✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

77. Adult Choices

Then she turned her attention back to the pile of junk she had emptied out from her pocket. A broken earring, receipts from Brunchietta a few weeks before, stray coins, a borrowed comb that she had forgotten to return to Liz. Two sets of gloves, now that the air was so icy, and a hand warmer just in case she needed it. And a pacifier; she had carried it out of the house without thinking, put it in her pocket out of fear someone else might see, and then forgotten it was there. She knew she should return it to Gabby, really. She might have more plans. Tess held the little piece of plastic and stared at it for a few minutes. She might end up sucking on it sooner or later; she'd said that she would tolerate Gabby treating her like a child, and would be willing to experiment, just so long as she could make the rules when it came to the more in-depth fantasy sessions. If that agreement meant she could invite Spike to visit sooner or later, she was sure it was an easy price to pay.

"Better to show willing," she murmured to herself. "Don't want her seeing this as an unfair set of rules we're forcing on her." As much as she wanted to be taken seriously as an adult, she knew that Gabby's goodwill would be important in the coming year. She wiped the pacifier clean with an antibacterial cleaning wipe, rinsed it to clear away any residue, and then put it in her mouth. It took a little concentration to start sucking on it; it wasn't an instinctive motion anymore, but it was really soothing once she let herself admit that she was giving in to being treated like a child. She glanced at herself in the mirror before she went downstairs, and realised that she looked kind of weird with such a cute pink thing in her mouth, and such an aggressively grey sweatshirt and pants. She thought about changing, and then remembered what else she had found as she moved in. One more way to check her detective work.

She had a huge closet on one side of the room. Easily big enough to hold all of her clothes, so she hadn't paid attention to the stuff that was already in there when she moved in. There were a couple of garment bags, the kind of thing you would expect to see a suit return from dry cleaning in, but the first sight of pink taffeta had told Tess they had to be Alice's clothes, and she'd just pushed them to the back without investigating further. Even if there was something tasteful in there behind all the pink, it would have been way too small for Tess. Clothes made for a girl of twelve or thirteen would probably fit her, but there had been no chance that was what Alice had left behind.

Now she slid all of her clothes along the rail, and rearranged them in groups. Her summer clothes could go to the back; she should have put them aside weeks ago. The thickest, warmest, snuggliest jackets and hoodies came to the front, things made for a cold winter. And her hand-me-downs from Alice could come out to have a look at them. And like she'd half expected, they weren't made for children at all. They were full-size replicas of little kids' designs, giving Tess a whole new image of who the Alice she imagined might have been. Alice didn't even exist, that was the saddest thing. Gabby had made a whole room, and bought all these clothes, for a person in her dreams. Just in case she ever met her.

Now Tess was filling the role. Gabby had been pushing her for ages, hoping she might try some of these clothes. That was why she hadn't moved them to the box room in the days before Tess arrived. It made so much sense, and Tess didn't want her cousin to be sad anymore. Not if she would play nice now. So she looked through the different bags until she found one she thought was pretty and about her size. She knew in the back of her mind this was a dumb idea. Would it be better waiting until Gabby came up with some far-fetched reason to dress her up like a little kid again? Maybe. Was the pacifier bobbing in her mouth making her less upset by all the cute clothes? Probably, she knew when she tried to analyse her own thoughts and realised that she'd been thinking of Ffrances and Gabby as "the grown-ups". But she had a message she wanted to give her cousin: that she was willing to do this, as long as it was on her terms. And she knew that if she showed she was willing, that message would be better understood.