✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

23. What Matters Most

If this story was going to be a trilogy, the first book would end with Tess finding her little headspace for the first time. I've finally got up to that point, writing 35 chapters (50163 words) of The Last New Start, and 36 chapters (50313 words) of My Cousin's Keeper during November.

I did it! Does anybody want to say congratulations?

Of course, there's a lot more of the story still to come. But I'm happy to have reached this point, because if gives me a feel for how long the story is going to be. Thank you all for supporting me; especially the people who voted on the chapters they liked, and the people who are supporting me on Patreon so I can have more time to write. Thank you all!

The history exam was tough, but Tess was confident that a couple of study sessions with Gabby through the week had really helped. As he collected up the papers Mr Minchin glanced over her answers and gave her a rare smile, so she thought that was a good sign she could would be rising above her accustomed position at the bottom of the class now. Once she got home she called her parents, and they turned the phone around to show her a brilliant sunset, while the sky at home was only grey. Later she realised it could have been a sunrise; she still wasn't sure which way the time difference would be. They complimented her new blinds, and the plastic plant on her desk; and promised that next time they would be able to call from somewhere other than their apartment, and show her some of the wonderful sculpture parks that San Lorenzo was famous for.

It all seemed like another world to Tess. After a couple of weeks living with Gabby, it was hard to remember how things had been when it was just her and her parents. She did her best to impress them with how well she was coping, showing them that she wasn't as young as she looked. But somehow it seemed to matter less now. Not because she was any less determined to be considered an adult, but because they were so far away, and they weren't actively involved in her life now. She could show them how she was living through video calls, or tell them all about it when she went to visit at Christmas, and it didn't seem like it would make much difference.

Days passed. She wanted to make a point of speaking to her family once a week, but it started to seem less important. She took them for a walk around the park opposite the house, to show them the quiet beauty of leaves falling from the trees, but those little chats didn't feel like the high point of her week anymore. Talking to her parents had become a routine; like recounting tales of school and friends to Grandma Lexi once a week when she'd been younger. It was still a good thing, but it wasn't a big deal.

That particular conversation had carried on late into the night, which explained why Tess was now forcing her eyes open and trying to focus enough to make out the numbers '10:07' on the clock beside her. It had been a long time since she'd slept in so late; she had been a naturally early riser even before adapting her schedule based on the time it took to get to school from here. Still, she was sure that she had slept well. She felt completely refreshed once her eyes were open; she'd gone to bed almost as soon as she'd finished talking to Dad, and hadn't woken once in the night.

"No!" she gasped, shifting position and realising that she wasn't quite the adult she was still hoping. One more wet bed, just when she was starting to hope that she'd put all that behind her. She'd thought that it was just because of the stress of moving, but that didn't seem likely anymore. She had been here almost a month now, and must have woken up like this six or seven times. There was no sign that it was getting better, and no pattern that she could recognise. She didn't know what to do, and she still couldn't bring herself to admit the problem to anyone else. Could she speak to a doctor? Probably not. It was just too humiliating, something she couldn't believe herself.

She pulled herself out of bed, and went straight for the shower. Normally she might have rushed to get her laundry done before Gabby woke, but she knew that was impossible today. Her only option would be to get it done if her cousin went out for something. She didn't know what their plans were today, but there was bound to be something that would take up an hour or two of Gabby's time. Last Saturday, they had all gone to see the new Cerberus Shark movie, and Tess had found that conveniently forgetting her coat had given her an opportunity to put the washing machine on at record speed while the adults waited in the car; and she had somehow managed to tidy everything up again before they went into the kitchen on their return. But this secret was getting even harder to keep, especially when she had to keep on doing laundry more than once each week. Would she really be able to keep it up?

While she stood in the shower with hot water pouring down around her, Tess tried to think of some kind of plan. Something she could do to keep her secret, or something she could do to stop it happening at all, but on both fronts she couldn't come up with anything that wasn't just hoping for the best. It was a miracle she'd managed to hide it so far, so she crossed her fingers and prayed for her good luck to continue.

"Tess?" she heard Gabby's voice outside on the landing, and frantically rubbed at her hair with the towel. "Are you awake yet? It's been–"

Tess opened the bathroom door and stepped out, a towel still wrapped around her. But Gabby had gone silent a second before. She was standing there now, the door to Tess's room pushed half open. Checking to make sure her young cousin was okay, without realising which room she was in.

"I... uhh..."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry. I've been to the shops, and when I got back I saw you didn't have breakfast yet. I was just a bit worried."

"Yeah, I overslept. Thought I should have a shower."

"So, is there something we need to talk about?"

"No," Tess said firmly. But it seemed Gabby was still waiting for an answer: "No, I can deal with it by myself. It's just a fluke, it could happen to anyone. I don't need..." She took a deep breath, fighting back the urge to start crying. She'd tried so hard, done everything right, and still her cousin was there to laugh at her. In that moment it seemed that everything had gone wrong at once, like her whole life was about to fall apart.

"I see. You don't have to be the strong one all the time, you know? You've seen Ffrances being the supportive carer when I was feeling ill. People support each other. When you've got a problem, you can trust the people around you to help. Now, how about you get some clothes on, while I sort breakfast. Then I can sort out the laundry while you eat, and you'll feel better after you have something hot inside you, right? And then we can talk properly, like adults."

"You're not going to call me a baby," she demanded, but as the words came out she heard that it sounded more like a question. "You're going to laugh at me?"

"Tess, I'll never laugh at you. But think about it like this. When you got stuck on your history exam, what did you do? You couldn't remember a president's name, so you put Stalin and laughed about it with your friends afterwards. You took away your worries by making it a joke, and that cheered you up enough to carry on with the next question and not get hung up on a little failure. That's what you always do; you laugh at every mistake, even your own, and that gives you more strength to keep going. Maybe it would be better for you if you could allow yourself to laugh at this as well."

"But I'm not a..." She couldn't even say the word now.

"I know. But maybe if you didn't let it bother you so much, you might find it easier. Reject stress, go back to baby. Or something like that."

This time, Tess could laugh a little. Not so much at her own misfortune, but she appreciated her cousin's almost-successful attempts to understand the current generation's memes.

"Now, you can get dressed. Let me help once in a while. Okay?"