Aftertaste (Sin #2)

X.

The lunch goes surprisingly well. Amelia is in the centre of attention and she loves it. She can't stop talking about the gifts she received and about tomorrow's birthday party that she's going to have with her friends. She's such a little sunshine that she cheers us all up.

There's a lot of sweets and there's also a cake. I feel like I'm getting high on sugar already. Alexander is not much for sweets, so he's not even tempted, while I adore everything sweet and having so much food in front of me at once is ... dangerous.

I go and help Rosanna in the kitchen out of habit and so I get away from all that food and also to stretch a little. I get a chance to talk to her and ask her how things are.

She tells me about Lena, although I didn't ask, but I think she knows I'm interested in knowing more about her. Not to confirm my suspicions, but I genuinely want to be her friend, although Rosanna can't tell me much. She says she's nice and respectful and that's she's very outgoing and overall full of energy at all times.

She told me she's a runner and she also got a gym membership. I sincerely admire her for that because I'm not much of a sports person myself, no matter how many times I tried.

My jealous subconsciousness appears from somewhere and lets me know that maybe Alexander and her have way more things in common than Alexander and I and maybe that makes me even more cautious of her.

Rosalyn comes into the kitchen at some point, giving me a small smile. "Gabrielle, come. I really want to speak to you."

I look at Rosanna and she just shrugs, shaking her head. I don't know why I look so differently at Rosalyn now that Alexander and I are dating. I'm just a little bit of scared of hare and when she says she wants to talk to me, I always think of everything bad. I think I'm scared that she'd at one point say that I'm not good for Alex. I don't know.

I go with her to the living room where we sit on the couch. "How is everything? How is Alex?" she asks me kindly.

And I realise that maybe she's just worried about her son. "Oh, we're good. He's good. He had a migraine last Saturday, though."

Rosalyn's face tightens as if she felt the pain he did last week. "You know, he got his first migraine when he was only 10. We didn't quite understand what was going on at the time. It happened so quickly. It was so bad. He was crying and vomiting. It hurt him but he couldn't explain to us what was wrong. And then the doctor informed us that he's just suffering from a migraine. And it's been a battle ever since, especially in his teenage years. And then when Zoe died in that accident ... It was tough for him. But he's ... so much different now."

Rosalyn shakes her head to herself, sighing. "I'm sorry, I'm getting all emotional. I'm just happy that he has someone to look after him. And someone that saw all the good parts in him when everyone saw everything bad."

Now I'm getting emotional, too. "I can say for myself that I'm happy where I am. With him, I mean." And I mean that. Sincerely. We came a long way. We literally went from hating each other to being so in love it's funny.