The Sinner's Saint

SUPPPORT

July

WEEK ONE
The first few days are the worst and she knows going in that they'll be the worst because she's done this before, which somehow doesn't make it easier.

Due to her ankle which has a history that neither of them has forgotten about but thats a story for another time, walking anywhere properly is out.

The cast which is new means everything is out of hand. Being ambidextrous allows her to adapt faster but doesn't mean it's fine, it just means she can eat and write and get dressed without it being a complete disaster but Anything that needs two hands or any weight through that arm is not happening. She figured that out fast and stopped trying.

The headaches behind her eyes feel like pressure that won't fully sit, just hover, making screens uncomfortable and reading harder than it should be.

She spends most of her days on the couch feeling useless which she is, technically. She got banned from work again. Sometimes she genuinely wonders how she still has a job.

Speaking of Lev, he didn't just appear. That's not how he works. What had happened was, she was standing in the doorway after he dropped her home, still in the clothes she had left in, and she said something like "it's going to be a weird night" without looking at him directly. Not asking, just saying it out loud in his general direction.

"You want me to stay?"

"I didn't say that."

"Do you want me to stay, Alexandria?" She thought about it for a second, she wanted him to stay but didn't want to be annoying about it, didn't want to be the kind of person who couldn't handle one night without someone there, even if Kendall was home.

"Kendall's home."

"I know. That doesn't answer my question tho."

"God, you're so annoying," she said dragging her hair back. "Fine. Yes. Lev, I want you to stay."

"That wasn't so hard was it?" She just leaves him at the doorway and goes to her room. That's it. That's the whole conversation. He doesn't leave when she goes to her room. He stands in the doorway for a second after she disappears down the hall, hands in his pockets, and just looks at the dark end of the corridor before he moves.

He grabs his car keys, leaves to grab a few things he needs, comes back and that's that. He takes the pull-out couch without asking where anything is because he already knows where everything is. He gets comfortable while she goes to bed.

Speaking of Kendall, they created a system without realising. Kendall leaves at eight every morning in a blazer with coffee in hand and comes back at six looking like she's been a professional menace all day while Alex exists on the couch in varying states of pathetic.

When Lev is around he orders in and makes Alex's plate without asking because he knows all her usual orders by heart at this point. When she drops something, which happens constantly because one-handed is genuinely so much harder than it should be, he picks it up and puts it back and moves on.

"I'm fine, I can do it" she tells him one day when he appears in the doorway while she's trying to wrestle a jar open against her stomach. He looks at her then looks at the jar and waits. She wrestles with it for another ten seconds, gives up and holds it out to him. He takes it, opens it, gives it back and goes back to what he was doing.

What she didn't know was, he was watching her from the other room for a few minutes before he appeared in the doorway. She doesn't know that.

She allows herself to accept his help and doesn't analyse why it's easier to accept help when he doesn't make it feel like help.