Hidden Burdens (working title)

Chapter Thirty-One

So when Samson chose to sleep in the middle of the hallway, Kimmy did not see him when she randomly stepped on his paw. He yelped as Kimmy stumbled backwards. 

The commotion woke Ben, who came out to check what happened. He turned on his bedroom light to see. Kimmy froze when she heard Ben call out first and remained frozen when she saw him standing in the doorway with the light on behind him. Ben asked why Kimmy was up like Stella, but also asked if she was using the bathroom.

She had managed a timid nod. 

To her relief, he didn't get mad and let her proceed. A night light was always kept in the bathroom, but since that night, another night light was put out in the hallway to help the kids see not only the way to the bathroom, but downstairs as well, in case they needed a drink of water or midnight snack. 

Even after that night, Kimmy remained cautious as to not wake anyone up, including the other kids and after what she had overheard earlier, she definitely remained on high alert.

She didn't even turn on the bathroom light. Kimmy tiptoed to the bathroom, slowly shut the door, making sure to hold the doorknob down until it was shut all the way, and carefully lifted the knob to lock it. 

Once Kimmy was finished and pulled her shorts back up, it took her a while to work up the courage to press the flush valve down. She had tried not flushing a few times before. But having to share the bathroom with Claudia, who wasn't happy having to wake up to someone else's bodily fluids and requested Kimmy remember to flush. 

She tried counting to five, but chickened out before starting over. Eventually, she just went for it to get it over with, forcing her hand to press the valve before chickening out again.

Kimmy froze, listening for anybody to wake up. Thankfully, the toilet wasn't as loud as those public toilets that can get really loud. This one wasn't loud enough to wake anyone. To Kimmy's knowledge, anyway.

Now with that was over and done, she moved over to the sink. 

Before, Kimmy never really washed her hands except in school when she was still young enough for her teachers to take the entire class for a restroom break. They would stand outside to make sure each kid washed their hands. Other than that, she never had anyone remind her. Until Kayla started getting on her about proper hygiene, and that included washing her hands, as well. She had even put a checklist on the back of the bathroom door to remind Kimmy and any other future kids, on what to do before leaving the bathroom.

Kimmy carefully turned the faucet so a small stream of water ran down. Enough to not make a lot of noise. She learned even the smallest stream made a pretty decent noise, just like it did on full blast. So Kimmy found a balance that seemed to make the least noise and was enough to wet her hands and while she got some soap and lathered them.

Miguel had taught her to sing Happy Birthday while washing her hands, but that was too long, in her opinion. At least during the night. So Kimmy sped through the process as quickly as possible before shutting the water off. 

She then dried her hands on the towel hanging by the sink, before carefully unlocking and opening the door to tiptoe back to her room. Once she was back in bed, Kimmy was able to relax, relieved no one had woken up.

It took a while to fall back to sleep, especially while trying not to think about anything but that. Unless she was extremely tired, falling asleep never came easy, and it took a good bit just laying there with her stuffed animals with her eyes closed. For a while she gave up and flew her Ender Dragon in the air above her and even grabbed the Elric brothers from their post to "fight" the dragon before trying again.