The Sinner's Saint

SUNDAY

"Let me take you out Sunday," he says.

"Is that you asking me out or?" she says squinting with her head tilted.

"Yeah," he says, holding her gaze, not looking away, just letting the word sit there and mean what it means.

That was in her 6th week of recovery.

It is now Sunday morning and Alex is already awake at 8am and she has a plan.

She starts in the shower because obviously. It isn't a regular shower tho, it's an everything shower. Emphasis on everything.

The shower has its own agenda, Theres pre-shampoo oil sitting in her hair from last night, she shampoos her hair with her best-smelling one, she deep conditions with a deep conditioner that needs twenty minutes minimum, then uses her body scrub that smells like brown sugar and makes her skin feel expensive, cause it is. She shaves everything and exfoliates twice just to be dramatic about it.

She has a playlist going, something slow and indulgent from Frank Ocean. She sings to herself between steps and dances a little in the steam because nobody is watching and she is happy, like stupidly, embarrassingly happy and she isn't going to apologise for it.

When she finally steps out of the shower she looks at herself in the foggy mirror and points.

"You are THAT girl." She had to say it first. Manifesting is part of the routine.

Then comes the body situation. Alex does not play about her skin. She uses whipped shea butter first, the real shit, works into her legs, her arms, her shoulders until everything is gleaming. Then she presses the perfume oil into her pulse points while her skin is still warm so it stays. Then the regular perfume over that because she likes to layer her scents like she is making up something in a lab. By the end, she smells like warm and edible, soft and sweet, like warmth had a smell and it was her.

She did her nails herself because she wanted to try these press-ons she'd received from a brand. It definitely isnt the day to try something new but it's perfect so whatever. It is a deep rich brown colour that makes her skin look like it was lit from underneath and she matches her toes when she paints them. She sits feet up on the table, waiting for them to dry, eating a snack, watching nothing, humming along to the music, genuinely content with her life right now.

She has nowhere to be until seven so she is gonna take her precious time to get ready and she is enjoying every single second of it.

She got her lashes done by her usual lady so she was looking fleek, also, it made her makeup easier. Speaking of makeup, this is where Alex slows all the way down because she ain't rushing this for anything. When her skin's prepped to the gods and primed, she goes in with her foundation the exact right shade.

She builds it slowly. She uses concealer that makes under her eyes look like she's slept nine hours every night for a month straight. She carves her contour softly along her cheekbones because her face does not need much, it just needs direction.

She puts Highlighter on the tops of her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, and the inner corners. Basically, she is dewy and glowy and warm, like if a sun god had a baby with the most angelic goddess.

She does a goldy brown moment for her eyes, Nothing aggressive, just deep and dimensional. Her eyes do the most on a regular day thats what Lev told her even though they're just brown, but with liner and shadow they became a whole conversation. Looking in the mirror she nods at herself and bites her finger, thinking yeah. yeah okay.

She applies lip liner over her natural lip shape, not overlining, then adds gloss on top that makes her mouth look like a glazed chocolate fudge lip. She steps back and looks at herself properly. She blows a kiss at her mirror smiling.