When Polina had been expecting Alexei she'd been told the time would fly. Internally she'd batted it aside, how could 18 years go by so quickly? But like the time spent between an eyelid opening and shutting it felt like a second between him learning to walk and now, kneeled on his bedroom floor with the contents of his old wooden desk scattered across the floor like some sort of alter to his childhood.

She could hear him in the kitchen, making her a cup of tea, radio on far too loud but luckily his father wasn't in to hear it. 18 years old and the first person in their family to go to university. She couldn't be prouder. Gently she picked up the corner of an old photo from when he was 6 and felt a pang for that little boy who was terrified of butterflies and couldn't tie his shoelaces. The picture was his first group photo with little pioneers, a small white shirt, blue shorts with his socks pulled up past his knees and a cartoonishly large red neckerchief.

All the other boys had smiled, so had Alexei, but he'd covered his mouth. It always made him easy to spot in that photo. She could also spot a group of boys on the other side of the photo who were responsible for that.

His teacher had called her in more than once. It was always 'Alexei is too sensitive' or 'He needs to learn to ignore it' but how can a little boy ignore a kopek being shoved so forcefully between his front teeth that his gums bleed.

Placing that photo gently down again in a pile with all the other photos, she picked up a crude child's drawing. Crayon, of course, which made her smile. Brushing a strand of dark hair from her face she angled the drawing, trying to make sense of the stick figure. It was a girl, maybe? Potentially some plaits and some sort of headband as well?

Part of her wanted to keep it, but her son's own reaction would be to simply get rid of the thing, 'It's clutter mum' and 'It's not even a good drawing' (she may or may not have already tried to convince him to let her keep some of his old art from school, mostly drawings of Yuri Garagin and space).

She shifted to sit cross legged, putting the drawing in the 'get rid' pile with a sigh. Reaching a hand she picked up a piece of square folded paper, clearly creased with age and slightly crinkled. He'd always been an oddly neat child, but not that she was complaining about not having to nag him to clean his room up. Unfolding the square it became apparent that this was in fact two pieces of paper. Her eyesight wasn't the best even with her glasses, so squinting she held the piece of paper out in front of her. It made her feel a bit like an old lady.

At the top in child's handwriting was 'Draft' and upon closer inspection it appeared to be some sort of poem? Before all else she spotted 'To Nadenka' at the top of the page.

She remembered after school hangouts where the pair of them would disappear into her son's room to talk about space and make a blanket fort. He was always so talkative around her, always very polite, opening doors for her and spoke very highly of her. She remembered one time, the girl had simply crossed the room to go look out the window across the river, exclaiming about what buildings you could see when you were that high up. Polina had been in the kitchen, cutting sandwiches when she looked up. She could almost see her son sigh gently as she chatted away, completely oblivious to the silent adoration coming from across the living room.

'Young she was and beautiful too' was written on the page and crossed out- Polina was pretty sure it was a verse taken from Alexander Blok, or one of the many great Russian poets. Next to it a 'you are really pretty like a rose' had also been scribbled out and she could almost feel the frustration in the linework.

'Your hair is red like autumn leaves,
Like when caught by sunlight,
You light up like a star when I'm with you'

As cheesy as it was she couldn't help but quietly go 'aww'. Her little boy had been in love for the first time. Across the page were snippets of scrapped verse, some undoubtedly his own and some undoubtedly taken from his 'Great Poems of Our Nation' book which was yet to be scrapped or packed into a box to go to his university dorm. The phrase 'little plagarist' popped into her head and she couldn't help but chuckle to herself.

Moving the 'draft' piece of paper behind the other, she could see already how much effort had clearing gone into the handwriting. Not much had been written, but there was something.

'Time moves differently when I am with you
Spring, Summer, Autumn, winter all at once
Skating on the river and I see your smile like sunlight
Your cheeks rosy red
Running home together and I could almost hold your hand
But you don't seem to notice me the way I notice you'

That was it for the page, turning it over she couldn't see anything more written. She couldn't help but wonder if that was the finished poem or if there had been more to spill onto the page when he'd written it.

Looking behind her, she slipped it into her cardigan pocket. Was it technically stealing if she knew he'd throw it away anyways, embarrassed by the contents of his 12 year old's self love confession? She decided it wasn't.

His footsteps sounded down the hallway as Polina took a moment to look across his room. She remembered when the walls were plastered with space posters, ballet flyers of shows he'd never be allowed to go to and quotes of Lenin, Karl Marx and Stalin he'd been given by school. He'd always questioned her why she was still religious but she'd never asked him to consider if he'd found his own strange faith in the union. He'd always been so loyal, even now being a member of the Komsomol. Her Alexei, law abiding citizen and future outstanding member of society with such a bright future.

"I put a splash of lemon in your tea and a bit of suga- mum what are you doing?"

She turned to look up at him, his glasses steamed slightly by the hot beverage. Sniffing swiftly she blinked her eyes and smiled.

"Are you..alright?" He asked a bit carefully this time as she stood to gently take the tea from his hands. He was tall, broad now, dark hair and eyes just like his father. His awkwardness made her laugh at times as he shifted on his feet.

"Just so strange looking through all your old school stuff" She told him, wiping her eyes and taking a sip of her tea, setting it down on the desk and opening her arms for a hug. She was grateful that he still liked a hug from her. She wrapped her arms around him, head resting awkwardly on his chest.

"I miss my little boy sometimes, I remember when you used to be scared of butterflies-"

Her comment was met with a disappointed sigh, but it made her smile nonetheless.