One small thing. (RIDE THE CYCLONE)

One small thing- The sleepover. (3)

He goes off for a shower, I don't have any clean clothes I can give to him, so me and my father raid his cupboard for some clothes to give to Mischa. "You know, Connie, this is a great thing for you to do. Really showing off uranium spirit." I guess he's right. But, God, I hate that phrase. The words 'you're so nice' have been all I've heard of others since I was like twelve, it gets boring after a while. I don't like it, infact, I secretly hate it, but it's rude to show it. So I guess I need to keep up the act. The act of Constance Blackwood, "The nicest girl in town".

Finally, we got him some clean clothes, they're pyjamas, but judging by how he dresses normally and the fact it's late, I'm sure he won't care. I guess the pyjamas are a bit ugly, we didn't aim for style, we just aimed for what would fit him. Green and black tartan trousers and a white dad joke shirt is what we landed on. I'm sure it'll do. I knock the bathroom door and shout out "I've just left clothes at the door, for once you're finished!" He shouts back a muffled thank you.

I sit in my room waiting on him. I take in all the familiar sights surrounding me, my room is practically a time capsule to my childhood, filled to the brim with memories, good and bad. It's as if my room is frozen in time, forever stuck in Uranium. I look across from me, there's the bin, suffocating in paper. I know somewhere, in that bin, there's a shitty year book, with my face on it, dubbing me the "nicest girl in town", I hate it. Secretly, I hate it, I hate being seen as this shell of a person without people understanding who I am. Secretly, I agree with Mischa, I hate Uranium. It's as if I've been conditioned to live my entire being here, when there's a whole world.

My thoughts get cut off by my door opening. It's Mischa. He's wearing the lenses clothes and his hair is wet. Bundled up in his hands are all his clothes previously, usually, he walks into a room acting as if he owns the place. But today, he's just standing there like a lost puppy. I gesture for him to come in, he walks in and sits down on his "bed" on the ground and behinds to horribly fold his clothes. We begin to chat away about the usual stuff teens talk about. It feels odd, I've never seen him properly communicate with me, it's typically him ranting or going off in a mode about something.

I decide it's time I go to get changed, before I can get my clothes, he cuts me off by getting up and walking outside to wait. I can hear a small conversation between him and my mother.

I can hear a slight bump "Sorry, I uhm, I didn't see you there. Why aren't you in Connie's room, are you okay?" "Yes, uhm, she's getting ready, I'm just..waiting."
"Oh, okay, makes sense then! The house is usually cleaner than this, we weren't expecting guests or we would've prepared some stuff, we usually only have Constance's...other, choir friends." By other friends, she means Ocean, who basically lives here now. "I like the house, it's very, comfy. It looks fine, Mrs Blackwood." There's a hint of uneasiness in both of their voices. Mischa sounds worried, as if he's going to do something wrong, my mother, on the other hand, sounds scared, I don't blame her. She's only ever seen the side of him I knew until today and I think he knows that.

I shout for him to come back in. He cracks open the door, as if he's hesitant before he comes in fully. I get my laptop out, and tap down on my bed, I thought if he's going to stay over, I'd try lighten to circumstances by playing some movies. He lays down next to me and switches on my night light as we begin to browse movies. We've reached the documentary section, we scroll aimlessly through them, pointing some out occasionally and chatting. I see one about Chernobyl, I know he sees it too, because his speech slows down and develops this uncomfortable, sad tone. I quickly scroll past it. I try to keep talking to him to keep the mood, eventually, I just ssk him straight forward what movie he'd like to watch, as I feel bad that he's went quiet again. He says saw II, I hate movies like that, but I guess we can watch it.

Once the movies over, he goes to his spot on the floor as we try to get some sleep. I drift off after about 20 minutes, but I can tell he's struggling as I can hear him tossing and turning throughout the night. After a while, I decide I've had enough of this, cause I want to sleep too. I sit up and whisper down to him. "Hey, Mischa, just take my bed, I'll sleep on the floor. You've been shifting around all night." He refuses at first, but eventually gives in and thanks me. I wait for him to get comfy and sneak downstairs to sleep on the couch.

(Time skip to morning cause Idk how to write people sleeping lol)

The sunlight peaks through the curtain, shining on my face, directly into my eyes, the first thing I smell when I come through to my senses is waffles. My parents must be getting ready to start making breakfast. I wait a few minutes, and go through to talk to them. My mums making coffee and my brothers lunch for the day, while my fathers just started to prepare breakfast. We talk for a few hours, it's awkward, really awkward. We all have the same thing in mind, what the fuck happened last night?

"So, uhm, Constance, sweetie, care to explain what went down with you two?" Finally somebody broke the silence, though the tension is still thick. "Nothing happened, dad. In fact, I don't  even know what happened. He's never like this. It was totally out of the blue, he just, started crying?" "Ah, okay, so you both behaved yourselfs, right?" Oh. My. God. It's not like that, if it was up to me he'd go home and text his online fiancée! I didn't expect him to start sobbing! "YES! Of course! He's got a fiancée, it's not like that at all. We aren't even friends, I thought he hated me." My mother feels bad for him slightly, I think she can tell he's got a lot on his mind, or maybe one of her "mum groups" told her he was adopted from Ukraine. We all talk some more after clearing the air before I head off back to the couch to wait and watch TV.

By now it's been about forty minutes, I decide to wait some more and then go get Mischa. After an hour passes, and he's still not came down, I go upstairs to check on him. He's still asleep, sprawled out completely on my bed. One of his legs are hanging off the bed and his arms are both out, one clasping my second pillow, his hair is everywhere, and his mouth is wide open, snoring VERY loudly. I creep back out to let him get some more rest. As I'm leaving my room, I see my brother sneaking along the hallway, presumably to go into my room to talk. I point at my door, and out my finger to my mouth to shush him. "WHATTTT? WHYY!!" He loudly exclaims, I shush him quickly, crack open my door and point straight at Mischa. "Ooooooooo, who's what" He whispers, "He's a guy from choir, he had to stay the night." I respond, hoping he won't pry any further, he does, but I just shut him down. We both migrate downstairs to watch tv. After about half an hour, we hear footsteps coming down the stairs.

It's Mischa. Well, obviously. He's rubbing his eyes and looking about. "MORNING, STRANGER!!" My brother cries out, it clearly catches him a bit off guard. "Oh, hi, morning?" At least he responded. "This is my little brother, as you probably guessed, we're making breakfast if you'd like to have some. We're free till noon." He nods and thanks me. My parents hand us all our plates and once we get breakfast, we all go to sit down, but Mischa just stands in the corner, clueless. "Uhm, sweetie, you can take a seat. We eat breakfast at the table together..?" My mother invites him to sit with us, he nods and smiles awkwardly before pulling out and talking the empty seat next to me. As we eat, my family and I chat away. Mischa sits silently chewing. My father asks him some details about his life, which then starts him on a ramble about Talia for a solid ten minutes. The conversation ending with him explaining how he's saving up to move back to Ukraine and marrying her the second he can. Nobody really knows what to say to that, so we all communally let out a "Thats..great!" It's honestly as if he doesn't really know how to act at a table. Do his family not eat together?

After breakfast, we lounge about for some more. He begins to talk to me like a person, it's nice. He shows my brother how to use auto tune and makes me listen to his (terrible) rap music. But I plaster on a smile and tell him it's great. There, on his YouTube, I see comments from Talia. I'm slowly beginning to think she's real, well, realer than I thought. But the time comes for him to go home, we lend him some more clothes so he's not wearing his choir uniform, as he leaves my house, he looks a bit disappointed. I can see the dread on his face as THR bus comes to a stop, waiting for him to come on. Before he goes, I tap his shoulder.

"Here, uh, for you, to buy some credit." I hand him a ten dollar note, I think maybe texting Talia would cheer him up again and stop this from repeating. He smiles, I've never seen him smile fully. "Thank you, seriously." He avoids eye contact as he says this, but I know he means it. He walks off into the bus, I can see him, leaning against the window, his face looking sad again. I wave goodbye, and he attempts a smile back.