✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

77. Adult Choices

This chapter is dedicated to Jordan. Thank you for all your support!

Everybody else should thank Jordan, for giving you a chance to read this chapter sooner.

Once they had all reached some kind of agreement, Gabby was more than eager to change the subject. There were other things to discuss, less controversial topics like the latest rumours about a famous comics author being sequestered in a Birmingham hotel to work on the story for a film that hadn't even been announced yet. Tess nodded to a couple of comments, but dashed off to the bathroom as soon as the two grown-ups weren't looking in her direction.

She was lucky, she knew. Any other day, she would have ended up humiliated in front of people whose opinion she really cared about. Of course, Ffrances could probably guess that she was having problems with her bladder control; but she might think it was something like a little leak. Being too stubborn to excuse herself for such a long conversation would have shown a whole new level of childishness, one that Tess was sure she would be more comfortable getting over on her own. This wasn't some medical problem, or any kind of stress-related issue. This evening she couldn't put the blame on anything but her own attitude, and that really stung.

She had been lucky that she was wearing a diaper. Less so in that it was already leaking around the edges, and she had to wash herself thoroughly before she could feel clean again. At least it meant she could keep that little accident a secret. She knew that they would wonder where she had got to, so she gathered a bunch of fluffy towels from her room and turned on the shower.

"I don't have anything to hide," she told herself, as if she could believe it. "I've finished school for the year, it's time to relax. Clean Tess for a new start. Maybe a new style."

That almost sounded believable; if she wanted to change her appearance, the winter break was a good time to try out new things. After stepping out of the shower, enjoying the feelings of both cleanliness and warmth, she tried putting her hair up. She would have to dry it before experimenting properly with different styles, but she could imagine it might be nice to try something different. In a way she was celebrating: she had made it through another year, and proved that she could cope without the constant support of her parents.

She was almost dancing as she made her way back to her room, and picked out some clothes. The sweatshirt was still waiting for her on the heater, ready to warm her up when she got home. But it seemed like the day's conversations had included more breakthroughs than she had expected, and she wanted something to mark the occasion. After all, she knew now that she would be able to explore the mysteries of hypnosis and regression at her own pace. She knew what was going on, so she didn't need to worry about her cousin's strange treatment of her anymore, and the mystery that had been bugging her on a subconscious level since she moved into this room was finally resolved. It was a big weight off her mind, even if she hadn't thought about it before.

She put her jacket in the laundry bag, as well as the underwear and socks she had retrieved from her school bag. They were still damp, but not enough to be noticed as she threw them into the machine. She had to wash her ties as well, and the school scarf that she almost never wore because it was so itchy. They could be washed with everything else, according to the labels, but for some reason would get all messed up in a spin dryer. And she knew from past experience that the ties inexplicably took several days to dry, so it made so much more sense to wash them at the end of the year, when she knew she wouldn't need them for weeks. And the benefit of this method was that it gave her two bags of laundry; including just about everything she owned that didn't need a weekly wash. And that meant nobody would be suspicious about her turning the machine on tonight.