Aftertaste (Sin #2)

XLVIII.

And this is love. The nurse in that room might've thought this is just young love, but it's not. It's love. In the rawest way possible. We've experienced our ups and downs together, we've been at our lowest and we've been at our highest and, still to this day, we go to bed together every night full of love for each other. This is love. We have our backs in good and bad. We're there for each other, fighting battles when they need to be fought and celebrating victories when they happen.

And this is love. Staying when everything else is falling apart. Trying when things aren't easy. Getting through the rain together.

It's not just young love. It's us. It's him I go to when I have a good day. It's him when I go to when I have a bad one. It's him. Always him, anywhere, anytime with anywhom. And it'll always be him.

"Why are you crying?" Alexander asks, his mouth against the top of my head so I feel his lips move with the question.

"Because I love you so much." I sniff.

"You're crying because you love me? Baby," Alexander says and I can just hear the smile in his voice.

I sniff again. "I know," I murmur, not knowing what got into me.

Alexander doesn't say anything and I don't expect him to. He's tired and he's hurt. He needs rest, not worrying about me and my crying fit in the middle of the night.

I don't know how long I stay up, though, but I know that once I calmed down, I fell asleep pretty quickly.

I still woke up before Alexander. I didn't want to disturb him or wake him up, so I quickly went out of the bed and into the bathroom. I felt like shit and looked like it, too. This is what a bad sleep and crying in the middle of the night will do to a person.

I brush my teeth and brush my hair. I skip putting on the clothes and leave one of Alexander's shirts on. I'm not planning on going anywhere today, anyway. And if anyone comes, surely they won't come this early in the morning.

I make pancakes for breakfast to busy myself until Alexander wakes up. I don't know how much sleep he got, but I assume it wasn't a lot.

I take the pancakes with me to the bedroom to check up if he's up. He's on the phone, still laying in the bed, his hair mussled, his eyes still sleepy. When he hears me entering, he lifts his head and gives me a huge smile. He shifts under the sheet, his legs moving. "Mornin'," he greets me.

"Good morning," I say, sitting on the bed. "I made pancakes."

His grin widens at that. "You're so fuckin' great," he says, eyeing the pancakes. But then his eyes lift to my face, searching. And his smile slowly yet surely disappears. "Are you okay? You woke up pretty early. You had some trouble sleeping."

Yeah, he's putting it nicely. I had a whole breakdown in the middle of the night. "Yeah, I'm alright. I can rarely sleep late in the morning, anyway," I mutter, avoiding his eyes, my head lowered so he doesn't have to see what a mess I am this morning. A disaster, really.

His hand appears under my chin and he lifts my face up to get a better look. "What's going on?"

I take a deep breath, biting the inside of my cheek. "I just ... It's been hard for me these days, I guess. You know, with everything that happened."

Alexander drops his hand from my chin. "Yeah, it's been fucking hell. But it's all over now. No one's going to try and hurt you now."

I pull my bottom lip into my mouth, looking down. My hands are shaking and I have to put the plate down on my legs so I don't drop it. "I know, it's just that ... do you know what I experienced when I heard that gunshot? Ryder told me that if I didn't cooperate so he could take me somewhere he wanted to, that he'd have someone shoot you and I didn't believe him. And then it happened. I thought someone killed you then, for sure. I completely lost it." My words come out frantic and shaky.