✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

The Last New Start

This book and My Cousin's Keeper tell the same story from different perspectives. Both of them will be complete stories in their own right, but reading them together might give a little more depth. I will be writing these for NaNoWriMo 2021, which means that I will attempt to post at least one chapter of one of the stories every day in November; and if I can write faster than that, then any remaining chapters will be available to all my Patreon supporters (including the $1 tier) for this month.

If there's anything in particular you would like to see in this story, please leave me a comment.

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Tess isn't a baby. She's practically an adult already, in her own mind. She's small enough that people often think she's younger than she is, and that's enough for her to get bullied every time she starts at a new school. Something that happens depressingly often, as her parents are sent to manage a new office in a new part of the world every year or two.

This time, Tess is determined that she won't go through the usual torment of being the new girl. She won't have to say goodbye to people she's spent the last year getting to know, and she won't have to say goodbye to her first boyfriend just because of Dad's career. This time she might be able to stay, because Grandma Forton says that there's family in the area. Tess's cousin Gabby has a house on the far side of the school district, and she has a spare room where Tess might be able to stay. Just long enough to finish school, until she's old enough to look after herself in the eyes of the law.

The only problem is that Tess and Gabby haven't spoken since the previous time she lived in this country, and after the big move it's hard to persuade Gabby that she isn't a child anymore. Cutesy clothes that aren't really appropriate for her age; decor that would be better suited to a nursery; and a regular stream of gifts that, while thoughtful, show that Gabby never stopped thinking of Tess as a child. Tess needs to find some way to prove her adulthood, and wetting the bed certainly isn't the best way to go about that.