owl (ex_owl38) wrote in regulation, @ 2008-04-18 01:31:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | mila macnair, zacharias smith |
Who: Mila Macnair and Zach Smith
Where: Mathwall, and a nearby restaurant
When: Wednesday, April 16
What: Protests, graffiti, and breakfast. All in a day’s work.
Rating: R for language.
Status: Closed; complete
Perhaps it was a little too stereotypical, but Mila had dressed in all black before leaving the house that night, her bag of paint slung over her shoulder and her wand grasped tightly in her hand. She had seen the graffiti appear shortly after the incident at Mathwall – first just a few hastily scribbled words of protest, then more elaborate messages, paintings, photographs attached to the wall of obliviated muggles. Soon it took up almost half of the building's side, splashes of political color and outrage that the ministry was having trouble covering up. Every time they tried, more would appear – bigger, brighter, more powerful. There was no stopping the people from expressing themselves, and Mila wanted her opinion to be heard. Or seen, as it were.
It took nearly three and a half hours to complete, careful to stay under a well placed cloaking charm in case of any surveillance devices that had been placed around the area. But when she was done, she was proud of the image with its Cyrillic writing underneath - I know of but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind..
Done, she gathered up her things and moved away from the building, but stayed to admire others' work before leaving.
"So." Zach said, watching her as he came up to the wall, a bucket of white paint in a hand. "What the fuck does it say?"
He dropped the bucket down. It clanged against the stone, a splash of white slapping his jeans, but by that point, he was lost, his gaze lifting to catch sight of what the woman had painted, eyes lifting above the cyrillic to see that it was only a piece of a larger whole. Men - men or perhaps women - their faces gone. Not obscured, not destroyed but simply not present - as if they had never existed.
Yet behind the bodies that stood, their faces uptilted as if they were numbly listening, he could see one solitary figure hunched, its head down, hands clutched between its legs. Zach squinted as he looked at the color, pale pink where the moonlight traced it, but could not see whether it possessed a face or if, beneath the hunching, existed a voice, a mouth open, eyes to reject what the faceless listened to.
Without thinking, his hand reached out to that body, grazing just faintly paint that was still wet, a sigh deep in his chest as he pulled away red-flecked fingers and looked over at her.
"Stupid question," he said, dropping the brush that he held in the other hand. "Sorry." With a step, he walked towards a street sign and stared at a car in the distance, watching as it roared down a road unaware of their presence. A world that might not ever know such art existed or that it had been created to protect it, or to at least make the attempt. It hurt. It hurt in a way that he could not explain and so he kept his face pointed away from her and to the street, the dirt, the leaves that lined the gutter.
"Wait," Mila called, a strong urge to follow him - to at least talk to him, keeping her from moving away. She wanted to know what he had painted, and her neck craned around at the wall even as she ran the short distance after him, his forgotten paint splashing white against her sweatpants. "Zach," she finished as she caught up. That was his name.
"It means, hmm," she thought about that for a moment, repeating it to him in Bulgarian while she tried to think of a suitable English translation. "That the only true freedom we have in life is our thoughts - our memories... our minds. And," she paused. "They took that from them."
"Us," he said, pressing his hand against his chest for a moment, pointing. Grey eyes seared into her face, hot with sudden anger. "They took it from us."
"You cannot remember what happened?" She asked, her eyes wide with curiosity and horror both. But she doubted it - he was here. "I understand that we are the same - muggles and magic, I meant... I do not know what I meant. I thought maybe we had something in common, but for all your 'us' you... do not seem to want that."
"No." Zach said, dropping his gaze. He focused instead on a leaf that had fallen, noticing the delicacy of the leaves, the way that it curled, as if it were trying to reach to the moon. "Mean that it's... Christ, I'm so fucking sick of it being them. We're all people."
And he went quiet again then, his foot nudging the leaf, ignoring the mud that splattered against the toe. It remained firm. Unable to budge.
"But we have our memories," she countered. "Why is it that you were so defensive with me? Immediately. A simple statement and," she shrugged. "I did not mean anything by it."
Mila waited a moment wiping her hands on her sweatpants so the colors made patterns before she asked, "Will you show me what you were doing?"
"No," Zach answered, giving her a cockeyed grin. "Not going to fucking do it anymore." He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "Can't."
"Why?" She asked him, her face clearly expressing how disappointed she was that he wouldn't share. "You are not going to finish it?"
"Nah, it's not that." He folded his arms, turning back to look at her work. "I was going to fucking whitewash it all. Because no one- fuck, Mila, it's all the same damn shite. No one wrote anything real."
She scoffed at him, "And who are you to say what is and is not real, Zach? Just because people are not creative or poetic with their words does not mean that they do not feel them. That," she pointed back at the wall. "It means something. It is a way of getting people to stand up and speak out. And you were silencing them."
"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe I'd be pissing them off enough to actually fucking do something besides painting on a motherfucking wall."
"So you do not have to?" She asked. Her eyes saying the words she didn't, you're not doing anything by standing here.
"I did... once." Zach's eyes shuttered. "But you can't fucking do it alone."
His foot stepped down, crushing the leaf, grinding it under his heel.
"Right," she answered, not very impressed by his explanation. Some part of her wanted to hear his stories, but she didn't want to force them out of him, and he didn't seem the sort who would want to tell. "And by erasing the words of the people who do care you are going to form an army?"
Mila raised an eyebrow and dropped the paint bucket in front of him, "Go finish your work if you think it will help."
Zach shook his head. "No... don't fucking think it will."
He walked over to the wall, tracing the words, his fingernail waiting on those that did not belong - that had no place with the things that people meant. I fucked your mum last night... Sophie + Kyle = 4EVA... Mudbloods go home... There were more and more of those statements every time he returned to the wall as if the original meaning was being lost, obliterated in the collective forgetfulness of the writers. Perhaps it was a different kind of statement but there was something in Zach's stomach that clenched every time he saw it.
"Maybe I fight everything because I don't fucking know how to stop." He murmured, his head dropping as he thought of a blow thrown, of frustrated words spoken that had no place after that action. The longing that ached through the bone, a simple, desperate loneliness that even Clare hadn't been able to erase. Zach wanted the things that weren't but as he stared longer at the wall, he realized that they were also the things that never had been in the first place.
He had been wrong in so many ways. And it was strange that it took a wildeyed girl and a bucket of white paint to see that.
Mila looked at him, at his strange motions - the way he touched the words as if he were caressing the ones that made sense, rubbing out those that were meaningless. She watched him and his eyes as they took it all in; he had an artist's eyes - what he saw wasn't what was in front of him, but what couldn't be seen... emotions, history, meanings. It was amazing to watch, but at the same time it made her feel strange. Strange like she had walked in on a private affair, and also like she didn't deserve to witness it.
She wasn't sure what to say to him. She didn't know him, and although she could see his thoughts on his face, she didn't know how to address them or express her advice in words.
"Maybe you should not stop fighting," she told him quietly, her eyes very serious as they studied him. "Some people were born to fight - to change things. You have the passion for it - you just... you need a plan. Whitewash," she nodded at the bucket between them. "That is not a plan."
"Would you like breakfast?"
"Yeah," he said, not sure what he was answering it to.
Zach brushed his hair out of his eyes then, glancing at her with a look that was oddly shy, said, "But I've got to be to pick up Clare by ten. Had a fucking sleepover last night."
His hand rested against the back of his neck, rubbing at it quietly as he considered that. It was an improvement - to have her want to spend time with other children - but he still worried at it, worried that her clinging to Jemmy was a sign of something else. He knew so little of her still. Was there a brother or sister that she had lost?
She smiled at him, and a little at herself for taking the chance to open up to someone, even in such a simple way. "I live that way," she told him, pointing back toward where Mathwall turned into Artemisia. It was still very early, not even light yet, which meant two things - one, that he wasn't going to have to worry about getting back to pick up Clare, and two, that she felt extremely uncomfortable about walking home. "It is pretty far, actually, it might be better to just apparate?" Her voice was a little hopeful.
"I like walking," he said stubbornly. "And you said breakfast. Didn't think that meant going to your fucking flat." Zach stiffened a little, folding his arms against his chest as he looked at her, his eyes openly wary.
"I just," she slumped a little and took a step away from him. "I did not bring any money with me, and I am covered in paint. I just thought I would cook waffles or something, I did not realize you would..." her expression hardened. "Fine, I was just trying to be nice."
Zach stopped for a moment, his body hunched for a moment before he said, "Look. I'm fucking up with people all over this week. Don't be one of them." Reaching out, he grabbed her shoulder and said, 'Come on. I'm paying."
As much as Mila liked Zach - well, didn't dislike him, at least, she didn't know him well enough to like him, she still jerked away from his touch like she had been burned. Her eyes were apologetic, but warning, wanting him to both understand and to not touch her again. "I can pay you back," she told him.
"No." He shook his head, not offended by her motion. Clare, she reminded him of Clare. "Not like I ever get to buy someone breakfast these days." Zach grinned. "That'd require talking someone into spending the fucking night."
"This is not that sort of breakfast," she told him carefully before asking, "Is that why you would not come to my flat?" Honestly, that had never crossed her mind, and her face scrunched a little as she contemplated that. "Zach - you did not think that I wanted..." she shook her head and trailed off. "I am really not like that. It was just waffles."
"It's not that," he protested. "It's more... fuck, I don't know. I fucked up. Fucked up bad with someone and I don't need any second chances. For that." Zach was stammering now, his hand covering the back of his neck across which a flush was creeping. "Christ, Mila- I don't know you. Why in the hell would I bloody assume that?"
"Most men do," she pointed out, as if the answer was obvious. "But I am not interested in that, to tell you the truth. Not just with you, but with anyone. I had a relationship, and," she shrugged. "I do not need another. I really am much happier on my own."
"How did you fuck up?" She asked gently.
"Told someone I wanted to kiss him." Zach muttered, then cut it off abruptly. "Look - it doesn't fucking matter. How do you feel about eggs?"
"Hate eggs," she told him honestly. "It is the texture, I always thought it was like foam. But I like most other things, and I am not all that hungry, so even just coffee would be fine." She didn't want him to go out of his way to make her happy. "I do not know the area."
"How is that fucking up?" Mila asked. "You made it sound like you did something much worse."
"Yeah, well... I punched him first."
"Did you?" She asked curiously before adding simply, "Well, now we will definitely never have that sort of breakfast."
After a moment Mila smiled, "That is not the end of the world, Zach. Bruises heal, and..." she frowned thoughtfully. "Maybe you should apologize. Not my place to say but it does seem to bother you, and you can probably still fix things."
"Who is Clare?" She asked him after a moment, thinking that a change of subject was in order. She never really got the answer to that question.
"She's... guess you could say she's my kid." Zach glanced at her, curious as to why she'd asked but grateful for the subject change. He began to lead her down a side street. "And I didn't fuck him, so you know."
"Thank you for clarifying," she told him sarcastically, with a look that said that she really wasn't wondering about that.
Mila stuck her hands in her pocket as she followed, one holding onto her wand loosely as she saw how quiet the street was. "Why do you 'guess you could say that'? Someone is either your child or not, right?"
"She's adopted," he said. "Dumped on my fucking doorstep, actually." With a shrug, Zach continued walking. He'd heard most of whatever she was going to say before, he assumed, and he preferred not to pass judgment or reason on why Clare was with him. She just was and that was good enough.
"She was lucky then," Mila said after a second. He was so brash, but she was beginning to think it was more of his defensive mechanism than anything else. She acted like a cold bitch and pushed everyone away, and Zach relied on language to keep from looking like he actually cared about anything. "And I am sure that you have heard it a thousand times before, but blood does not make family."
"How long has she been living with you?" She asked. "She seems - I do not know... like she is trying to hold on to you and trying to stay away at the same time. Someone who has been hurt but wants to be loved."
"A couple months." His voice went quiet as it always did where Clare was concerned, thoughtful as he mused on Mila's comment. That was it, exactly, he felt although he couldn't have phrased it as well. "Don't bloody know. She doesn't say anything about before. All I goddamn know, she walked out of yesterday fully formed."
"Well," Mila wondered, looking up at him curiously. "Have you asked her about it?"
"Don't know if I should."
The restaurant he led them into was not much more than a speck on the corner, the lights buzzing out into the street as he opened the door. Waiting for her to step inside, he nodded at one of the women behind the counter who gave them both a toothless grin. "You want to sit by the window or in the corner?"
"The corner, if that is alright?" She asked before they moved there.
Mila sat down and waited for a few moments, until he was settled. "Zach, I know that I am not her mother, and that I do not know either of you well enough to give advice, but she is only seven years old. She probably wants to talk about that, even if she does not seem like it - but if she is being quiet... it might be because she is afraid to upset you. But she probably wants to be your daughter, and to really love someone you have to know them first. She might think that you will give her away again if you do not like what she has to tell you."
"Mila..." Zach bit his lip, then said, "Do you know what I did during
the fucking war?"
"How would I if you never told me?"
The smile he gave her was slow, barely a flicker against his mouth before he stared down into the chipped coffee cup, pressing his lips against the cold, empty surface. He clenched it tightly before he set it down, trying to think of what to say.
"Children," Zach said finally. "I fucking smuggled kids. Out of the goddamn camps. Saw a lot worse than Clare. She'll... she'll come out of it. In her own fucking time."
"But you are there for her now," Mila told him. "She can come out of it with you, maybe she needs that. I am not saying that you should force her into speaking, but maybe let her know that you are there in case she wants to talk about it. Ask her, I suppose."
What he told her bothered her. She had never taken part in the war, had married a man who probably had a lot to do with those children - who had certainly killed the ones who hadn't been rescued by Zach and others like him. It made her feel disgusting, dirty, and she was sure that her guilt showed. He had saved children, and she married a Death Eater so that her parents could pay for her brother's outstanding medical bills. It didn't seem right at all.
"Are you afraid to get close to her?"
"I've tried to get close," he snapped. "Tried to talk. Tried to touch. Look- she just fucking can't, Mila, alright? And I'm not going to fucking push it- two months isn't a bloody long time to ask someone to give their life to you, however how goddamn old they are." The cup rattled as he shoved it back, glaring at her.
The truth was, there was something in the question that she'd asked that had hit home. Christ knew, nothing else he'd ever gotten close to had survived.
"I'm sorry," she told him, flinching as he glared. Mila was quiet when she added, her finger tracing condensation on the table although she kept her eyes on him, "It is not my place to tell you how to parent, it is just that - I wanted children so badly. It never worked out." It was hard to talk about, something she didn't mention to her family, and she didn't elaborate on the subject after she heard her voice tightening as she spoke the last words. It still stung. It made it difficult to hear him talk about Clare, the tentativeness in his voice when he did, and not be able to do anything about it. She thought about what she would do with her own children every day.
"We should just order breakfast."
"Yeah." He stared down at the menu for a moment, told the waitress he wanted the usual, then leaned back against the booth. "I'm... sorry. Just... Christ. I don't fucking know what to do."
Mila ordered before she braved talking to him again. It was hard, when he kept looking for advice - as far as she could tell, but shooting it back in her face when she offered the best she could. "Do you think you should?" She asked carefully before adding, "What is it that you are afraid of?"
"It was an expression." He muttered. "I mean, don't fucking expect you to answer the question. Don't even know what the question is."
Fingers curled around the cup again, watching as the waitress poured coffee inside before glancing back up at the woman.
"What do you do anyhow? Besides fucking graffiti."
"I am not very good with English expressions," she told him. "Not any that are... casual, at least. No one I knew in Bulgaria used much slang. Sorry."
"I work in theory," Mila answered after sipping at her coffee lightly. "For the Regulators. It is - well, really boring to most people, probably. A lot of reading and history and testing, but I like it. Work is quiet... most of the time." She smiled a little, "And you? Do you do anything other than whitewash?"
"Regulators?" He paused. "What's that?"
"Part of the Ministry," she answered. "The Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and Unexplained Phenomena - which is why everyone shortens it. The title is a bit of a mouthful... kind of like Bulgarian. Anyway, it just means that I look at a lot of dusty old papers and write about why spontaneous combustion might occur, things like that."
"You did not answer my question."
"An artist." He said with a shrug. "Blow glass. Nothing much. Not a fucking big deal." Zach hated to be asked about his art and he shied away from the conversation, more interested in what she'd told him.
"So how do you bloody get a job like that?" He leaned forward.
"An artist who... whitewashes over political artistic protests?" She trailed off and raised an eyebrow. "Now, if that is not ironic, I do not know what is."
Mila's eyes widened as he leaned forward, just slightly, "I applied? Why are you so interested in a job that I said would bore most people?"
"Because. I'm not most fucking people. And I don't know you that well - at all, even. So fucking tell me what you do."
"I fucking get a fucking assignment - about fucking yeti, or fucking merman, or why some purebloods are born without fucking magic, and I research it. Usually there is a fucking puzzle involved that I try to solve, and usually I can fucking not, so I pass it on with my fucking work for someone else to fucking look over and try their fucking luck at." Mila took another sip of her coffee before continuing seriously, "Sometimes some fucking bombs go off in fucking Mathwall and a lot of fucking people get trapped inside that we have to try to get the fuck out, so we spend a fucking week in our offices while we work on breaking the fucking walls down so no one else fucking dies."
"Uh... fuck?" He said with a grin. "You're catching on." Taking a drink, he nodded at the waitress as she set the toast in front of him, picking up a slice of lemon and biting into it. "Okay, so I get the f- point. But Christ, it's as natural as breathing."
She laughed a little, looking down shyly as she cut into her grapefruit. "You know, I actually kind of liked it."
"So tell me about your work then - in my own little dialect of Fuck-free English since I was polite enough to explain my job to you in a way you would be able to understand." Mila grinned, "Being an artist sounds much more interesting than what I do. Still does not explain the whitewash, but... I am guessing that you work better with glass than paint?"
"I..." He glanced down at his plate, storing the words for a moment.
"My dad and my mum worked at a ceramics factory on Canning Street. Over in Liverpool. It fuc- it's- oh, fuck, I don't know. Drawing's not the same or painting. Glass... glass is alive."
"How so do you mean?" She asked him before clarifying, "What do you feel when you make glass?"
Another silence, then he said, "Sorry, Mila, but that's too fucking personal for me." Zach cocked his head with a sigh. "Christ, ask me something easy, will you?"
She shook her head, "I do not know what to ask. I am not good with small talk - I never really talk to anyone." Instead, she bit into a chunk of grapefruit before following it with some toast. It didn't bother her that he didn't want to explain, she wasn't going to press, but she didn't know what else to ask him. Clare and art, that was all she knew about him, and all she could ask about that wasn't completely pointless.
"Right." Zach watched her for a moment, then said, "What's your favorite song?"
"Boccherini's Minuet," Mila answered easily, not caring if most people found her tastes dry. She liked classical music, the emotion in it, the way a million thoughts and memories were expressed without saying a single word. Playing music, to her, was the greatest escape in the world - but, like Zach, she wouldn't be able to explain how it felt to her. It was too personal. "And yours?"
It took a moment before the man answered.
"Float On. Modest Mouse." Zach grinned. "But I bet you don't even know it. Course, I haven't got a fucking clue about the Minuet." Leaning forward, he watched the girl, noticing how pale her skin was, how dark her hair. With a smile, he said, "You ought to sing me a few bars. Or words. It got any damn words?"
"No," she answered, laughing a bit. It was odd for someone to ask you to sing, and Mila hadn't experienced that from someone who didn't know she actually could sing since she was thirteen and stood on the streets performing for money. "It is instrumental, but you should sing me a few bars of Float On. You were right, of course," she pointed out. "I have never heard of it."
Scratching the back of his neck, he started singing, his voice low even as his neck beat a furious red. "Alright alright we'll all float on... Alright already we'll all float on... Alright don't worry even if things end up a bit too heavy...We'll all float on... You know, that sort of shite. I just. Well, it's nice to listen to something that's not a fucking love song."
"It is a bit repetitive," she told him. "But I suppose I will have to listen to the whole thing. You have to play it on one of those," she moved her finger through the air in a circle as she tried to remember the word for it, "DCs? CDs? Something like that anyway - whatever."
"CDs," he said with a grin. "Well, if you've never heard muggle music, wouldn't fucking start you out on that anyhow. You should come over to mine sometime, we'll put on some goddamn music and teach you right." Zach eyed Mila, trying to decide what music out of his collection would fit. The Pixies, perhaps... there was a lot of screaming involved.
Leaning on his elbow, he added, "So that was a fucking non-starter. Your turn."
"To ask a question?" She asked him, a little taken back by that. "I told you I am no good with small talk. I will just end up asking you something stupid like what your favorite color is or... how you take your coffee."
She frowned down at the table as she thought, tracing her finger over the surface of her coffee without thinking about how strange it looked. "What do you wish you could change?" She said finally, not sure if that was considered small talk, but asking it anyway. "About anything."
"I wish... my hands." He said. "You?"
"Physically?" She asked him, in response to his answer. "My face. What is wrong with your hands?"
"They remind me of a promise I made to my father." And the hands lifted, showing her battered fingers coated with burns and bruises. He clenched them into fists then, and said, "You've got a beautiful face. Why do you hate it? Because it is?"
She nodded shyly, "I do not want to stand out. I wish I were plain, so people would ignore me." That wasn't entirely true, and she realized it as she said it. She didn't want to be ignored completely, but didn't want to be sought out in a crowd because of her appearance either. She envied ugly people, it made them strong and gave them control. And she was ugly, just now where people could see.
"What promise did you make him?"
"That I wouldn't fucking end up like him."
Zach looked at her, wondering if that was something she could understand. It was heavy - and hard to think of, that he would reject Ned Smith and his life at his behest. He'd loved his father but everything he looked down at those hands, he was reminded of promises broken. For there was the other and truly, it was that which lay between them strongest. Take care of your mum and Beth.
"I married someone I hated so that I would do that for my parents," she told him quietly, not sure if that would help him at all to hear. She doubted it, but at the same time she wasn't sure what else to offer him. "So that they did not watch me live in poverty, as the scum of society. But," she shrugged. "I was -" miserable. She didn't want to say it though, didn't want to sound like she needed pity or even compassion. "Probably not better off," she finished. "And if I could go back, I would change that and end up just like them. I just hope that they would be happy to see me happy," but they wouldn't.
"What happened to him?" Zach asked, unable to read her eyes. "You ever end up liking him at least?"
Mila shook her head, and if she had been someone else she might have laughed bitterly, but she wasn't so she didn't. "We were married for six years before he died, and I hated him more with every day." She twisted the diamond wedding ring around her finger, the same ring that four generations of Macnairs had worn. One day she was going to take it off for good. "I doubt you can top me for bad relationships, honestly." She smiled at him, "Even though you did punch the man you like."
"Liked," Zach corrected. "No fucking point."
He quieted then, staring at her finger, looking at the ring. It glimmered and his eyes traced the stone, a gem he hated. Diamond was so hard.
"Don't know. I was with someone for a long time... fuck, it's been three years since I've been with anyone." The realization was jarring and he bit his lip for a moment. "Guess. Well, fuck. He's been it, really."
"Same," Mila answered, not really seeing any loss in that. "No one before or after Walden, and like I said - I'm done. No more men for me ever."
Noticing his eyes on her ring she pulled her shirt sleeve over it, hiding it from view. "What was he like?"
"He... liked art." Zach said, knowing that it wasn't enough. "Colm... well. Have you ever met someone who knew exactly who they were? That. That's what he was like. Is like."
"Do you know yourself?" She asked him seriously, one eyebrow raised slightly as she tried to understand what he was saying. The idea was foreign to her.
"Don't know. Guess that means no."
"Might," she told him. "It might just mean that you can not put it into words. But you are an artist - artists normally have trouble expressing themselves that way. Words are too restrictive for you."
He shrugged. "Maybe." Or maybe they were just the one thing he didn't want to give. The man took another half-hearted bite, then said, "Sometimes I've got words for things. Just not good at fucking sharing, is all."
She grinned at him and asked lightly, "Are you an only child?"
"I have a twin," he said, looking away from her. "We don't fucking look anything alike."
"Oh," she winced a little. "Sorry, Zach, I was just joking. I - should not, my sense of humor is really terrible... kind of nonexistent, actually, and it - well, I really am sorry."
She took a few moments to busy herself with her toast - the methodical buttering and munching distracting her from how awkward she had made
the situation. Her comment, the way he turned away - his response to it was so strange. "Are you close?" She asked finally.
"No." He shut down completely then, his face absolutely unreadable as he pondered it. No, they weren't close. Either she was dead or lost to him and it didn't fucking matter either way, did it? His fingers clenched the fork, unable to speak.
Mila frowned and traced the condensation again, her ring visible again as her sleeve tugged up and glinting slightly in the fluorescent lighting. "She is gone, isn't she?"
"Look. I need to go." He stood, shoving the cup back as he knocked the table with a clumsy knee. "It was nice doing this. We fucking ought to do it again." Reaching into his pocket, Zach dumped a handful of change on the table, following it with a few wadded notes.
"We do not have to," Mila told him as she stood up, moving in front of him before she added. "I think I have only upset you, and that was not my intention. I would not want to hurt you any further. Thank you though," she smiled slightly. "For breakfast. It was very kind."
A half hour later the painting of the faceless crowd was erased, replaced by a plain white wall.