what you make of me //OPEN

[jason adam levito]

If people did change this could very well be proof of that on some level and proof that lives do evolve, even if they can still continue to go rolling backwards. Jason Levito was proof of change while doting upon his three year old daughter, this little girl was in complete honesty the ‘apple of his eye’ and he loved her more than he ever imagined he could love someone. Amber Lynne Levito was the most precious thing to him, and he couldn’t be any happier than he was when he was with her. This was either a blessing or a very well disguised omen. Jason followed behind Amber, watching her as she ran around the park. He was more comfortable here when it was empty, almost like it was now, there was another family here with two children, and he liked that more than having swamps of people around.

Amber and the other girl that were at the park seemed to get along well, playing with each other and babbling with the little English that they knew at their young age. Jason felt like it was his responsibility to be a better father to Amber then his father was to him, he felt like it was his responsibility not to abandon her… that was what made his lifestyle so much harder for him. Temptation was one of the worst of his demons, and above that was the depression and when the depression was able to get to him; he was gone. He hated that, he hated that he had such little self control, in all honesty it destroyed him when he hurt her, yet the pain he caused others that loved him didn’t affect him nearly as much as hurting Amber could affect him. He didn’t know if it was because Amber was a part of him, or if it was just because he loved her that what she, a three year old, thought mattered so much. He just knew that what she thought mattered to him.

Amber was just a little girl, she didn’t know what it was like to hurt yet, and Jason hoped with everything in him that she would never know the kind of hurting that he had. He hoped that she would never be as depressed as he was, he hoped that Amber would never run to drugs to make herself feel better and keep herself on her feet and alive. He also hoped that one day, he could control himself, because the day that he lost complete control, he knew it would destroy Amber’s childhood almost like the way Shane had destroyed his…

Jason sat down on a bench near the play ground, a watchful eye searching for his daughter every few moments while the rest he sketched a drawing. He was only allowed three days and two nights a month with Amber a month, and these were the days that he had to make sure he was in control of himself. If he wasn’t, he would never be able to live with himself if he hurt her, he was already so unstable when it came to suicide, and hurting her would be it for him. The medication wouldn’t be able to stop him at that point. Jason licked his lips and sighed, continuing to trace the outline of the silhouette he was drawing on his sketch paper. Amber looked up at him the same moment he looked to her and the girl smiled and a small smile carried onto Jason’s lips as she did, and the smile widened a little as she continued to play with her newfound friend.

If he had been told five years ago that he would have a daughter and he would love her and she would keep him willing to live, he never would have believed it. But now, he understood what love was, and he saw it in his daughter’s eyes every time he was with her.

[abbie mckenna shaw]

A pair of converse shoes padded slowly along. The curvy, ashphalt path cut through a small cluster of trees in the lower part of Atlanta City Park. The shoes started up the hill, moving no faster than a comfortable stroll. The shoes were, obviously, attached to feet. And those feet lead upward to a five foot three inch blonde. Her name was Abbie. To go along with her converse, Abbie wore a pair of black three-quarter pants with a studded belt along with a white, graphic printed three quarter sleeves. And to top it all off, a pair of white suspenders clung to her pant waist band, only one of the straps was up where it should be on her right shoulder and the other one hung by her side. It was her walking metronome.

Teal eyes looked up to the blue sky as the small canopy of trees opened up. Out of the shade was warm, but not too warm. A hand brushed away a stray hair and then got shoved into the shallow pocket of her capris as a content sigh escaped her lips. It was then that the playground came into view, she didn't see the bench and the front man of her favourite band until after she saw the little girls playing. If only I was that young again. Abbie envied the children, though only for a moment or two. She was happy with her life and, honestly, wouldn't change a thing. Well, getting signed onto a record labed would've been nice.. Or even a regular spot at a well known joint.

Abbie's eyes lifted themselves past the playground and landed on a couple further away, they didn't seem like they'd interest her at all so she continued looking on while walking quite slowly. Soon she was watching a squirrel scurry up a tree trunk about seven feet off to her left and she smiled her crooked little smile. She supposed he was carrying an acorn or some odd little treasure someone left at the park, whatever it was it was Mr. Squirrels now. A small chuckle escaped her, was it because she heard the little girls laughing or was it Mr. Squirrel? She didn't know, or care for that matter. Laughing was one of her favourite things.

After her eyes passed over the couple, and the little girls, they stopped dead on a very familiar face. As her eyes stopped, so did her feet. Jason Levito was at Atlanta City Park on the same day she was. He lives in the city, right? She asked herself. He's allowed in the park. Just like I am. Abbie racked her brain for anything intelligent, even though she didn't plan on saying anything to him. She wasn't like that, usually anyways.

He's still a human being, a very sexy human being. Abbie nodded to herself and caught him glance up. Thanks for not looking at me. I probably seem like a tool.. Well, she was right. Standing in the middle of the park path just staring at.. Jason Levito.. Okay, maybe it wasn't so toolish. Abbie's eyes followed his gaze as she saw him smile. He looked to one of the little girls, or both but she couldn't be sure.

Either he's a pedophile or he's with his daughter.. The female thought a moment and hadn't realized that she'd begun walking again, at the same pace. Amy? No. Allison.. Abbie shook her head and continued to watch the path she walked on. Suddenly, it hit her. Not the name, but the actual child. The two girls had begun to run toward the path, apparently something about a butterfly had caused them to do so. When the small girl hit her head on Abbie's hip she rebounded and almost hit the pavement.

Luckily for her Abbie had quick reflexes and grabbed her and broke the fall as much as she could. "Hey, sweetie. Gotta be careful now." Abbie's crooked smile showed up on her face again as she knelt down beside the little girl. She let go of the girl and begun brushing a bit of dirt off of Amber's knee. "You okay, cutie?"

[luka & lira bryant]

Soft humming mingled with the scent of cigarette smoke on the breeze, following the soft padding of bare feet on pavement. The song that was being hummed wasn't well-known, but to the voice it sprung from, it was known by heart. The song had no name; none of the ones the young man wrote ever did. Somehow naming his songs made them seem more...material. They seemed to lose their charm.

Whatever it was that caused Luka Bryant to give his songs such anonymity, he didn't know, nor much care. At the moment, he was rather preoccupied with the fact that he had been kicked out of his apartment...again. His twin sister had little tolerance for his smoking habit, and doing it in the house always guaranteed him a few hours on the street. Always. He'd of course tried to argue that 'we don't own a house', but all that had earned him was a whack over the head with a couch cushion and a firm shove out the door. He'd been lucky to be able to snatch his most recent sketchbook off the couch before the door had slammed resolutely behind him.

Of course, now he was met with another problem. He was out here in his pajamas. Luka stretched his long arms over his head, warm, baby blue eyes closing for a moment while his black wife-beater hiked up, exposing an inch or two of his toned abdomen. His arms dropped, and he adjusted the top back into place, the hem overlapping the waistband of the gray drawstring sweats that were slung low on his hips.

He wasn't quite sure how (a lot of things worked out for him that way nowadays), but his bare feet had managed to lead him to the city park. He didn't complain; it had proved to be the best place the find subjects for his art lately. He ran his slender fingers through his wild, silky raven hair, shook his head like a dog clearing its ears of water, then moved from side-walk to grass, blinking those brilliant cerulean eyes a few times as the coolness of the grass calmed the burning sensation the hot pavement had seared into the soles of his feet.

A few minutes later, as his stroll led him towards the playground, Luka became vaguely aware that he had not taken his medication today. That would certainly explain why it was so hard to concentrate on any one thing at the moment.

Oblivious to the fact that there were others nearby, drifting around in the spacey neverland that most often proved to be his muse, he resolutely plopped himself down with his back against a tree, a good couple of yards from the playground proper. Here he cracked open his sketchbook, flipping through dozens of pages occupied by finished and half-finished drawings of everyday scenes and forays; people eating at a restaurant, a traffic jam somewhere downtown. All of these seemed to have a strange candicy and insight, though they seemed oddly unfocused as well.

When he reached a blank page he stilled, mechanical pencil removed from the spiral spine held loosely in one hand, and simply stared at the plain white sheet for several minutes, contemplating everything and nothing. His cigarette was almost done with by now, and what was left of it dangled loosely out of one corner of his mouth, nigh forgotten as Luka spaced.

Abruptly his eyes snapped up, though they were still calm and warm, not steely, as the motion might have suggested. His gaze drifted along the park scene, taking in every detail with abstract interest, considering what each would look like on paper. Let it never be said that the Bryant twin took his art 'seriously'. He had a deep, fiery passion for the arts, whether it be sketching, painting, or his greatest obsession; music, but he never captured something unless it first captured his interest utterly and entirely, which was quite a feat.

Finally his relaxed stare landed upon two young girls, no older than four, dashing about after a butterfly. The foremost bumped into a pretty young woman, and the gentle way with which the blonde spoke to the toddler just seemed right. The homeliness of two children, not a care in the world, playing as their hearts desired; it was good.

Pencil touched paper, and soon a few soft strokes turned into dozens of lines, calmly scratched across the page by a skilled, dextile hand, its owner glancing up occasionally to look at the three as his interpretation of the image began to take shape before him. He started humming again.

[jason adam levito]

The silhouette of the sketch he’d been working on seemed to never stop growing into different things and before he realized it he was already throwing in more details to the shady silhouette and more things around it. A haunting moon with its shadow cast over a huge oak tree. He saw the completed image in his head and wondered how far he would get into this before he gave up on it completely. He looked up to see where Amber was and when he saw her with the other girl he looked back to his sketch book, he didn’t have to watch her every five seconds he could look away, she wasn’t the only child in the park after all…

He heard the girls saying something about a butterfly and at this point he looked up and saw them running, he put his sketch book at his side and stood up to follow them so they didn’t get lost somewhere and right as he stood up Amber fell into some woman’s hip. Jason half sprinted to where she was just to get to her before Amber would surely start crying, he knew she’d cry simply because she was scared it wouldn’t matter if she was hurt or not, she’d still cry. He heard the woman ask if she was alright and saw Amber nod and look over to where he was sitting and then watched the realization wash over her that she didn’t see where he was until he was next to her. He picked her up and kissed her forehead. “You’re okay aren’t ya?” Jason asked her, a soft smile on his lips. Amber nodded as a few tears rolled down her cheek; he wiped them with his thumb and smiled at her.

He looked at Abbie at that point and offered a little smile. “Thanks.” He said to her, there was no big deal out of it but as both a protective father and a cry happy daughter he had to give his thanks to the woman. The other girl had already run awkwardly to her parents to tell them all about the butterfly not realizing her new friend had run straight into someone’s hip. “Can we take her for ice cream too?” Amber asked softly, her voice holding the small trace of the heavy accent of her father and he looked at her confused, “Who?” Amber pointed to Abbie and Jason shrugged. “If she wants to…” Jason said looking at Abbie. It made no sense to him how Abbie thought but apparently she wanted to take Abbie to come get ice cream. “Would you like to come for ice cream?” Jason asked with a small laugh following his words.

[abbie mckenna shaw]

Abbie continued to smile at the little girl and glanced over the girls shoulder. Jason was coming over to them. He reached them quickly and picked his daughter up. Abbie stood slowly, brushing off loose gravel from her knees in the process. It was a shock to the female that she was standing not even three feet away from Jason Levito. Abbie owned all of the albums Autumn Falls had put out over the course of their career and was hoping they'd release some new ones. That moment standing there would've been the perfect time to ask him about it but she didn't want to be a die hard crazy fan and ruin his time with his daughter.

Her tealish eyes flicked up to his face quickly and she saw him smile at Amber. Before he could look at her and thank her Abbie's eyes were focused on his daughter; her smile still present on her lips. She was sure that Amber was fine but she couldn't handle looking people in the eye without knowing them, never mind the fact that he's the lead singer of her favourite band.

Abbie continued to watch the little girl as she started speaking to her father about going for ice cream. It took a moment for the female's mind to register that Amber had pointed at her after Jason asked who she was talking about bringing. At first Abbie suspected she was asking if her new little friend could come until she saw that the child pointed at her. Abbie had to force her jaw to stay in place when Jason looked at her and asked if she wanted to go with them. She also had to force herself to not answer right away. Abbie really didn't want to be a crazy fan. She smiled and nodded. "I'm not doing anything," Abbie began chewing on the inside of her lips. "And it seems like you girl wants me to go." A small shrug and her gaze flicked over to Jason quickly before heading straight for the ground. "Sure."