What You Give

6/L-M

The buttface is back with a new chapter! Sorry to keep you waiting for TWO MONTHS but life got in the way of me sitting down to write. It sucks, but you know how it is. Anywho, comment your thoughts if you feel up to it!

Caramel - The Runaway State {M/L at lake}

mama - Sorta {M/L after dinner}

Please Forgive Me - David Gray {M/S talk / Leaving McMiller Manor}

***

“Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognise it as such.”

~ Henry Miller ~

***

{L}

Something oddly refreshing about this lake: there is no time here. Mac tells me of his memories, some happy and some terribly sad, as we lounge in the grass. Thunder occasionally rumbles in the distance, but the clouds never show any signs of rain. It is not until after Mac finishes his story of when a younger version of himself and Sylvia slid down their staircase on his mattress while his parents were at a function and managed to break not one but two lamps, that he laughingly suggests I check the time, as he left his phone in the car.

“So did I, and your head makes it impossible for me to get up,” I tease, running my fingers over his scalp as he looks up at me from his resting place on my lap.

“Fine,” he sighs, “I’ll do it.” He lifts himself off me, ambling over to the car and reaching into the passenger side window. “Hey – babe we should probably get going. It’s almost five.”

“Did your Mom call?”

He shrugs, heading back towards me and hauling me up off the ground. “Only six times.”

“Oh, only six times, what a relief.”

“You drivin’?”

“Yes, since you’ve suggested it,” I smile. Not having to beg brings welcome relief.

“Well let’s go then.” He opens the door for me to slide inside, and then circles around to the passenger seat by the time I’ve buckled my seatbelt. “Alright so just remember that there will actually be people on the road at this hour and you must be careful. Your dad’s name doesn’t mean much here,” he teases nervously. The last statement sets my nerves on edge.

“Yeah, yeah, thanks for the reminder.”

“Anytime, Babe,” he replies as I put the car in reverse.

“So do we get to listen to the radio now?”

“I pick the stations. Your music taste is shit.”

“Excuse me? That is remarkably false.”

“You’re excused. Everything we listened to on the way here made me feel like throwing myself off a building. I don’t know how you found the only grunge station in the country, but I have no choice but to be impressed.” He slaps my hand away from the dial. “No, I am controlling the radio.”

“It’s not the only – ok whatever.” Snob. I roll my eyes.

After a few minutes of him changing the station and me huffing over his indecisiveness, I finally yell, “Pick something!!”