✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

71. The Careless Child

Tess and Tami chatted about their plans for the holidays on the way to school. It was probably the same conversation she could have had with anyone; but it passed the time. His family didn't do much, but he was happy to exchange gifts with all his friends at school. Tess reached into her bag, and offered a cigar-shaped parcel that proved to be a plastic tie clip. It had been one of the cheapest she got for anyone, but she knew that Tami's girlfriend had made a couple of unflattering comments about the way his tie flapped around in the wind, so she thought he would appreciate it. Even if they'd only spoken once a day over the last few months, they were starting to be good friends now. The gift she got in return was a weird rubber thing that turned out to be phone holder with a wrist strap; to guard against dropping it on the floor of the bus again.

They were coming up to the edge of Raybridge by then, and Tess shifted position in her seat. She'd just finished her coffee, so she stowed the travel mug in the top of her bag and pulled it closed. She had left it pretty late to sort out gifts for all of her friends, but she felt good to know that it was the last day now, and everything was going according to plan. Her only worry was that Spike would be alone with his parents for a week, and she didn't know if any of his other friends had parents understanding enough to let him crash. But now she couldn't help him either, so her presence made little difference.

After Christmas, she decided, would be different. If he was out of home and afraid, he could stay with her. The spare room opposite hers was much less full of boxes than it had been, presumably because Ffrances had been helping to sort out the junk now. Gabby might object to having a boy stay over, but there wasn't anything practical she could do to stop him. She certainly wouldn't be able to physically extract him from the house, and Tess was going to make it very clear that giving one of her closest friends a place to stay was not negotiable. If all else failed she could appeal to Ffrances, but that was still a last resort. While Gabby made a point of doing whatever her girlfriend said, Tess could see that making every decision wasn't really something that Ffrances particularly wanted. She needed a break from responsibility too.

Letting Spike visit would risk him finding out about Tess's problem. But she was prepared to do that, and she told herself that she had the courage. If she hadn't got over the problem by then. It didn't seem likely now, no matter how much she wanted it to. But she could still hope. She had packed a couple of the overnight diapers in the bottom of her clothes bag, just to be safe while she was visiting parents, and she would be able to get more from any pharmacy once she arrived. But her bedwetting had started after her parents left; so if stress had any part in it, she might find that she was back to normal when she got back there. If so, that would be a valuable clue in working out how to stop this once and for all. And if not, she knew that she would need to see a doctor. She already had already looked up a number to call; a clinic where she didn't know the siblings of any of the nurses or admin staff, so there was no chance anyone else would find out what she was in for. She needed discretion.

But that was all a plan for the future. Everything neatly planned, just in case, but she was quietly confident that she would be back to normal once her surroundings changed again.

"So what do you think about Jackson?" Tami asked, and Tess realised she had briefly tuned him out while lost in her own thoughts. That was something that didn't used to happen so much, as well. She really needed to regain her focus, and her confidence, if she was going to prove she was living comfortably in the absence of her family.

"Sorry, I didn't catch– oh, crap!" Tess almost yelled as a realisation hit her. "I just remembered... somebody I need a gift for. I'll go to the supermarket before school, catch you later." She grabbed her bag and ran awkwardly to the front of the bus, hoping that she wasn't too late. The bus would take at least five minutes getting around the one way system once it reached the other side of Raybridge, so she wasn't delaying her journey too much. If she ran, she could reach the back gate just in time to not be late. If she was lucky.

There were a couple of younger boys waiting to get on the bus at the corner of Serena Lane, and she dashed out to the confusion of the driver while they were getting on. Then she darted across the corner of the playing field to reach the back of ShopQuik, a tacky local supermarket. There was a sparse gift selection there, barely enough to convince someone that you hadn't forgotten them completely, but that wasn't really what Tess was after. Beyond a half dozen aisles of mixed groceries, most of them budget brands, she was running as fast as possible towards the tiny café where many local traders stopped to get cheap mass-produced sandwiches on the way to work. There was a fridge full of sandwiches and pastries, a selection of cakes under a class cover, and counter where a bored-looking barista would stand between a coffee machine and a microwave. And at the far end of the counter, a door where a sign bearing a couple of instantly recognisable stick figures.

Tess glared at the coffee machine as she passed. It wasn't to blame; it was her who had unthinkingly downed at least three cups before leaving the house this morning. She had been so focused on the dull throbbing behind her eyes that she didn't give a thought to the pressure in her bladder. She reached the toilet door and hit it with a thud. Not a second too soon, she thought, before she realised that the door wasn't moving.

Somewhere behind her, she could hear a member of staff clearing their throat. They were about to tell her that the restroom was only for customer use, and wouldn't be opened until the café started serving; half past nine on Fridays. She'd completely forgotten the odd irregularity here, despite there being separate signs outside the building listing opening times for the shop and café. Almost crying in desperation, knowing that she had to find somewhere closer than the school, she turned around and headed back across the park.

There were other shops close by, and it was quicker to cut across the park than to walk around the outside on the street. There were one or two little cafés, but they mostly did food to take out with one or two tables on the pavement for anybody who wasn't on their way somewhere else. Raybridge wasn't a big town; nobody would be here for longer than it took to do whatever they came for. Would any of those places let her use the bathroom? It wasn't likely; she would have to stop and ask, and after so much coffee she knew that she couldn't hold it that long. There was no way she would have been able to make it to school at this rate.

Tess wasted precious seconds thinking about where to go, but still running across the grass in the hope that she'd chosen the right direction. When she realised, she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of that first. There was a little brick building on the corner of the park; a tiny outhouse that they had to have in order to satisfy some dumb law before the local under-13 hockey team could play there. It was the only building on a park that was otherwise just two grassy fields separated by a sad clump of trees, so it was hard to believe she'd not thought of it. But then, she'd never spent time in Raybridge unless she was with someone who lived nearby. And she'd never left it so late to realise that she needed to go before. Had relying on diapers at night somehow weakened her bladder, or was this just another sign of the same stress?

The worries flashed across her mind as she ran along the wooded area. She could see the tiny brick building now, about the same size as the burger van that sometimes parked beside it, but there had never been a more welcome sight. As long as it hadn't been trashed again, she would be fine. And if she could actually make it. But as she felt the pressure inside her release, she knew that it was already too late.