which had milky white fluid inside it.

Grace eyed it suspiciously. “What’s this?”

“Formula,” Pearce admitted, reaching into his pocket while he spoke. “It’s got electrolytes and calories, and you need something to keep up your strength. I have a delivery coming with more stuff for you, pedialyte and gatorade, but we needed something now, and I had this ready to go. Drink it.”

“Pearce…” Grace started, wincing between words. “I don’t know–”

“I do,” he responded confidently, taking out a little bottle of painkillers, shaking one into his hand. “I am responsible for making sure you’re fed, hydrated, and healthy. I say you need to drink your bottle, and swallow one of these. Instructions on the bottle say to only take three a day. I know you’ll probably want to take seventy two of them, but we’re sticking to the guidelines this time.”

“I don’t–” Grace started, confused. “I wasn’t that stupid, I only took four.”

Pearce stared at her blankly for a moment, incomprehension slowly dawning into shock. “Grace…the recommended dose is two squares, you ate four bars. There’s twelve squares in a bar.”

Grace stared back, realizing just how fundamentally brainless she’d been. She hadn’t just been reckless and impulsive, she’d almost…

It was a good thing she’d been working with ‘Gentle’ laxatives.

Meekly, she accepted the pill, dry swallowed, and lifted the bottle to her lips.

The cool, milky liquid down her throat helped quench her thirst and ease her discomfort, but it didn’t help her feel any less pathetic. Pearce had cut a bigger opening on the head so that it wouldn’t take fifty to get through a single bottle, but she still had to suckle like a newborn to get the refreshing fluids. Lying on the ground, sniffling and crying, she worked through the formula and helplessly ran through diaper after diaper: The consequences of her own actions had rendered her into more of a baby than all of Pearce’s teasing and tricks put together.

She heard a tape rip, and looked down to see Pearce working on her diaper, a fresh one already ready to go. Lifting the bottle from her lips, Grace started to ask, “What’re yo–”

Reaching over, he pushed it right back down, silencing her words. “Grace, I’m serious. You need fluids. Drink all of that, and when you’re done, that tea should be ready and you’re going to drink that too.”

Grace wanted to protest, to argue. There was no point changing her diaper, not when she was cramping and voiding everything in her multiple times a minute, but Pearce wasn’t willing to listen. He took away her old diaper, wiped her clean, and squirted a dollop of anti-rash zinc cream into his hands, rubbing it in around her bottom and thighs.

She cramped again, and though she couldn’t see and her senses down there had been numbed to the differences between cramps and squelches and pushing, she was pretty sure she got something on his hands. Shame coursed through her, and she watched for Pearce to flinch, to pull away in disgust, but he just reached for a baby wipe and kept working.

Cream applied, he wrapped the new diaper between her thighs and taped it down. “There,” he said. “That should at least help a bit with the rashing. You finish that bottle, I’ll be right back.”

She nodded and kept suckling, working to drain the formula–what else could she do?

Pearce got to his feet, washed his hands in the sink, and left her there, alone with nothing but her thoughts and the soft whirr of the exhaust fan.

He hadn’t given up, yet, but that was no surprise. Pearce wasn’t an asshole, and she required medical aid. Her plan had centered around exhausting him with full diapers, not a call to poison control and a price check on ambulance fees.

That didn’t mean this could be counted as a success.

She felt like a kid. Not a baby–well, a bit like a baby–but not really. Instead, the helplessness, the feeling of stupidity, the awareness of how badly she’d fucked up, how she was self-sabotaging and pushing everyone around her away… It made her feel like a fourteen year old, ear pressed against a door, eavesdropping for clues about punishment she already knew was coming.

“It’s just a cry for attention. Obviously we need to stop the behavior, but you can’t let her have what she wants. When she acts out, you can’t coddle her, you need to show discipline.”

“Where do you think she even got–”

“It’s those friends of hers, I told you they were no good.”

“Do you think she’ll be able to get her grades back up?”

“Maybe, but you’re thinking too short term–what about when she’s grown up, when you aren’t there any more to keep her behavior in check? What if she thinks she’ll always have a safety net? You cannot respond to this sort of behavior with positive reinforcement.”

“She’s never acted like this before.”

“If I had a nickel for every time I’d heard that, I’d be able to count class sizes by nickels. She’s a teenager. It happens. But she won’t learn to stop behaving like this unless you teach her.”

“Still…she’s always been such a good girl. Do we really need to be that harsh?”

“I can tell you’re trying to do your best here, and I can see from her file that she’s stayed out of trouble until now. I suppose, given the circumstances, it might be alright to show a little grace.”

She’d been stupid then. She was stupid now, too.

She’d jumped without looking, without seeing how far it was to the bottom, and expected Pearce to be there to catch her. And Pearce, damn him, was there–ready to catch her, even though it meant he’d be crushed.

If he’d just been a crummier person, this would have been easy. When he fucked up and abandoned her, she’d made sure the consequences fell squarely on his shoulders. Now, when she fucked up, he was taking it on himself, letting the consequences fall on his shoulders again.

He was doing the work. Making phone calls, bringing food, ensuring her physical safety, and that was all. Like the previous week of emotionally distant diligence, only worse, because she knew what was coming.

Pearce couldn’t take this any more. Burnout was inevitable, he already seemed exhausted every time they spoke. She could see it–he was struggling. She could see it in his slumped shoulders and defeated expressions: Every time he had to change her diaper, feed her, give her any kind of care, he had to fight to keep up the act.

Grace knew the truth, because she knew how to read Pearce. His thoughts were incredibly obvious:

(Is my distance enough to keep Grace from hurting me?)

(Would it be so wrong if I just left her to fend for herself so I could go and focus on myself?)

As soon as he thought she was safe, as soon as he didn’t have to worry that she’d literally shit herself to death, he’d say, ‘I’m forfeiting the bet, I can’t keep putting up with you anymore’.

Maybe he’d put it better than that–find some tactful way to rephrase, ‘You’re a selfish, demanding burden whose recklessness and perfectionism are burning my life away from both ends,’ but he’d be thinking it, and she’d know what he really meant.

She’d wanted him to forfeit, but not like this–her intent had been for him to get tired of responsibility, not for him to get tired of nannying a stupid, selfish, idiotic little girl who needed everyone else to clean up after her insecurities.

Another cramp wracked her as she finished the bottle of formula, and her body’s spasm was timed to hit just as Pearce walked in, carrying two bottles of warm tea and a fluffy pillow tucked beneath his arm.

“Hey,” he said, walking over to sit next to her, crossing his legs and getting down by her head. “Any help from the painkillers yet?”

She shook her head–every cramp was as bad as the last.

“Here, head up,” Pearce said, guiding the pillow to give her a little comfort. Once she’d rested her head on the cushion, he passed her one of the bottles of tea. “Drink this, too. It’s supposed to be an herbal calming thing that eases upset stomachs–I don’t know if it’ll do much here, but it can’t hurt to get you more fluids.”

She took the bottle, watching him. He was glancing away, avoiding eye contact, lips moving slightly as he prepared what he was about to say.

It was coming. She knew it, and her stomach dropped in a way that had nothing to do with the laxative overdose.

“Grace,” Pearce said, voice trembling a little. “I…after tonight, I’m going to forfeit the bet. You win.”

There it was.

She’d gotten what she wanted, and what she feared the most.

Swallowing, Pearce added, “I know you want it, bad, so there you go. I can’t have you hurting yourself like this, even if it was by accident. Nothing is worth this, nothing is worth pushing you to do this, so if it means you’re safe, if it means you won’t hurt anymore, you win. Your safety is all that matters.”

Grace stared up at him, eyes widening. She’d already felt teary, but now her eyes felt wet for an entirely different reason–shock, not pain.

He looked away again, lips twitching so much it looked like he was wrestling with the words he wanted to speak. “I–”

Anxiety and fear struck her. The unknown of what he was about to say, how he’d let her down gently.

Finally, he won the fight with his tongue and got it out. “Grace, I love you.”

...

Author's note: This is not the end