charity project // mischa bachinski (ride the cyclone)

22 - fish out of water

I was actually the first person to wake up. Well, except for Father Marcus, who always woke up at the ungodly hour of four in the morning. Only, I suppose it's technically not ungodly because he prayed for an hour after he woke up. I made sure my bag was packed for the waterpark trip. Ocean was the next to get up, and she actually went through the whole deal of packing lunches for everyone.

Eventually, everyone was awake except for Mischa. I was nominated by practically everyone else to wake him up. I had the sneaking suspicion that some people were scared to, given his reputation for unpredictable and occasionally violent behavior. I also wanted to get him back for waking me up early on Christmas morning.

"It's time to wake up!" I opened the door to his room.

He mumbled something loud but incoherent and turned over. Walking in, I sat beside him.

"We're going to the waterpark, remember?"

Mischa lifted his head up. "Yes?"

"Come on. You're the last one up."

"Just a few more minutes!"

"No. Come on," I grabbed his arm and tried to pull him up.

He groaned and sat himself up.

"You..." I began.

I immediately averted my eyes.

"You are not wearing a shirt, are you?" I finished.

"I am wearing pants. It is not a crime to look, you know. I am going to be wearing no shirt at the waterpark. Not that big of a deal."

"I'm good. I can wait for later. I just want to be respectful."

I fumbled my way to the door, eyes shut. I heard him laugh before I left.

...

Constance, Ocean, and I got changed in the stalls at the waterpark. Ocean audibly cringed every time her bare feet had to touch the floor. Not that I blamed her. I feel the same way about public restrooms and changing rooms.

Once all three of us were ready, we headed out to meet the guys. We set our towels down and Ocean got out a travel-size bottle of sunscreen.

"Ha! Told you, Noel!" I jumped up.

"Alright, you got me. Good job."

I looked around for the rest of the guys and then I saw Mischa, staring out at the pool, completely unmoving.

I knit my brows and made my way over to him.

"Everything al-" I stopped mid-sentence.

To be fair, he never said that he had abs or anything. It just caught me off guard. That's all. It's like when you see a car wreck but you keep staring and you don't know why. Okay, that was probably a bad example to compare that to. How about this: you see someone in public that you think you know, so you keep looking at them and trying to figure it out while trying to be furtive and inconspicuous to avoid them noticing. Except apparently I was not very inconspicuous.

"My eyes are up here, darling," He gave me an almost self-satisfied smirk.

My eyes widened. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to- I just- I-"

"That is alright. People cannot help it. If it makes you feel better, I was also staring at you. I thought you were absolutely beautiful, but in your swimming suit? Wow. Just wow. Very pretty," He nodded.

I appreciated that. I'm pretty sure that if someone with what society deems as a 'perfect' body was put into a swimsuit, even they would feel self-conscious. Instead of thinking of bodies, faces, and traits as black-and-white, I think that they should be thought of as art. No two original pieces of art should be the same, so why should we? Someone could see a painting or sculpture and say: "That may be the ugliest piece of art I've ever seen." But you know what? Another person could say: "This is the most beautiful piece of art I've ever seen."