You made walking easy

The First Week

CARINA POV

The first day that Alex was here I took Eve out for the day. I didn't see her at all after we left the house, I don't want to overwhelm her and I think from what Maya said to me it worked. I mean she got a hug! Alex really just follows Maya around when she can, I think she sees Maya as a safe person and I hope I can be that for her too.

I took the week off so that I could be around both Alex and Eve. Eve has seen Alex but Alex seems to avoid her if she can. I don't know why but I hope we find out soon. We also found out that Alex attends a school about 20 minutes away from us and is at the top of every class and plays soccer. May and I have been still going on our daily walks but separately. Today we're going to try and have all four of us on the same walk, let's see what happens.

MAYA POV

Carina and I decided that we'd like to try and have Alex join our family walks since we want her to feel like she is family. "Hi Alex, how do you feel about going for a walk with Carina and Eve? I can show you the route we'll be taking and if you want we can walk a little behind them so you can keep an eye on them?" I say to Alex causing her to smile. "Can I see the route?" She asks. Since we've been going on our walks, I think she sees them as freedom so I always offer her to plan the route. I tell her the places we should avoid and how long the walk should be. There's an app we use that uses maps and she can personalise her own route. "Can we do this one again?" She says while going through the different saved routes we've completed. "Of course, let's go tell Carina okay?" I say to her and she nods along before getting up and following me.

-

We've just left for the walk and so far it's going well. We're walking slightly behind them and I can see Alex relax. We enter a park and walk towards the playground so that Eve can explore. I sit in between Carina and Alex. "Can I talk to you Carina?" Alex suddenly says. Carina nods and I check with Alex if she's okay with me leaving and it looks like she is. "Okay, I'm going to go play with Eve. Call me if you want me back" I whisper to Alex.

ALEX POV

I wanted to talk to Carina, I feel like I haven't given her a chance and well I haven't. I don't really have a reason for it, I think I've just let Maya stay around me whereas I've avoided Carina like the plague.

"Yeah so I-uh-I wanted to talk to you. I feel like I haven't been making any effort trying to get to know you. You haven't done anything, it's all my fault. I'm sorry for not talking to you, it won't happen. Please don't send me back" I plead. They've been good to me; sure, it's been a week but they seem pretty attentive. It being a week just tells me there's still a chance for things to change for the worst.

"Alex, I want to get to know you but that's on your terms. I'm happy that you can talk to Maya. I do want to ask if it's okay if Maya shares what you tell her with me? You're not going anywhere; it's been a week and we plan on having you for as long as we can" She explains in a calm manner.

"Thank you so much Carina, I don't want you to hate me, and I don't want to cause trouble in your family while I'm living with you" I say. I really don't want to destroy them; they seem like a good couple. We go back into silence as we watch Maya and Eve playing.

"Hi Maya, is this Eve. She sure has grown. Where's that wife of yours, I haven't seen her since the hospital" We hear causing us to turn towards a grey-haired man.

"Dad I-uh... hi. What are you doing here? Yeah this is Eve, she's nearly three. My wife is over there on the bench" I can hear Maya's nervousness in her voice, I've heard that voice before in so many homes I've been placed in.

"Who's the one next to your wife? I'm pretty sure she's not actually yours, just taking in the local kids now?" He says in a stern voice, I start to stand to go over but Carina stops me and tells me to stay behind her. We both walk over and she picks up Eve so that Maya can concentrate only on her dad.

"This is Alex, we are fostering her" Maya says while smiling. "Ah okay, that makes sense. Anyway, I need to go. Just want you to know, I am still in therapy and I hope you stop restricting me from seeing my own granddaughter" he says before leaving.

"Come on, we need to go" Is all Maya says before she starts walking in a fast pace back to their house. Carina, Eve, and I try to chase her back but she starts running. I can hear Carina sigh and mutter "Shit... I thought this wouldn't happen again", what's happened? Sure, he looked creepy but he seemed nice enough.

The rest of the walk went by quickly as we sped walked the whole way back. When we walked in, we could hear loud music coming from the basement. Carina looked like she ignored it and walked Eve up to put her down for a nap. About 5 minutes later Carina came back downstairs and asked if I could stay out of the basement for a while.

CARINA POV

I feel bad for asking Alex to stay away from Maya, after all she is the safe person in this house. But Maya isn't in her right mind and I don't want her to put any of that on Alex, she needs to calm down. That conversation was nice and mostly respectable, with that one dig towards Alex. But with Maya, it seems like she can't comprehend her dad being polite, I know she's waiting for the second ball to drop. She thinks her dad is putting up an act to really hurt her one final time, I know she's punishing herself right now.

I walk down into the basement and is deafened by the music playing. It's her 'angry' music playlist. Currently the song playing is 'you make me wanna die – the pretty reckless', you could say that it's appropriate. She's running on her treadmill faster than she usually does. She's a trained long-distance runner, at least that's what she did at the Olympics and she usually runs for an hour or more on her runs but here she's sprinting. If she's been sprinting since she left us, she would have been doing it for about half an hour, I can see she's hurting herself. She's in a trance completely shut off.

I stop the music and walk in front of her, she continues at her speed and her eyes stay on target with whatever her eyes are stuck on. She's too shut off and I know that stopping the treadmill is a sure-fire way of her exploding, I need to wait for her to completely tire herself out. Meaning, I just head back upstairs and is straight away met with an anxious Alex who wants answers.

"Alex I need to tell you something, okay" I say and she nods while following me into the living room.

"You probably realised that that man was Maya's dad. They didn't have a good relationship when she was younger, it was heavily toxic and emotionally abusive. In the last few years, since I've known her, she has been working through it in therapy and it seems he has been too. When we had Eve, we decided that despite him doing work to be better, we didn't want him anywhere need Eve. We hadn't seen him until today so she was taken aback by it. Another thing is that him being kind to her or mostly respectful triggers something in her which causes her trigger response. Which is running, she ran back here and is now on a treadmill in a trance. I don't want you to get in her way, I don't know what her trauma response would be" I say to Alex.

"Oh, so her dad caused her to run and now she's punishing herself for his behaviour by running. That makes no sense" Alex says, questioning what I've said. "Yeah so usually when she runs it's a discipline thing but when she's been triggered she also runs. I know it makes no sense but that's trauma for you. So how about we put a movie on? You can choose it and we can eat some candy?" I say bargaining with Alex. I hate to say it but with Maya not available for the first time, it opens up an opportunity for me to get to know Alex. She nods her head and we make our way to the living room.

She chooses 'Deadpool', this would be right up Maya's alley. The language and humour had Alex bent over, cry laughing. It was a beautiful sight to see.