✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

26. Comfortable

This chapter is for Kilian, with thanks again for supporting my work, and giving me a chance to become successful.

The alarm chirped, and Tess slowly opened her eyes. The dawn light was just beginning to pick out the engraved images on her blinds, and they weren't really visible yet. Almost automatically, she reached down with one hand to reassure herself that she wasn't lying on soaked sheets again. All dry; she was good. Despite all the times she had told herself that each wet morning was just a one off, and that waking up dry was still the norm, she was starting to feel a little happier when she found that it hadn't happened today. She allowed herself a smile; she had slept well, her sheets were dry, and she had woken before the second alarm from her phone kicked in. She thought that might be a good omen for the day ahead.

Sitting up in bed, she rubbed her eyes and stretched, trying to remember what day it was, and if there were any important events coming up that she might need a good omen for. She hadn't remembered any before she heard a buzz from her phone vibrating across the desk; and she knew it would be only a few seconds before the most irritating ringtone she had been able to find came blaring out of the speakers. She threw off the covers and started to stand, and only then noticed what was different this morning. The extra weight put her slightly off balance, and it felt like her underwear was just about ready to fall down, not fitting comfortably.

Tess glanced down, while her half-awoken brain slowly put the clues together. 'So that's what a wet diaper feels like,' the thought crossed her mind, followed by a tidal wave of shame. How could it have taken her so long to notice? Then her alarm was playing, and she took two steps over to the desk so she could make her phone shut up. The diaper swung from her waist, not as snug as it had been the night before, until she angrily ripped it off and threw it into the little trashcan in the corner.

She took a deep breath, trying to tell herself that it had just been her imagination, that nothing had happened. It hadn't felt wet at all. It wasn't wet, or clammy, just thicker than she remembered and a good deal heavier. There was no sign that she'd wet herself. No marks on the sheets or anything like that. She might be able to make out a bitter smell if she really concentrated, but that could easily have been her imagination. The only detail that even suggested something had happened had been the weight of the thing as she pulled it off, hitting the rest of the rubbish with a damp thud. That could just have been her imagination too; there was no way she could have wet her diaper like a little baby.

She denied it all the way through putting on her school uniform for this morning. She told herself that it hadn't happened, that she wasn't a child, and that nobody would ever know. But when she got to the bathroom and realised that she didn't need to pee, it became a little harder to doubt.

The only positive she could bring to mind was that it would at least be harder for anyone else to realise what had happened this time. She wouldn't be washing her sheets outside the normal schedule, and over the last few weeks she'd tried to get into the habit of emptying the bins if she noticed one was full before anyone else. Gabby said she didn't need to, but she had always thought that it was easier to feel like an adult that way; she didn't need someone else taking care of her, and doing all of the household chores occasionally would remind her that she was just living here, rather than under Gabby's care.

She ran downstairs and found her cousin preparing breakfast, as usual. She wondered if she looked more than usually flustered; if there was anything that would give her away if she hid her problem. But then, she couldn't think of any reason Gabby would ask. It wasn't her business, and she'd only said anything before when she saw the washing machine running early in the morning; which must have been a big clue.

"Got big plans for the day?" she asked, as nonchalantly as she could manage.

"Not much. Meeting with one of the artists about a set of posters for Claughton. Probably have at least an hour of middle managers flexing about how much power they think they have. You woke up okay this morning?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Tess reacted immediately, not even taking time to think. She couldn't believe Gabby would pry like that, when she didn't even have a reason to suspect. "I'm practically an adult now, I can wake up fine by myself. There's never a problem. Why do you think anything happened?"

"You seem wide awake, more lively than usual." Gabby paused speaking while she took a bite of her fried bread. Tess was still trying to calm down, to get her racing heart under control. So after she had swallowed a bite, Gabby continued: "You know you've seemed to be half asleep more often than not in the morning. I was on the point of suggesting you should get to bed earlier, but then you said you weren't sleeping so well in any case. It's good to see you cheerful and ready to face the world today. Is there anything different that's caused that? Or did something happen? You sound like something's wrong."

"No, no," Tess tried to think, and somehow the right words just came to her. She wasn't sure if that was luck, or because she had already thought her way through conversations like this a dozen times, whenever she'd failed to say the right thing in the past. "Nothing wrong. I've just been... thinking about something else. How some of my friends have to hide everything from their parents, because anything they say can be twisted and used against them. It just... you asked like you thought something was wrong, and all the paranoid stories came back to the front of my mind. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. I'm not your dad, you know? I'll treat you according to how you act, and as long as you clean up after yourself I won't stick my nose in your business. Until you ask me to, of course... you already know that a lot of things go more easily with a little help."

"Yeah. I'll ask, for sure. If I have a problem."

The topic of conversation changed again, back to movies that were due out in the next few weeks, and if there was anything Tess might like to watch the next time Ffrances felt like coming around just to veg out in front of the big screen. That was an easy conversation to navigate, and she was pretty sure that she had managed to hide her little accident for the first time since she had moved in here. That was a win.