Diary of a Diaper Boy: Part II

Chapter 23: Never Easy, Just Different

Eli POV

I thought that sleeping on it would make me feel differently. It did not. I woke up, still somewhat mad at Elliott. I didn't even want to see him right now, so I had my back toward him in bed. My soggy diaper squishing between my legs.

My eyes began to flutter open, and as my vision adjusted to the room, I saw Elliott sprawled out on the air mattress. I turned in my bed to face whoever I had just shared a bed with and found Henry lying next to me. He was awake and on his phone. He looked up from his screen and smiled. "Morning!" he said cheerfully.

The slight feelings I still had for Henry were clouded by the confusion I felt. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Elliott asked me to switch." Henry replied.

"And you agreed?" I asked, puzzled. Just weeks ago, Henry usually avoided me, like I had some sort of disease. Now he acted as if we were old pals.

Henry shrugged. "I didn't think much of it. Is it a problem?" he replied.

"No." I replied. "I don't have an issue. I'm just confused."

"Confused about what?" Henry asked.

How could he not know what I was referring to? Was he clueless? I replied, "Well, the night at the sleepover, you..."

Henry quickly put his finger over my lips, attempting to shush me. My heart skipped a beat. He whispered, "I missed having you as a friend. I'm still figuring it out. Not everyone has it as easy as you."

"Easy?" I replied, offended that he thought that. "You think I have it easy?"

Henry sighed. "I didn't mean it that way, dude. I know you don't. None of us have it easy; we just have it different. I..."

Henry stopped talking as Jacob sat up on the bed, stretching his arms. We must have gotten too loud and woken him up.

"We can talk about it later." Henry whispered. "Can we just be friends again?" he asked.

"Of course," I replied.

Henry smiled and got up from the bed. He opened the door out of the bedroom and ran face-first into a bunch of cling wrap on the door frame. He face planted and stumbled backwards.

I started to laugh, and so did Jacob. It was loud enough that Elliott woke up and saw what happened. "Oh yeah," he said groggily, rubbing his eyes. "It's April 1st today. I forgot to warn y'all. These guys are big pranksters."

The other group of five boys peered through the corner and began to laugh as well. "April Fools!" one of them yelled.

I had never been a fan of April Fools, as I was usually the target of the pranks. So, today would probably be a long day.

What we had planned for today was another beach day at a more private beach across the island, but this time we rented out snorkeling gear as well as paddle boards and kayaks.

Everyone showered, changed, and got packed up in a van that took us across the island to the beach. I threw on a goodnite for the road trip and packed another for the trip back. We were the only people on this small beach, and it was a blast. We stayed there for hours, only leaving when it started to get dark.

We stayed in our separate groups for most of the day, with the other group of boys occasionally hanging with the girls. Elliott and I didn't speak to each other until we got back. I was still mad at him.

I went straight into the bathroom to change out of my soggy goodnite and into my daytime diaper. Elliott met me in the hall and finally broke the silence between us. "Eli. I know you're mad at me. Can I just explain myself?"

I nodded. We went into our room, where our conversation wouldn't be around other people.

"I don't know why I did it. Ask first. People were hounding me, and I made something up. I thought it'd take some pressure off me. I was eventually gonna tell the truth. It took pressure off me, and it did for you too. I just don't get why you are so mad," he rambled on.

"I'm mad you lied," I replied. "You didn't give people a chance to tell the truth. While it did get people to stop teasing me, it wasn't because they accepted me. It was because they saw me as one of those kids that rides the short bus to school." I replied.

I began to ponder how my interactions with others had changed since the start of high school. I dealt with bullying, but it seemed to fall off a cliff at some point. I thought people got bored, but maybe it was because of what Elliott said. I continued, "It may seem like a small thing to you, but it changes a lot for me. I'd rather get teased than be treated differently because people feel bad for me. I may be in diapers, but I hate it when people treat me like a baby because of it. Now I realize that's how people were treating me, when I thought they had just begun to respect me."

"I'm sorry." Elliott said. "I didn't realize it was like that."

"You should be. Being invited to this trip was a huge deal for me, and I thought it was because Colin saw me as a friend. Now it seems that he just did it out of sympathy. It may be easy for you to make friends and have people see you as an equal, but it isn't easy for me."

"You know, you are not the only one to have it hard, Eli. Nobody has it easy; we all just have it different." Elliott said, raising his voice. "For you, it's diapers, but for someone else, it may be something else."

"What's so hard for you then, huh?!" I replied back in anger.

"I've been compared to you my entire life. We have shared everything. We shared a room, we shared friends, and we shared classes. These last few months have been the first time I wasn't connected to you all the time." Elliott ranted. "And all the pressure seems to be on me and not on you."

"Whatever!" I replied.

No seriously!" Elliott responded. "Anytime I made a friend, mom made me include you, just for that friend to hang with you more and for you not to include me. At home, I'm invisible! I only get attention from mom when I have bad grades or get into trouble. I only get dad's attention when I do something to do well with sports."

He made a good point. I just hadn't realized it.

Elliott continued, "When we started school, I was only known as the diaper kid's brother. After I told them what I told them, they started to see me as separate from you. In fact, this is the first group of friends I have had that want to hang out with me after school that you are not involved with."

"So you didn't want me here?" I asked.

"That's not what I mean. I'm glad and happy you are on this trip. Seriously." Elliott replied. "I just want you to know that it's not easy for me to make friends that I consider close friends. That's something that's hard for me, and it seems easy for you."

"Okay. I'm sorry." I said, putting my hands in the air. "Just please tell the truth about me from now on."

"I will." Elliott replied. "Just quit being mad at me. I've felt like I've been very understanding with you, and I would appreciate the same level of empathy in support."

I nodded. He was right. Since my accidents, Elliott has been an amazing brother, despite constantly telling me to mom.

"Also, I have a favor to ask." Elliott continued. "Your goodnites don't fit me. Can I use a diaper?"

"I can't." I replied. "With mom and dad's limit, I can't spare any."

"What do I do then?" Elliott asked.

"Either risk a wet bed or you can ask Dillon for one and buy a pack from the pharmacy in town." I said.

"Do you think you could ask Dillon to lend me one?" Elliott pleaded with me.

"You can ask him. I already told him you started wetting the bed." I said.

"Why did you do that?!" Elliott said.

"I tell Dillon everything." I replied. "It's not a big deal."

Conveniently, Dillon walked into the room shortly after. "You guys alright?" he asked. "We're gonna start playing some games if you wanna join."

"Yeah, it's all good." I replied. "Elliott actually wanted to ask you something."

"What's up?" Dillon asked.

"Well..." Elliott began to nervously explain. "Eli's goodnites don't fit me, and I need a diaper for tonight. Could I borrow one of yours?"

"Sure," Dillon replied. "But I don't want to waste one, so you'll need to put it on now and actually use it."

Elliott nodded. Dillon walked over to his bag and began to rummage around. "I'm a heavy wetter at night, so I wear a pretty thick diaper like Eli. I only brought enough of the white ones for me, so you'll have to deal with one of my emergency diapers," he said.

"No problem," Elliott said.

"Well, there is one problem," he said, pulling a diaper out of the bag. "It looks like this." Dillon pulled out a thick pink diaper that had a strip down the middle that had unicorns, rainbows, and baby rattles on it.

"Oh shit!" Elliott said. "Is that all you have?"

"Yep. I'm sorry." Dillon replied.

I couldn't help myself but keep laughing. "Where do you even get diapers like that?" I asked between laughter.

"My mom found them at Goodwill for cheap a year or so ago. I refused to wear them, so they became emergency diapers." Dillon replied.

Elliott sighed, grabbing the diaper from Dillon. He went into the bathroom for a change and came back into the room. Dillon had returned to the kitchen to start the game. The diaper bulge on Elliott was obvious, and the waistband was sticking out of parts of his pants.

"You say I'm bad at hiding it. You are so much worse." I commented, still laughing.

"It's stupid. Why can't I just put it on before I go to bed? It's like 6." Elliott muttered.

"Those are Dillon's rules, but I would do the same. Diapers like that are two to three bucks a pop." I replied. "In the meantime, a long shirt and sweat pants might be in your best interest. They are best at hiding thick diapers."

Elliott grabbed a longer shirt and sweatpants from his bag, and we went out and joined the game. We played some card games for a few hours. We ended the night with a movie night. Most ended up falling asleep pretty quickly. I was awake the whole time as I sat on a couch with Henry, who moved closer to me as the movie went on.

By the end, it was almost midnight, and Henry was asleep on my shoulder. My diaper was full and needed changing as I had enjoyed a few too many sodas the last few hours, but I was enjoying the moment.

The movie ended, and the people who were asleep were awakened by the lights turning on. Henry woke up and joined everyone as we cleaned up the area. I was putting some things in the trash and was interrupted by a chorus of laughter. I turned to see what everyone was laughing about.

Elliott stood in the middle of the group of people with his sweatpants around his ankles. The punk diaper was tinted yellow in the white parts and slightly sagging between his legs. He stood there frozen as many of the group was laughing; some were in shock. Colin, who I assume was the culprit, was profusely apologizing.

Elliott quickly pulled his pants up and walked quietly to our room. Jacob followed after him.

"Seriously guys!" I yelled. "It's just freaking underwear. Why the hell did you think that would be funny anyway?"

"I... I... it was just an April Fools Day prank. Dillon suggested it." Colin stammered on.

I glared over at Dillon, whose grin had begun to turn. I stormed out of the room and into ours. Elliott was crying in bed with Jacob next to him. "Dillon, set me up!" Elliott said it between tears.

"I know," I replied. "I'll talk to him."

Dillon walked in the room, and I grabbed his arm, pulling him into the bathroom. "Why did you do that?!" I yelled.

Tears began to form in Dillon's eyes. "You were so mad at him earlier," he cried. "I thought you would want some revenge for what he did to you."

My tone softened. While I was mad at Dillon, he didn't know that Elliott and I had resolved our issue, and I was pretty mad at Elliott, so I could see why he would think that. "I appreciate you trying to stand up for me, Dillon, but that was too far." I said. "Elliott just told a little lie. It's not like he beat me up or anything."

"I'm sorry." Dillon said, wiping tears off his face. "I thought it would be funny."

"I'm not the one to apologize to. You probably should apologize to Elliott. He's pretty upset about it." I replied.

Dillon nodded, headed back in, and apologized. Elliott was pissed and went off on Dillon. Dillon agreed to tell everyone that he set it all up as an elaborate prank to get a bunch of laughs and that Elliott didn't actually need diapers. After all this, things calmed down, and we all headed for bed.

I changed into a diaper for the night and sat down on the pullout.

"Do we want to rotate, or are we all good with our spots?" Jacob asked.

The room stayed silent for some time; nobody was willing to speak. "I'm good with mine." Henry said. Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Okay. We will just stick with what we have." Jacob said. "Goodnight y'all."

"Goodnight." Everyone said it in unison as the lights went out.