Chapter 19 - Children’s Clothes - 3’4”

I quickly proceeded into my bedroom with the bag of new clothes.  I couldn’t wait to change into something that would actually fit or something close to it.  I tossed the Kohl’s bag down next to the bed and began to rummage through its contents.

I pulled out what looked like jeans.  As I fished them out I noticed I was holding up a pair of children’s overalls.  I tossed them to the side and grabbed the first article of clothing my fingers touched.

I pulled the piece of clothing from the bag and realized it was a button-collar baby blue polo shirt, something a mother would dress her toddler in.

“She got me toddler’s clothing,” I realized in my head, “I can only fit into small children’s clothes.  Angela must see me as the child I’m becoming.”

My heart sank as I tossed the shirt aside with the overalls.  I then grabbed the weighty bag by the handles and dumped the contents out onto the floor.

I was horrified by what fell out of the bag onto my bedroom floor.  Along with the assortment of clothes a mother would dress her small child in to go to church was a plastic package.

Reading the label stung like a slap to the face, ‘Pampers Cruisers’ was plastered across the front in white letters accompanied with a picture of a smiling baby.  Angela had bought me a package of diapers.  

My knees gave out beneath me and I dropped down on the floor, as I began to sob.  I was nothing more than a baby to my neighbor, the woman I saw as a second mother.  Tears flowed from my eyes like a river.  I couldn’t handle the sheer shock of the past few days that, once again, came flowing back to me in that moment.

I don’t know how long I had been lying on my bedroom floor, but I realized I had become very hungry.  I pushed myself up into a seated position on the floor and wiped the tears from my face.  I looked up at the clock which read 6:15; realizing I had rolled around on the floor crying for the better part of two hours I decided I needed to do something to try to make myself feel a little better.

I stood up and looked at the pile of clothes on my bedroom floor.  The diapers stared me in the face.  I reached down and picked up the package of baby’s undergarments and tossed them angrily to the wall which I had been using for measurements.  The weight was heavier than I expected and the momentum from tossing the diapers nearly sent me sailing across the room with them.

I looked at the clothes I had on.  The jeans looked like an uglier version of bell-bottoms and the shirt hung down to my knees.

“Great,” I thought angrily to myself, “now to choose my clothes from the children’s section.”

I picked up the blue polo I tossed to the side with the overalls and found a pair of khaki colored shorts.  I still needed underwear, so I began rummaging through the pile until I found a pack of superhero boxers.

“I guess being the size of a child isn’t too bad,” I thought to myself.  I was a big fan of Marvel comic superheroes.