Brianna lifted her head and let out a yawn that stretched her jaw. Discomfort made her squirm in the bed. She slid a hand under the covers and immediately teared up. The bed was wet again. She froze in bed, listening and hoping that the house would be silent. No luck.
By the sounds of it at least two of her roommates were already awake. The sun blazed through her white daisy curtains; a sign that it was likely they were all awake. For a few minutes she burrowed back into the covers despite the dampness. She wished she could vanish into the bed and disappear. Or better yet, that the stain would.
“I don’t know why this is happening!” Briana despaired. “I haven’t wet the bed since I was six. It’s been ten times this month, and it’s happening more and more often.”
With a groan she crawled out of bed and stripped off her soaked panties and nightshirt. She was able to scamper to the bathroom to shower without running into anyone. Scraggly red hair greeted her in the mirror. She sighed and tied it up. Haircuts were another thing that weren’t happening. At least the rest of her looked good. A smattering of freckles across a slim body. “Nothing like being poor to keep you trim.”
Back in her room she dressed in dry clothes and faced her bed grimly. The comforter was too bulky to launder easily and seemed to be barely damp. She stripped the sheets and wrapped them in her wet bath towel. With the window open and a bit of febreeze on the mattress, she hoped no one would notice.
Her feet creaked on the old wooden floors. Normally she loved an old house with tons of character. Now it was a traitor reporting her every move. Since quiet wasn’t an option, she made her way down the stairs quickly to the living room.
Her roommate Suzie was there, curled up on the green antique couch. Brianna froze for a moment, but the blonde girl didn’t look up from her phone. Brianna rounded the wall that supported the stairs and opened the basement door. Another flight of creaky stairs and she was on nice quiet concrete. Even better, the washing machine was free. A huge wave of relief washed across Brianna when she set the washer running.
Briana checked her bank balance for the hundredth time while she leaned on the kitchen counter. Only a couple hundred dollars left. Her roommates had been generous enough to let her skip the rent. They even let her eat from the groceries they bought. It was a lifesaver, but a guilt-inducing one. The college’s work study wasn’t taking any new student workers mid semester either.
“There’s nothing online for jobs.” Briana sighed. “I’m sending out three applications a day but nobody replies.”
“Hey, Bri?” Suzie startled Briana out of her thoughts. “Can you come to the living room? We wanted to talk to you about something.”
“This is it. They’re kicking me out.” Briana’s mouth went dry, her stomach knotted. She managed a nod but couldn’t speak. Her fears redoubled when she saw her other four roommates sitting in the living room.
Suzie led her to the armchair and took a seat on the right-hand couch next to Jane. As a film school student she was the most quirky of the group, short blue hair and a lot of tattoos. When she’d first moved in everyone called her Manic Pixie Dream Girl until it got to be too much. Anything but plain Jane was still in pajamas, her long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had striking German features with a resting bitch face that was legendary in the Economics department.
Erin and Casey were on the left-hand couch, still dressed for their morning run. The only sporty members of the house, Erin was freckled and burnt, while Casey tended to evenly tan. They always seemed to sit together; Erin was the only one in the house who wouldn’t be dwarfed by Casey’s six and a half feet.
Across the coffee table in the other armchair was Veronica, dressed in her usual black house dress. She had a quiet, commanding presence most of the time. At a meeting like this she had the look of royalty. Not condescending, just the assumption that she was in control. She didn’t even need to flex her wealth or Postdoc status to have authority in the house, but they certainly helped. Brianna sat at Veronica’s direction, eyes already brimming with tears.
“I think you probably know why we wanted to talk.” Veronica said.
“I’m sorry!” Briana burst into tears. “I can have my stuff packed up in a couple of days.”
“What? Huh? No!” Several of the girls responded in unison.
“Briana, no.” Veronica said with a concerned frown. “Nobody is kicking you out. I’m sorry you thought that’s what this was!”
“What then?” Brianna sniffled.
“You have been… having to do a lot of laundry lately.” Veronica said.
Briana flushed. “That was really kindly worded. Carefully worded. I wonder if she learned that in the counseling program.”
“We’re worried about you, and we want to help.” Veronica continued when Briana didn’t seem like she was going to reply.
“Help how?” Briana sighed. “I don’t have insurance, or money for a doctor. I can’t ask you to cover me on that too!”
“That’s not what we were offering.” Veronica said kindly. “We did get you a couple of things that might help though.”
Erin hopped up and grabbed a package from behind the couch. A package of incontinence undergarments. Brianna’s heart sank and her face flamed again.
“I uh, I don’t know why it’s happening but I’m not sure that I really need…” She stammered.
“I know it’s rough even thinking about wearing those!” Erin said. “So I got you some different ones too.” She placed a second package on the coffee table. This one had bright colors, proudly proclaiming the efficacy of its pullups.
“Uh, I’m pretty slim but I don’t think I can fit into pullups.” Brianna said, confused.
“They’re adult sized!” Casey chimed in.
“I know they look kind of kid-y.” Erin said. “But they’re way prettier than the Depends.”
“I don’t think…” Brianna began.
“Please think about it.” Veronica said. “Use them until you figure out what’s going on.”
“Veronica’s the one covering my rent…” Briana hesitated, “Those things probably weren’t cheap either. This is actually really nice of them, even if it’s embarrassing.”
“Um, okay. I’ll try them for at least a couple of days.” Briana said. She blushed and sank back in the chair as the other girls applauded.
“We want you to be okay.” Jane said.
“We’re here to help you, okay?” Suzie smiled at Briana.
“It takes a lot of courage to accept help, especially about something like this.” Veronica said.
Briana wiped away tears. Her roommates rose up en masse and helped her out of the chair. Surrounded in warm group hug, Brianna sobbed a couple of times and took a deep rattling breath.
“Thanks everybody.” The hug closed tightly around her again. “You’ve all been really nice.”
“We’re friends!” Suzie declared.
“Just because we’re not a sorority doesn’t mean that I don’t think of you all as my sisters.” Veronica said. “We’ve had this house together for three years.”
Brianna nodded, wiping her eyes. Jane helped her carry the supplies up to her room, giving her another hug before she left. Briana put the packages in the far back of her closet and realized there was a third one as well. A plastic mattress cover, that had been sitting under the depends.
“I can’t afford to replace my mattress.” Briana thought grimly. She slipped the cover on her mattress and made the bed with new sheets. You couldn’t tell by looking at it, and when she crawled under the covers, the feel wasn’t too bad. “I sure have good friends. I wish I knew why this was happening!”