The Weekend Visit, Part 38

Kate definitely wasn’t joking.

When I looked at her in hesitation in regard to her latest immature directive, she merely met my eyes and gave me a subtle nod before returning to the conversation the others were having. Due to my perceived age, I had already more or less been left out of most of the discussions that didn’t involve me. At the same time, I wasn’t invisible. The restaurant chairs were nice quality, and I could only lean back so much before it became obvious that I wasn’t sitting properly. 

Kate hadn’t given me a timeframe, so I spent a minute adjusting my feet and shifting in the chair. Could I just kick backwards and send myself flying? No, that would look so ridiculous. So would falling in general, but still. It didn’t help that every movement I made brought my attention back to the freshly wet diapers I was sitting in.

Luna was saying something about camp. Maybe I should be paying attention? I hadn’t been listening in the slightest to what she and Lilah had been talking about, as I was focused on the task at hand. Little by little, I experimented with pushing the front two legs of my chair off the floor. Back in high school, I had occasionally seen dumb peers of mine almost lose their balance when leaning back in such a way. I could probably recreate that? Just, without drawing too much attention to myself . . .

Before I could figure out the best approach on my own, Kate decided for me. The next time I tilted my chair back to a noticeable degree, she slipped her foot underneath one of the legs and abruptly pushed it up. 

Gasping in surprise, I was suspended in the almost-falling position for a second or two before fully losing my balance and unceremoniously crashing to the floor. I ended up letting out a shrill yelp along the way, though I could only be grateful that I hadn’t done a girl scream of surprise.

Before I could even recover from both my body and the chair hitting the hard carpet, Kate jumped in and made it sound like this was a problem of mine rather than something anyone should be worried about. “Annie! We’ve talked about leaning back in your chair like that.” She wasn’t yelling, though it did dawn on me that pretty much every table in the nearby vicinity was staring at me; most of them probably heard my sister chastising me simply from how the surprise of my fall temporarily made everyone else go quiet. 

My legs were somewhat splayed from the fall, and I blushed deeply as I grabbed the skirt of my dress and held it between my thighs as I scrambled to get up. Hopefully the chair had somewhat obscured the padding, though I couldn’t be sure. “I- I’m sorry!” I exclaimed. My cheeks must have been crimson as I awkwardly got to my feet. I was definitely still the center of attention, in the worst possible way.

Kate got up as well. She picked up my chair and placed it back where it was supposed to be by our table. Rather than pulling it out for me to sit back down, she grabbed my wrist. As if the visual of being the older sister cleaning up after me wasn’t enough, she told the table, “I’ll talk to her.”

Stumbling slightly as I was tugged away with no warning, I could feel everyone’s eyes on us as we left the main area of the dining room. My cheeks were on fire, and I could only imagine how bad my blush was. As Kate dragged me towards the same hallway as before, I belatedly found my voice. That, or it just felt easier to talk when everyone wasn’t staring at me. “Kate! Like, hold on!” I whined. “You said-”

“Annie, you’re such a brat!” she exclaimed, cutting me off, “We can’t take you anywhere, can we?!”

But- but that wasn’t fair! It was pretty blatant gaslighting from my perspective. The problem was, I was so flustered about everything, plus I had already learned that arguing with Kate would always be a losing battle when she was treating me more and more like a difficult little girl. That, and standing there in sagging diapers did very little for my self-confidence.

Before I could think of something to say, or Kate could chastise me further, Aunt Miranda turned the corner. “Annie.” Unlike Kate, our aunt had a calm sternness to her voice as she addressed me. “What was that?”

“I- I, umm . . . I don’t-” I think I was trying to stammer out ‘I don’t know.’ It was just impossible to figure out how to explain myself. As difficult as my sister was, I had already resigned myself to going along with whatever she came up with throughout this mortifying weekend. However, I had only had so much interaction with Aunt Miranda thus far, and she seemed far less amused about this whole ‘experiment’ thing than before. That, or she had forgotten which one of us was actually the older sister, though that seemed less likely.

“This is a classy establishment, young lady,” she said, “If you can’t behave or act your age, you’re going to stay home next time. I know at least a half dozen girls who would be available to babysit you.”

But, this was all Kate’s fault! “Aunt Miranda, please. I didn’t, like . . . I mean-”

This time, Kate jumped in. “She’s been acting out ever since she started wearing diapers. Honestly, I don’t know why.”

Wait, what?! Aunt Miranda knew? I was there when Kate told our cousins, but it was pretty obvious by our aunt’s lack of a reaction that she was already aware of my underwear situation. I looked at Kate with wide eyes; her expression didn’t change in the slightest.

I had done so much to keep all of this a secret from our relatives at the beginning. Now all of them knew, yet things were somehow worse for me than they had been since that first incident with the pull-ups.