Tuesday morning brought the death of a friendship.

Nicole could almost not process the sheer hurt and betrayal she felt, waking up to another wet bed. Yesterday’s prank by her once-friend had been too far, an incredible breach of trust, but something she could move past.

But the fact that Vanessa had gone and done it twice, after being called out for it? If Vanessa thought this was funny, Nicole could not fathom what was going on in her ex-friend’s brain, and if it wasn’t intended as a joke…

Getting up, Nicole peeled out of her wet pajama pants and stripped off her sheets. The wet stain on her bed had two rings now, one where last night’s accident had left a subtle watermark, another much more obvious one from the urine still actively soaking her mattress today. Nicole wouldn’t be demanding any cleanup or laundry from Vanessa this time. Their relationship no longer had room for asking anything of each other.

She took a shower, allowing the hot water to bring her rage down to a simmer, so that she wouldn’t simply scream at Vanessa the moment she saw her. An absence of rage didn’t mean forgiveness, though. She couldn’t forgive this.

Vanessa had drugged her, twice, or done something else to the same effect. Vanessa had overtly ignored Nicole’s requests, even knowing how upset it made her yesterday.

With a bathrobe on and a towel on her hair, she walked back to her room, finally noticing that the potty training chart was back on her door. Yesterday’s doodles were still there, and today, new ones–another raincloud in the bedtime, identical to yesterday’s, and this time, a sort of, ‘partly cloudy’ design, with a sun half-hidden by clouds in the daytime. And, in the special column at the bottom, a doodle of Nicole, sitting on the ground, having a sobbing tantrum. Nicole immediately clocked it as Vanessa’s handiwork–she recognized her friend’s cutesy, chibi-style doodles.

(She has the gall to do this to me, then label me the crybaby?) Nicole thought.

She was about to walk to the kitchen, when Vanessa’s door opened. She stretched, yawned, looking utterly unconcerned. “Morning, Nicole–how did you sleep?”

“Seriously?” Nicole snapped, wheeling on her. “Fucking seriously?”

“Woah.” Vanessa put up her hands by her sides and took a step back. “Someone’s pissy.”

(Was that a pun? Is she really behaving like this?)

“Fuck you,” Nicole said. “You dug the chart out of the trash and–whatever, drugged me, made me wet the bed somehow, again, and you don’t even have anything to say for yourself?”

Eyes widening, Vanessa shook her head. “I didn’t–Nicole, I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t do any of that.”

“Then how did the chart get back on my stupid door, huh?” Nicole demanded, jabbing a finger at it. Her eyes were hot, her cheeks wet–none of this made sense, she just couldn’t understand how her best friend would do this to her. A wet bed by itself, that didn’t mean much, but the betrayal ate away at her.

Vanessa looked at the chart, utterly confused. “Nicole, I…I didn’t put that there.”

“Well then who did?” Nicole demanded. “Huh?”

Stammering, Vanessa had no response. Nicole ripped the chart off the wall, then shoved past her, walking to the kitchen. “That’s what I thought.”

Vanessa didn’t follow her–even if she had, it’s not like she could argue against the obvious.

No third try, no repetition this time. Nicole kept the chart on hand, and took it with her when she left for work, jamming it into her purse as best she could–it stuck out, some, but just looked like a whiteboard at a glance. Getting off the bus a couple blocks from her office, she found a dumpster and tossed it in, wishing good riddance to the object that had started this all.

She had texts waiting for her when she got to the office and finally checked her phone while she rode the elevator up. She had messages from Vanessa.

‘I’m so sorry, Nic–I really don’t know what’s going on. This wasn’t me.’

‘I want to know what happened as much as you do.’

‘Please just text me back so we can talk.’

Nicole almost gave in and replied, but before she could, she felt a sudden pressure in her bladder. Shockingly fast, and entirely out of the blue, she desperately needed to pee. With a choice between soaking her jeans or rushing, she chose to rush, lunging out of the elevator as soon as the doors opened, blowing past the janitor waiting to get on.

She got a few surprised glances from her coworkers, but made it to the bathroom. Fumbling with her jeans, she got the button undone, but felt a little spurt of pee escape her before she could pull them down, staining a tiny dark splotch on her white cotton panties. She clamped down on that, sat down on the toilet, and let loose.

It took her only a few moments to be done. She hadn’t needed to pee a lot, she just needed to pee badly, and that was the final nail in the coffin. Whatever drugs or crap Vanessa had done to her, it hadn’t just made Nicole wet the bed, it’d screwed with her bladder. It had done serious, genuine harm to her body, harm that almost humiliated her in front of her coworkers.

She ignored Vanessa’s text and muted the number. Vanessa didn’t deserve a response from her.

The rest of her day was punctuated by similar flights to the restroom. Twice that morning, she had to stop in the middle of things to rush off to the potty. Worse, just before lunch, she couldn’t end a phone call in time and very nearly didn’t make it at all–her jeans were dropped around her ankles, but her panties were up when the flood gates opened, and she could only sit down and fight back sobs as she ruined the underwear for good.

How could her best friend have done this to her? Vanessa, who rarely had the attention span to stick to a hobby for more than a couple days, had gone through all this effort to…what, prank her? Make Nicole feel like crap? It genuinely made no sense. and the more she thought about it, the more it hurt.

Wadded up toilet paper helped dry them out, and an additional folded layer stuffed into the front drank up dribbles throughout the rest of the day, but every time she had to replace the pee-soaked toilet paper with a new wad, she felt another sting.

Even the best toilet paper protection didn’t help her completely. By the end of the day, enough urine had soaked through even with her constant rushed to the toilet that a dark, damp spot was visible just below the zipper of her jeans.

In most lights, it could be mistaken for a weird shadow, but Nicole knew.