32.)

Within the hour, Blossom pulled into the parking lot of a mall that I had never been to before. We were way further north than where we lived, almost to the next major city. I had never been in this area for anything other than passing through. At least no one would know who I was. The medical store was still ten minutes away, but we had to get that trunk thing Blossom was talking about.

"This feels pretty exciting, doesn't it? We're buying a locking trunk to hide at our secret rendezvous beach house so we can hide the fact that sometimes baby happens. That's kinda cool, right? I love exciting shit like this."

"I guess?" I didn't do a lot of in-store shopping. I used to, when I was younger, but a lot of stores for high school girls didn't have shirts or dresses in plus sizes. By the time I got to college, mostly everything I bought was online.

Blossom was the first to step out of the car. It wasn't always apparent sitting next to each other in the car, but Blossom was considerably taller than Amanda when walking side by side. It almost had some caregiver vibes.

Blossom and I entered the mall together. It was warm, much warmer than outside. October was growing colder by the day, and the mall was already decorated with black and orange banners and little fake pumpkins by the doors. Halloween was coming up. Next week or something.

"We should totally hit Spirit of Halloween or whatever weird name the pop-up is going by. We could get costumes for Halloween! We could be Slutty Witches, or Slutty Superheroes, or Slutty Firefighters, or Slutty Schoolgirls; the possibilities are endless."

She babbled a little bit as she looked at the map of the shopping mall. Her flippancy in public made it more clear by the minute that Blossom seemed to exist despite the world and not quite within it. It wasn't that she didn't care what people thought; she was just exceptionally good at controlling the narrative.

"I don't really dress up for Halloween anymore," I shrugged. "My mom and I usually watch a movie marathon, and we pause it when we get trick-or-treaters." Blossom seemed to find what she was looking for on the map, because we were walking again. I was still thinking out loud. "Though you know there aren't that many trick-or-treaters these days? When I was a kid, the streets were full of them. Now we can go ten or fifteen minutes without needing to pause the movie. It kind of sucks, because scary movies freak me out. Pausing every few minutes is actually really nice."

Blossom listened and nodded her head intently.

"I used to go trick or treating with my Dad, and we'd dress up in matching outfits. One year he went as a princess and I went as his knight. It was really cute."

Although not much rattled Blossom, there was a sense of wistful longing in her voice for just a moment as she talked about those times of her life, but it faded quickly as she transitioned the conversation.

"I hope more people get back into trick-or-treating; it's so wholesome, and when I'm done with college and I'm working some big well-paying job, I wanna hand out candy. But like, the full size candy bars. I wanna be that lady."

"That's a good lady to be," I laughed. "But you probably aren't going trick-or-treating this year either."

Though it would be cute. Blossom could go as a baby. We were about to get her some cute diapers; maybe we could grab some white ones instead of the black ones she wanted. I didn't have enough money to get her one of those cute babydoll dresses off LilKink, but I doubt she would notice if I took her credit card. She could borrow my big pacifier, the one my friend Bethany sent me. She'd look cute in a bonnet too, with her hair in braided pigtails.

"I can't go out like this!" she'd argue. But I'd give her a stern look and put my hands on my hips. She'd shrink down in embarrassment, and it might seem like I was taller than her.

"If you want to go trick-or-treating," I would say, "you need to convince everyone at the door that you're young enough for that."

And she might argue: "No one is gonna believe I'm a baby, even if I'm dressed like this!"

And I would tell her: "Then you'll have to prove it to them."

I could imagine her all dolled up, standing on the porch of some middle-class white woman's house as the bleach-blonde PTA mom crossed her arms. Blossom's diaper would sag between her thighs as she wet herself. The expression on the mom's face would soften, her maternal instincts kicking in. She'd give Blossom all the candy she wanted to keep the little baby from crying on her porch.

Or, maybe she still wouldn't believe her. Maybe Blossom would have to bend over and fill her diaper right there. But I believed in Blossom. If she tried hard enough, she could convince anyone of anything. After all, she'd convinced everyone for twenty years that she was an adult, and that was clearly ridiculous.

"Whatcha thinkin'?"

Blossom interrupted my train of thought. I must have spaced out.

"Oh, uh... how people don't actually dress up as babies for Halloween," I answered, blushing a little. "It's just one of those fantasies we have, but nobody follows through."

If this were a story, Blossom would say something about how we should dress up as babies and go to a party or something. I'd argue, but eventually give in. Maybe when I showed up to the party, Blossom would be dressed as a slutty nurse or something, and I'd be stuck looking like an oversized toddler. She'd make a comment about how maybe I need a diaper change and everyone would laugh. I'd blush, and she would take me by the hand to the "nurse's office" to get me in some thicker protection.

Oh, shoot. I spaced out again. What did Blossom say?

"I think people never really dress up as the thing they want to be," Blossom posited, "because they're worried people might figure them out. Trans folk who aren't out yet never ever dress up as their authentic gender, people with fetishes for leather never dress up in leather, and babies never dress up as babies. So if you see someone dressed as a baby for Halloween you know they're not a Little, like hundo-p. Which means that the best way for people not to find out you're a Little is for you to dress up as a baby for Halloween."

That might have been some weird logic, but Blossom had a particular way of thinking about things. And just as Amanda had her long moments of silence and space-cadet tendencies while she imagined things, Blossom was often thinking about the ways things connected.

It was probably typifying of who they were; Amanda was a writer and Blossom was an engineer. Amanda imagined scenarios, and Blossom pictured connections.

"So you're saying you're gonna dress up as a baby for Halloween?" I teased. "You know, to throw people off track?"

"Absolutely not," Blossom laughed.

"So then, what are your Halloween plans?"

"There's a few parties over that weekend, 'cause Halloween itself is on a Monday, so if the cute girl I've been spending my weekends with is busy I'll go to one of those as like a Slutty Engineer or something. But honestly I'd rather be a Slutty Baby Girl in the beach house if anything."

They got to the top of the escalators and took a left while they were talking, and soon Pottery Barn came into view.

"I have classes Monday, so no long weekend for me." I was kind of flattered that I won out over her college parties, but then again, I think it was diapers and Academy Works that was winning out. She probably couldn't take any baby stuff back to her sorority house with her. We walked into Pottery Barn together, which was a lot like an Instagram account exploded all over an IKEA. The prices were a lot more Instagram than IKEA, though. 89 dollars for a stool? Holy cow...

"This is the kind of store white people who want other white people to think they have culture shop at," Blossom laughed, and stopped to fidget with a paper parasol, then continued to the back area of the store where the storage trunks were. The price tags were pretty outrageous as expected. At least they all seemed to be around the same size.

"Okay, what are the criteria we're looking for? It should look boring and innocuous, so people don't wanna pry. And it shouldn't look too expensive so people don't wanna steal it. And two locking clasps would be really good…"

"This one's unassuming?" It was just a sturdy wooden chest, with a nice finish to it. It would probably suit a Bay Area condo in the hills, but probably no other house in the world. Maybe a beach house with a huge wave painted on one of the walls. "It looks like somewhere someone would store emergency supplies for a zombie apocalypse."

"Oh hey, zombie apocalypse diaper baby story, that's an untapped market! The Crawling Dead?"

Blossom lifted the truck up from the bottom shelf where it was sitting and looked at it from a few angles, and then began to walk toward the checkout counter. The trunk didn't exactly look light either, but Blossom was a pretty fit girl. If it was a struggle for her to carry, she didn't show it.

I offered to help Blossom with the trunk on our way back to the car, but she said that would only make it harder to carry. She was probably right. We put it in the back seat of her car, because it was easier than fitting it in the trunk. One purchase down. One to go.