✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

25. Crowded House

This chapter is dedicated to Jordan, with thanks again for all the help you have given me in the last couple of years. Thank you!

On Thursday, Tess had mixed feelings when she came out of school. She was happy because the big list of names on the wall in the history classroom had just been updated, showing that she had finally moved out of the bottom third of the group. It seemed like studying with her cousin helped more than going over the work with her friends; but she still missed being able to spend more time with people her own age. Still, it meant that she was one step closer to getting a set of grades that her parents would really be proud of; and a tiny step closer to the qualifications that would eventually earn her a university place.

The downside was Ashli Mortimer's cheerful attempts at conversation as they walked together towards the bus stop. She was cheerful, friendly, and quite witty; although she sometimes seemed to have trouble with social conventions, like knowing when not to talk. Right now she was rambling on, telling Tess and anyone else in earshot how excited she was about a new project that they had just been assigned for maths. It was a new kind of education, to see if competing against other classes would help to motivate them to learn more. It was an interesting idea, and Tess wasn't spectacularly bad at maths, but she found that she was still nervous about any kind of competition. She didn't want to be letting her friends down, or competing against them, and it just seemed like a weird thing to do. But Ashli apparently couldn't think of anything better to talk about.

Before too long, they reached the bus. Tess hoped that she would have the opportunity to talk about something else now, or to sort out her own thoughts about the project before discussing it with someone so relentlessly happy. But it seemed that wasn't going to happen, because Ashli was getting on the Palmerston bus too. Waiting for Tami, presumably, so that she could go with him back to his house today. And that reminded Tess that she still couldn't invite her friends to visit her, at least until she had made her room a lot less humiliating.

In the end Tess decided that it would be better for her self-confidence if she disembarked early. A short run would help to clear her head, even if she arrived a little later than usual. So she got out her phone, fired up the seldom-used FriendSpace app, and sent a message to Gabby seeking permission to be home a few minutes later. She didn't say why, but got an answer soon enough.

"Okay will you be back for dinner?"

She typed a quick reply, and then rushed to get off the next time the bus stopped. Almost immediately the cold air made her regret it; and cutting ten minutes off the bus route, she was sure that she had probably added half and hour or more onto the walk home. But perhaps that was better than saying something she might regret later to her newest friends. It wasn't their fault that Tess kept worrying about her school work, and it just seemed natural that any time Tami and Ashli were in the same room it turned into a public display of affection. Tess knew it was irrational to feel jealous, but she didn't want to say something stupid and lose friends over it. Jogging through the park would be much better.

Her hands were frozen when she reached the front door, but that wasn't such a big deal. She could feel a wall of warm air striking her, and something in the oven smelled delicious already. She waved to Gabby, then headed up to her room to get changed before dinner. It was later than usual, and the sun had already set, but it seemed like her cousin's timing was as perfect as ever.

What she hadn't expected was one more problem when she got back to her room. Long ago, she had gotten into the habit of making a folder for each project she had to do at school. She could decorate them with elaborate lettering, and recognise them instantly. It was an easy way to kickstart her confidence, and also helped her to feel more organised. It didn't matter that they didn't have as many handouts and written notes as they used to; a lot of their work could be submitted by email now, and projects were more likely to have presentations than written reports. She just had a shelf full of half-empty ring binders, slowly expanding to show the variety of topics she had learned.

The problem now was that a new project meant a new binder, and the shelf was almost full.

It wasn't full of project folders, like the ones in her room before the move. The ones from last year had all been packed in boxes for the move, and most of those hadn't yet been unpacked. But the shelf was still full of toys. There were teddy bears, unicorns, a cute family of rainbow-coloured ferrets, and for some reason a set of tiny pandas whose markings included a single letter of the chest of each creature. They hadn't been consigned to crates when Alice had moved out, she guessed, but that didn't tell her where she could put them. There were already several on the desk, where she had moved them when she had first started unpacking all the books and papers related to her school work. And there were some on the bed as well, where she could mostly ignore them. But every time she was forced to put one there, Tess found herself wondering if her friends would consider it childish. Would they look down on her for trying to keep the plush animals tidy, instead of just throwing them in the bottom of the closet?

She could have done that. She didn't need them. But they looked almost new, and they were still cute. They had clearly been looked after by the former inhabitant of the room, and it seemed somehow rude to the imagined Alice to throw away something she had taken care to preserve.

A new ferret joined its brethren on the bed. It might be a little childish, she reassured herself, but it wasn't like there was anywhere else to put the thing. She just needed to clear a space for all her school work, and her parents had always told her that it was better to be well organised. Just because she didn't particularly want some object in her room didn't mean she shouldn't find a place to put it and make sure it stayed there.

Once the shelf was tidy, she could head back downstairs and join Gabby for dinner. Ffrances wasn't around today, so there was more than enough time for the cousins to talk. They ended up watching some old sit-com for a couple of hours, and sharing stories about how their days had gone. Tess didn't say much about what was bothering her, because she knew it was completely irrational. Gabby didn't push her, but did her best to explain the project she was working on without mentioning any corporate secrets. It was easier for both of them to just watch the screen in front of them, and they stayed that way for a couple of hours, comfortable in each other's presence.

Eventually, Tess realised that she would still need to make a start on her new math project. She took one glass of wine up to her room with her, and focused solidly on her work for an hour and a half before getting distracted by messages from her friends on a whole variety of subjects. She knew that she should be working, but she didn't want to be rude when it was already so hard to get to see her friends. So she chatted as much as she could, until she felt sleep quickly creeping up on her.

"I need to sleep, too tired," she mumbled the words as she tapped out a much abbreviated version on her phone. The responses she got said that just about everyone would look forward to seeing her tomorrow. She had good friends, she knew, and living so far away was just making it more obvious.

She was almost tired enough to throw herself into bed and fall straight asleep now. Was it worth the effort of getting out clean pyjamas when she would be asleep in seconds anyway? But when she looked over to that corner of the room, a half-open drawer caught her attention. She could still remember what Gabby had said to her; about taking responsibility if she wanted to be treated like an adult. It had been nearly a week since she had wet her bed, but it had also been nearly a week since she'd slept through the night, and she felt that with her current energy levels the latter would be almost guaranteed.

She walked slowly over to the drawer, already struggling to keep her eyes open, and pulled out a pull-up diaper. They were supposed to be for growing girls, they said. The packaging probably used some stupid euphemism like 'night time underwear'. Girls of all ages could wear them, but in Tess's mind they were still diapers. This one had a picture of a Disney princess on the front, of all things. How could you say they weren't for children?

"I don't need it," she mumbled to herself, but the words didn't feel any happier. "It's just to keep Gabby happy." Then she stepped into the pull-up and tugged it up around her waist. It looked almost like real underwear, but she could feel that the seams were in different places. It was still just as embarrassing, but she told herself that it would only be for a week or two, until her cousin would accept that she didn't really need them. It wasn't her choice to wear something so childish, so just like the room's decoration it didn't say anything about her. Before long, everything would be back to normal.