Silver Lining [Mick Schumacher]

I Love Me

"Why am I always looking for a ride or die?
'Cause mine's the only heart I'm gonna have for life
After all the times I went and fucked it up
I wonder when I love me is enough."
I Love Me; Demi Lovato

-

"What breed of dog did you used to have?" Mick started a conversation with Hestia a good five minutes after their walk had begun. He didn't know how much further he could go, and Hestia was too scared to share much. For a moment, she thought about bailing on him, making up an excuse to run back home. Being in the company of a man was making her anxious, no matter how nice and sweet Mick seemed. She had men like him in her life. Looking sweet as a sugar but tasting like salt. The silence lasted until Mick remembered the dog Hestia briefly mentioned. What could be a better topic for two dog lovers than a man's best friend?

"It was a Rottweiler," Hestia answered while glancing at Angie, who was jogging right between Mick and her, unable to choose one side to stand by.

"Oh, those are scary," Mick laughed sheepishly, remembering how he used to be terrified of these dogs. Their owners usually was not less frightening, so the imaginery of Hestia walking such dog seemed amusing.

"Yeah...his name was Hades," Hestia chuckled lightly, "anytime we went for a walk, everyone was ten feet away from us, scared for their deary lives," Mick wasn't sure how many meters are ten feet, but he guessed it wasn't a small margin, "but in fact, he was the sweetest creature you can imagine."

"Your mother is really into Greek mythology, huh?" As soon as Mick mentioned Hestia's mother, the girl became tenser, the conversation no longer pleasant in her eyes. How easily it all turned sour, "naming her daughter Hestia, her dog Hades-"

"I guess so...she even wanted to name my sister Athena, so I would say she is sort of obsessed with it. Or maybe she only liked the names, I don't know," she shrugged and looked at Mick for one brief moment. However, from that little glance, Mick could sense that Hestia's relationship with her mother was far from idylic.

"You don't like talking about your mother, do you?" He couldn't help but ask another question, despite knowing that he was dancing on a thin ice. Hestia wasn't able to answer straight away. She didn't like how nosy he was, yet she understood his curiosity. He was not the first person invested in the story. People were lining up to get a tiny chunk.

"I...I...maybe," she simply said, giving Mick a clear sign this was not the right path to walk. She held so much pain inside but didn't have enough trust to share it with anyone just yet.

"For how long did you have Hades?" Mick smoothly changed the topic, accepting the fact that some door ought to stay locked for now. He didn't want to blow it up by asking the wrong questions.

"Ten years. Mother got him when I was six, he was with me my whole childhood. It has been six years since he left us and mother made a nice altar for him in our backyard to keep a memory of him eternal. But his absence hurts the same as it did on the day one. We used to be inseparable. When I lost him, I lost a part of me too," Hestia stopped and waved her hand, not liking her sudden vulnerability, "I'm sorry, I'm talking too much."

"No, don't apologise," Mick quickly assured her, "I completely understand it, I know how difficult it must have been for you," the last part was barely a whisper from Mick's side while he glimpsed down at Angie.