Re: the lake -> inside to the bar
She wasn't a big believer in fate. Fate hadn't put her on the edge of the water, she had. She believed in reason or she did when she wasn't singed whiskers and a cautionary tale. She didn't want to contemplate higher powers and reasons beyond her own understanding because her understanding was struggling to keep up with the way things were now. He talked as if talking was uncomfortable. The sentence stopped and she listened for more but there was no more.
She wasn't unsure at his side. She was surer on bare feet than she had been in the shoes and it didn't look like damp grass and cold feet bothered her at all. It didn't, the sky was oppressive and the dark heavy and silent beyond the flicker of the torches and all of that preoccupied her. It was all-consuming, or at least, she was finding it to be all-consuming. It sucked up her attention, like walking alongside an electric live-wire and trying not to sway into the current.
It was nothing like she had imagined when she'd picked out the bottle, but that was now in the past. She circled back to it now and again, in her mind's eye. The choice was made, so it didn't matter but she found the idea preoccupying in the same way she felt bent under the weight of the sky, a piece of grass under heavy breeze. He didn't offer her guidance. She was grateful for that, in a small very bright burning way that resented feeling gratitude at all. It was complex but she managed it both at once and when the house reeled light onto the grass her strides quickened.
She looked at him, her pupils had contracted to pinpoints given the flooded contrast of the night to the day. "Something strong." She didn't care what. She was not unattractive in the black dress but she was sallow, pinched at the mouth. The crowds had replaced the barren open sky and she thought something strong might dial it down to background noise.
He was generous. She recognized that even if she couldn't concentrate on it for long. Her mouth moved, it was a smile. "Please."