The Babysitter, Part 50

The car ride back was so awkward.

Noelle didn’t have much to say to me, and I had to deal with the mortifying sensation of sitting on what felt like a dirty sponge. No longer sagging thanks to how they were no between my backside and the leather seat, the pull-ups clung to me in all kinds of uncomfortable ways. Despite everything I had done to degrade myself in front of Ruby, she ended up screwing me over anyway and making it more impossible than it was before to convince Noelle that I was anything but a rebellious middle school girl who needed protective underwear.

It turned out that we weren’t going home. Instead, Noelle swung by the pharmacy on the way back. “I have some supplies for stuff like this back at the house, for emergencies,” she informed me, “This is what happens when I’m not informed that I’ll be in charge of a bedwetter.” The slight shift in her tone on the last word was more than enough to let me know that she was using a more forgiving word. “Stay in the car. If you try to run off, I guarantee you’re just going to give yourself a rash and end up getting caught and punished.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. Where would I even go? This area was only somewhat familiar to me. I had no phone and no wallet, and her warning about the rash made me aware that trying to escape would mean walking around in soaked pull-ups until I figured out a plan. And I definitely didn’t want to go into the pharmacy; though I had never been to this particular location, my experience with Ruby made me nervous about running into anyone else I knew. 

Noelle was pretty quick. I had to imagine any babysitter had experience with accidents, even one who now did more specialized work. She probably took plenty of jobs before finding her niche, though I had to imagine I was an outlier in terms of being a ‘difficult girl’ who also seemed to have trouble making it to the bathroom. Noelle took a moment to drop the two opaque bags in the backseat. It took all my self control not to glance over my shoulder in an attempt to see what she felt the need to buy for me. Couldn’t I just take a shower and put on clean underwear? I doubted she was going to let me wear anything but pull-ups for at least the rest of the day, and trying to tell her what actually happened probably wouldn’t go over well.

‘I wet myself on purpose so Ruby would explain what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time.’

The first five words made me lightly blush, just from saying them in my head. Because I really did. I wet myself on purpose. Under duress, but still. 

“Okay,” Noelle said. Settling back into the driver’s seat and buckling in, she asked, “Is there anything else you need while we’re out?”

But- But there was already a risk of getting a rash. She had said so herself. “I, umm-” My blush darkened as I ended up mentally scrolling through a couple things I did not want to say out loud. “I need to shower?”

She nodded. “Good. I was going to be worried if you prioritized anything else.”

A test or sorts, then. What did she think I was going to say? The last thing I wanted was to run errands in my current state. I did need new bras, but that wasn’t going to happen until Noelle was gone anyway, and until I checked how much cash I had to spare to replace my ruined collection.

That was that. Noelle pulled out of the lot and drove us back to the house, where the car Paige and I were supposed to be sharing on any given weekend was already in the driveway. Great. So she and her two friends were here, unless one or both of them took off. I could hope. Except Paige would have told them about my little accident the second she was out of earshot of me and Noelle, and they would obviously want to stick around to see how this whole ‘Miley’ development played out. 

Sure enough, all three of them were lounging about in the living room, with one other girl who I didn’t recognize until she turned around as the others greeted us. The young redhead had a facade of nonchalance, though the way she was looking more at me than Noelle was enough to clue me into the fact that she knew exactly what was going on. 

My eyes widened in surprise, and I briefly forgot about Noelle’s rules, the sagging pull-ups between my legs, and everything in between. “That’s Miley!” I exclaimed, pointing right at her, “She’s who you’re supposed to be babysitting, Noelle.” 

Also, why was she here? I couldn’t begin to believe that Paige would have decided that enough is enough. Did that phone call to Miley’s parents finally go through? They could have demanded that she come over her and straighten things out, except no one was around to enforce that. Based on Miley’s reputation, she would have ignored the chastising call from her parents and maybe even retreated to a friend’s place so no one knew where to find her. And why would they have called Miley without calling Noelle, too? As usual, my thoughts were all over the place as I tried to sort things out without having nearly enough information to actually piece things together.

“Here we go again,” Miley rolled her eyes, “You’d think she would find a new thing eventually.”

“She can’t help herself,” Paige shrugged, “Compulsive liars do it, well, compulsively?”

“Noelle-” I tried to say. 

“Miley, enough,” she snapped. Gripping my upper arm with the hand that wasn’t holding the plastic bags, she took a step towards the stairs before stopping to ask the others, “Who is this, actually?” It probably computed at some point that the girl from down the street didn’t match the ages of my step-sister and her friends. 

Paige was quick to respond, “She’s our neighbor. We’re not officially babysitting her, but her mom sometimes sends her over to play video games with us when she would otherwise be home alone for most of the day. More for safety than supervision, you know?” She shrugged, “Also, good supports are hard to come by, and she’s a decent sub when the others aren’t around.”

“Decent? Rude,” Miley scoffed, “I’m better than Shannon.”

“Depends on the match-up,” Paige said, “Anyway, same deal as last night. We’ll for sure stay out of your way. But she and my sister are classmates, and we could always use a fifth. I’m sure we could find something easy for Miley to play. Unless you game, Noelle? I imagine Miley would be happy just watching.”

‘Happy’ was a strong word. And maybe Noelle didn’t see it, but I definitely noticed the real Miley subtly react every time her name was mentioned. 

Noelle didn’t commit to anything. “We’ll see,” she said, “Miley and I have to go take care of a couple things first. What’s your name, again?” she asked, to the seated redhead who literally looked like the dark-clad rulebreaker who needed someone to keep her in line.

Miley smiled and glanced my way for a moment before saying, “I’m Alyssa.”