✅ Potty Genius [NaNoWriMo 2022]

Thirteen

¿How long did you wear the diaper?

After I'd completed the challenge, I played Bubble Hunt Magnate for a while, trying to relax. It wasn't until I ran out of lives that I thought about what to do next, and what I was going to do with the rest of the evening. I considered going down to watch more TV with my family; we'd watched That Boy earlier, but I'd also been watching Book of Nightshade with Dad if it was convenient. I'd seen the movie, so I wasn't missing too much if I missed it one week, but I thought that it would be nice to socialise with my family more in the weeks before I moved away.

I changed back out of my nightie then, putting on a comfy Franklin's Muse hoodie and sweatpants. I was going to take the diaper off as well, but I remembered that I hadn't told Potty Genius that I was changing. I needed to tap the 'diaper change' button when I wanted to take it off. I told myself that was kind of silly; I'd already completed the challenge, so there was no incentive to keep the app up to date. But when I tried to take off the diaper, I found that I couldn't bring myself to do it. It was just like trying to pee without using the app. I wondered if that was how the app worked, or if it was just because I'd tried to lie about putting it on and ended up getting a hypnotic suggestion to force me. In any case, I would have to use the app.

I tapped diaper change, and it wanted to know what kind of accident I'd had. I couldn't select one of those. There were options for taking it off to bathe, changing to a different style of diaper, or changing because I'd spilled something or damaged the diaper. But there wasn't an option for just taking it off. I tried again, but I didn't have any luck with that. I cursed under my breath, but I was sure that nobody would notice. The sweatpants would hide it, I was sure. It wouldn't be such a big deal.

¿Did they notice?

No. I was lucky with that, at least. I was lucky with TV too; Dad hadn't decided to watch Nightshade without me, so I opened a big bag of Doritos and slobbed out on the couch. It was pretty fun, too. Heifer got poisoned in this episode, and we were trying to guess who did it; Dad was surprised that I didn't already knew, because they were twisting away from the movie version of the story now.

"Have you been thinking again about what stuff you want to take with you?" Mum asked, when the show ended. "For university, I mean."

"No?" I hazarded. "I think I already sorted everything out, there isn't that much more to pack." I didn't understand where the question had come from, and I wondered if she was trying to hint that there was something I'd forgotten. But I realised where the question had come from just a fraction of a second before she explained.

"I saw you've got some of your old teddies out of the cupboard. It's nice to see them again. Something soft to hold might be reassuring in the first days at a new place. You really didn't need to lock them all away when you started high school, you know?"

"MUM! I don't need teddies to feel safe at university. I'm practically an adult now, nobody my age has them, I just..." I took a deep breath and wondered how I could explain having them all out. But I already had an excuse prepared, so that made it easy: "Packing all my stuff made me think about how much my room changed over the years, you know? I thought I'd try to get some arty photos of the stuff that I'm leaving behind. Or left behind a long time ago."

"Oh, that's nice," Dad said, clearly not understanding. "Can we see, once you got them developed?" And then it was my turn to be confused.

"Huh?"

"Your father's being old, dear," Mum said, and then spoke to Dad: "I think she means taking photos on her phone. So she'll have the pictures already, to share with her friends. I don't think they even print them out anymore."