Lost Home

Crying

The first night is REALLY awkward. Like, when I asked her out levels of awkward.

We're sitting on the couch until sometime after midnight, because, even though I didn't say anything, and MJ doesn't either, I think we both know that neither of us wan to be left alone with our thoughts.

So we talk, and play board games until neither of us can keep our eyes open long enough to count the spaces to move.

Then we head off to bed.

It's weird, just a second before my eyes couldn't seem to stay open, and now they can't seem to close, my mind can't seem to shut off either. This is exactly what I didn't want to happen.

What's even weirder is the fact that I can hear MJ crying faintly in the other room.

I go over to check on her, of course, 'cause I'm a superhero! And, maybe, partly because hearing her cry is really scary?

I knock before I come in, but I don't wait very long because I know she's dressed; we both got dressed after our dinner of cold ramen noodles.

When she realizes I came in she stops crying and starts....choking???

She's holding her breath and breathing in little gasps so that she isn't as audibly crying anymore. I think. That or...I have no idea.

She's rolled up in a taco with the covers, her arms and face the only things outside, wrapped around herself.

I don't know how she's not literally on fire; I'm pretty warm and I'm in shorts and a tee-shirt.

When I go and lay beside her she does nothing besides curl up in a ball on my chest, which is pretty awkward since without the blanket I'm small next to her, with it I'm tiny.

After a while of me trying to calm her down like I do when Morgan's missing Dad (the times when I don't start crying too) she starts to cry normally again.

It's a lot less dramatic than when she first started, right after we went to our rooms, and then she finally stops.

"I'm sorry, I know you're probably missing people too, probably more than me, it's really selfish that I'm crying."

Jeez, it must be bad if she's this upset, I know she had problems with self-worth, she told me once, but I didn't know that it was like this.

This is another of those feeling-bad-for-feeling-good moments; I'm kinda glad that she might know how I feel, but I feel bad because it's not true and no one should have to feel like this.

"It's okay, the amount of people we miss isn't really important."

She looks at me for the first time since I came into her room, and she looks so sad, it can't possibly just be the fact that she's missing her mom and Ned.

"What else is wrong? Usually when someone's crying this hard something else is going on, and you're the strongest person I know, which will definitely not change if something's making you upset."

She doesn't answer for a while, so I just cuddle her, trying my best to wrap my arms around the 3 feet of blankets she is bundled in.

Just when I'm about to drift off she starts talking again,

"My mom yells at me. She calls me names and tells me I'm worthless and a failure. She's abusive, but I still miss her. I said I was moving out and she just told me to tell her when I got rich, then scoffed and told me that would never happen,"

She's crying again, and so am I, because no one as smart and talented as Michelle Jones should ever be talked to like that.

No one should ever be talked to like that. Or have to live with someone like that.

We fall asleep cuddling, MJ still in the taco, and it's probably the best sleep I've had in weeks;

Mysterio's slowly turning me into an insomniac.