𝐔𝐍𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 [18+]

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐗𝐋𝐈𝐈

MADISON

There's a difference between love and lust, an underlying happiness that fills our body, a difference that seems so obvious to an outsider yet so complex to the one that's feeling it. Both situations make us feel things, adrenaline coursing through our body that even science has approved of its existence. However realizing which one you're actually feeling is a no-sleep fight to some.

There, I laid in my childhood bed, having probably slept 3 hours at most, reminiscing as if I were a philosopher of the 18th century about what love stood for.

And doubting if the right decision was the one I was grasping between my hands or the one that I had let fly away.

———

Walking towards the kitchen with the smell of burnt pancakes wasn't new, and I found myself smiling at all the memories that smell brought. Some would remember the smell of incense and cookies in their grandma's house, but I remembered the smell of burnt food from mine. The knowledge that once again Mom couldn't accept the truth that she didn't have the power to make food that was pleasant to ones tastebuds.

"Madi," my Mom uttered once I walked inside the kitchen. "Pass me the syrup, please," she said while flipping the burnt pancakes onto two plates.

"You sure?" I asked, eyeing the pancakes.

"I'm not gonna repeat myself," she glared.

"Ok,ok," I surrendered, passing her the syrup.

"Do they look yummy?" She asked once we were both sat in the floor in front of the coffee table in the living room. It was a simple tradition, we would always have breakfast there instead of sitting in the dining room and forcing communication when we were all too tired to speak.

"Sure, Mom," I said, answering her question.

"You're just biased cause you've spent the last months eating posh rich food. You know you miss my pancakes."

I answered truthfully, taking a bite of a taste I was too familiar with, "Yes, Mom. I missed it."

———

AARON

Opening the front door and seeing my son standing there with a big grin made my heart fill with happiness. A child's smile and happiness was a mastery to some, myself included. How could a kid who obliviously had a mother that belittled his father and a father which he could only see once a month smile this brightly?

I enveloped Finn in a hug and got him inside safe. It sure was weird having him around without Madison's presence, even if h had come to my house without her more than with her. She just grew to be part of the house as well. Kind of like the piece of furniture that attracted everyone's sight once they put a foot inside of it. Though she was still there, her perfumes, shampoo, most of her clothes, all the cookies she had bought.

I wasn't that unmindful to not notice how my presence in my work office had simmered down. On nights that were before filled with work and the oxymoron of it being my stress relief yet stressful at most, had now changed. I spent time with Madison, that being either watching TV, reading, laughing, talking, or fucking. There wasn't a night that was dull or stressful with her.

And I was glad to say that even with her gone for a few days my smile did not falter, for she was not my reason of happiness, she was the one that pushed it free.

I was familiar with the dependency on women, my first real love was spent with a woman that played me with her strings, manipulating me to feel remorseful of what I enjoyed and making me feel as if she was the antidote for happiness. As if she was my only source of happiness.