✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

3. My Confession

This should have been posted before midnight, but it's only half an hour late. So here is a bonus chapter dedicated to Kilian. Without their support, you'd have to wait a few more days to see this; so you should all thank Kilian and the other people who support me on Patreon. Thank you.

"Tess told me a secret," I whispered. It wasn't just that whispering gave me an excuse to move a fraction of an inch closer, or that I loved to breathe right into Ffrances's ear and feel her shiver with anticipation. Because the things I was about to tell her were a real secret, and if she didn't keep it to herself it would hurt both me and my beloved baby cousin.

"What kind of secret?"

"She's... I'm not sure I even know the word for it. Tess's mom, Trish, had a big bust up with Uncle Phil, right? I might have mentioned it. It's not that important right now, but after that half of them wouldn't talk to them anymore. Trish always had this huge extended family, right? Experts in everything, a small army who all had each other's back. And now she insulted their church, their faith, and the town they grew up in. They were pretty much ostracised. Tess didn't know what was going on, she just knew she wasn't seeing her aunts and uncles anymore. Trish and John both threw themselves into work to get over it, from what I heard. And they weren't paying so much attention to Tess."

I didn't see her nod, but I felt her moving against my chest. She was listening, paying full attention to my words. She believed it too, which was no big surprise because it was all very easy to believe, even if she didn't know the people involved.

"Anyway, she felt a little left out. And then she's been bullied at school too. Not recently, but it was pretty bad when she was younger. She went from having this huge extended family all doting on her, and a tight group of friends at school, to a new school with nobody who cares and parents who barely have time to show her that they still care. She wasn't old enough to properly understand then, and she felt like her childhood was kind of tainted. So now..."

"Like she wants to catch up on what she missed?"

"Yeah, that's what I get. She reached out to me because she remembered playing together when she was a kid. She's my cousin once removed or something, I'm not sure the right terminology, but to her I think I was more like the cool young aunt. A symbol of the bits of childhood she enjoyed, so she jumped at the chance for me to look after her again. She wants to recapture her childhood, see, and her parents leaving the country again was a perfect excuse. She couldn't tell them that, and she's embarrassed to admit it even to me. She's always felt like she's under so much pressure to grow up and be responsible, see, but really she wants somewhere she can be nurtured and find out what childhood would have been like if she was loved and supported. She wants to go back to being the little kid with everybody looking out for her again."

"I think I can see that. If she can still be mature enough to get her schoolwork done, or whatever, I think that's pretty neat. And you're going to such lengths to create a good environment for her. What are her parents going to say about the pink? Wouldn't it be better to change everything up after she moves in, so you know she'll like it?"

"I thought about that. But I had to work with the days Malcolm was available. And her parents, well. They've not spoken to anyone in the family since Trish's big meltdown. So all they know about this place is that I moved here after uni. If they question it, I'll tell them it was like that when I moved in. I'll give her the chance to make any changes she wants, anyway. It's all about making her feel safe as soon as she arrives, so she knows she doesn't have to be embarrassed. I bet she'll still have a hell of a time trying to admit it out loud, after all those years of people shaming her for acting childish at all. But at least this way, she can see how it feels before we have to have any serious conversations. She can deny what she wants without having to give it up. And making it look like it's always been like that, I think there are other benefits. Like she won't feel self-conscious. I don't want her to know how much effort I'm putting in, I don't want her to feel like she owes me. If the furniture is a bit worn, and the carpet is stamped down, there's no nagging feelings of guilt over asking for something weird."

Ffrances nodded slowly, and I could imagine the thoughts jostling around in her head right now. I hoped she would understand, and she wouldn't have a problem with all this. It all made sense, I was sure of that, even if I wasn't technically speaking the truth now. I knew that Tess wanted to be young again, that much was clear, but she hadn't had the courage to come out and say it even to me. But when she contacted me so soon after I realised I wanted a little to care for, it could only have been fate. Tess was in the dark about my decorating attempts as much as her parents, but I was sure that it wouldn't take long for her to realise how much she loved it. And with Ffrances helping out, I was sure it would be that much easier to make it feel real for her.

"You really got in this girl's head, didn't you? Repressed desires, and providing an avenue to express them in a healthy way. You picked up something from those psych seminars, then?"

"I picked up the best thing to ever happen to me," I chuckled, and nibbled her ear. The conversation about Tess was over now, I was sure. There wasn't much need for understanding human psychology in my line of work, but I'd found it interesting enough that I'd taken a two-module elective in the last year of university. I'd spent most of the course ignoring the slides on the whiteboard, drawing distracted sketches of the teaching assistant's ass. I would never have had the courage to say anything, but apparently my gaze was too direct to overlook, and she'd offered me a private tutorial after I struggled with one of the exams. Three years later, she was seriously considering moving in with me; so there was no way I could have forgotten that particular part of my education.