two weeks •• miniminter

day one

Vanessa sits in the car beside her cousin, Josh, who has happily invited her to stay for two weeks at his before university starts up again and she can move in onto college grounds again.

"How are you feeling?" Josh asks with a soft smile. He can honestly feel the nerves radiating off her. Vanessa isn't good around new people, she used to struggle with their other cousins sometimes, when they only saw each other twice a year at family gathering. She can't help the bundle of social anxiety she has within her.

But Josh is different. As children they saw each other weekly because of their fathers. It was only once Josh headed off to college when she didn't see him much anymore.

"Nervous" She mumbles. It's the obvious answer for her to say and Josh sends her a reassuring smile, "I mean, I'm sure they are great people but you know, new people are not a real strong point for me" She rambles then sighs. She considers herself a very boring person, the possibility of people liking her, in her opinion, is much less than her liking them. 

"You'll be okay, these boys are approachable and will like you. I promise, okay?" He puts out his pinky for the promise. Vanessa takes his pinky in hers and she's hit with a wave of nostalgia. "You'll be okay."

Vanessa nods and smiles a hopeful closed-mouth smile after taking a deep breath. She can't help but feel the usual sickness in the stomach and soon enough her throat will tighten as they get closer and closer to the destination.

Just calm down Vee, breathe.

They finally make it and Josh grins, "we're home" He announces and the two of them hop out of the taxi. Josh pays the driver whist Vanessa grabs her bags from the trunk.

She throws her backpack onto her back and slings her duffle bag over her shoulder. She huffs at how heavy her gear is but doesn't allow Josh to take a single thing when asked, "do you need any help?" If anything Vanessa is rather independent when she needs to be; no matter how hard it is.

Josh opens the door up for her and she makes her way inside, Josh closing the door behind them, "welcome to your home for two weeks" He grins at her.

Vanessa smiles, her eyes wander all over the place, "it's huge" she comments which causes Josh to chuckle.

"Yeah, how about I take you to your room, sorry, there is a lot of stairs" He quickly apologies.

"You're trying to kill me aren't you" she jokes.

"Well you are the favourite child out of the family" He shrugs. It's true though, Vanessa is the favourite. She's the innocent nerdy girl with the really good grades, "too bad you decided to do a design major rather than the law major your parents wanted you to do."

And once again that's also true, though she had the grades to clearly make it into one of the highest courses, she picked her passion of design and art. This disappointed her parents but after a year of being in the course the understood that she wanted to do this and she was good at it, by second year they were actually proud to have a design student of a daughter.

"Yeah, I blew it there didn't I?" She cringes. They head up the second set of stairs to the top level. "Really, top floor Joshua?" She groans, "this is going to be a nightmare in the evenings" she complains.

"Shh you" Josh shakes his head at her and opens the door to the room, "welcome to your humble abode" he throws his arms out. Vanessa completely dismisses it, dropping her things and falling face first on to the bed.

She hears Josh laugh, "don't laugh at me Joshua, it was a long trip and throw in those fucking stairs, it's been a hard day" Her voice is slightly muffled by her face being in the duvet but Josh manages to comprehend. She flips her body over onto her back "Can I sleep now?" She whines.