The next morning I wake up to an empty bed. I sit up and frown. My frown deepens when I see how early it is. It's not Alexander's habit to wake up before me.

I get out of bed and go to the bathroom to get ready. I put my hair up in a messy bun and wear one of my favourite sweaters that Rosalyn gifted me for my birthday.

I hear voices when I get downstairs. When I come to the kitchen entrance, wearing a smile, I stop at the doorway because Lena and Alexander are the only ones in here. Talking. I don't know what makes me stop. Alexander's harsh tone, perhaps.

"And why is that?" Lena asks, completely oblivious that I'm here. I don't know what they're talking about and I don't want to eavesdrop, either, so I make my presence known by walking into the kitchen, but Alexander cuts in before I could say good morning to both of them.

"Stop asking me goddamn questions that are none of your goddamn business!"

I stop and look at Alexander with wide eyes. Oh, he's in a really bad mood. Lena visibly retreats and Alexander slams his fist on the counter before just walking away, ignoring me completely.

"Ah, yes. The mornings with Sin," I hear Sam say behind me. I'm still too shocked to react in any kind of way. What just happened?

"You have to live with that every day?" Lena asks me with obvious disgust.

"Why do you care? She lives with it, not you."

"He's not like that with me," I murmur. He's not like that to just anyone without a reason either. Not anymore, at least. So I'm pretty sure Lena had to say something that made him like explode like this.

Lena snickers. "What? You won't go after him to calm him down?" She turns to the counter to continue preparing her breakfast.

I look at Sam, willing her to not say anything. I feel like Lena is doing this on purpose to provoke me or him or just all of us.

"This bitch is really getting my last nerve right now," Sam says to me and I feel like she turns and talks to me rather than saying or doing something that wouldn't end well.

"Sam," I say as a warning, not wanting her to pick a fight because of me.

She turns to Lena, anyway. "If you won't shut your mouth, you'll be the one that'll need calming down when I'm done with you. Bitch."

Lena smartly doesn't say anything back. She grabs her breakfast and she walks out of the kitchen.

"Can we send her back? This is unreal," Sam mutters, going to the coffee machine.

"I'll go look for Alexander," I say, already wishing I wouldn't get out of bed. At all.

The first place I look is his room, but he's not there. The rooftop is empty, too. That's when I start to get worried. His room and the rooftop are his places to go to.

I go back down, quiet to not wake anyone else up. I put on a jacket and shoes, wanting to go look at the backyard, but when I open the front door, I almost trip and fall over Alexander who's sitting there right in front of the door.

I take a moment to gauge his mood, but he doesn't even look at me. It's like he didn't even hear me come out.

I sit down next to him and look at him looking at nothing in particular. "Are you okay?" I ask him.

He just eyes me and takes a cigarette out of the pack he has lying beside him on the ground. He doesn't answer me.

I don't want to push him to talk, so I simply wrap my arms around his arm and lean my head onto his shoulder to let him know I'm here. "It was weird waking up to an empty bed, by the way."

"Couldn't sleep," he gruffs out, still not looking at me.

"Oh," I reply at his court answer. "Well, I missed you."

He finally, finally, looks at me. "Did you really?"

I give him a tiny, shy smile. "Yeah."

I see a dimple appear on his cheek when he smiles. Oh, he liked what he heard, alright.

He gets quickly serious again. "Shit gets heavy at this time of the year, you know?" he murmurs.

I look at his hand holding the cigarette and I want to ask him what he means by that, but then it dawns on me and my heart just sinks. Oh, no.

I squeeze him just a little bit tighter. The anniversary of his sister's death is coming up in a few days. It's a heavy time for him every year and I never know what to do to ease his ache. He tends to shut himself out and I let him because I know he has to deal with this his own way. And because I also know he'll come back.

"It's okay, Alexander. It's okay."

He sighs heavily, shakily. "Yeah," is all he says.

He kisses the top of my head and we stay like that for some time, lost in our own worlds and just a little bit in each other.

When we go back inside, the whole family is already up. Rosanna is making breakfast for everyone. Alexander doesn't really talk much when we go back in. I think Rosalyn understands and she doesn't push him. "When are you two going back?" she asks, the question directed at me.

Alexander answers her, instead. "Right after breakfast."

I just look at him. We planned on staying until lunch and then leaving afterwards, but I guess Alexander changed the plans without telling me first. "So soon?" Rosalyn can't hide her surprise. And her disappointment. She looks at me but I don't say anything. Alexander doesn't, either.

I don't even get to play with Amelia after breakfast because as soon as Alexander's done eating, he stands up. "We're going to go now," he says to no one particularly.

I just look at him. He gives me a pointed look when I don't stand up. "What's with the rush?" I ask him quietly.

"Have things to do," he mutters.

I stand up from the table. "I'm sorry," I say to Rosalyn mostly. "We'll come back here soon. You can all come to our place, too."

"Can't you stay for a little bit more?" Amelia asks, clearly sad.

I look at Alexander, but he's already standing by the door, his jaw ticking. "No, but we'll see you soon." I kiss her head and give Rosalyn a smile. She returns one of hers, which is more of a sad one. Rosalyn knows what's going on with Alexander and I believe this must be hard for her as well. For all of them, actually.

Alexander and I go to the car. We don't talk much on the drive home because, honestly, I don't know what to really say to make him feel better. Or to at least get him to think about something else.

"What was going on with you and Lena before?" Maybe it was something she said.

"Nothing. She was just being a cunt."

I look at him, my eyes wide. "Alexander, please. We should refrain from the name-calling."

"We? You're not doing anything. I'm just saying how it is and you know it."

"Please," I say again because calling people names is really not something I like to do. I'm met with silence from him again and I look outside the window, wrapping my arms around myself.

When we come to our flat, Alexander goes on his phone almost immediately. "Should I make lunch for us?" I ask him.

"I'm good," he says. I just stare at him for some seconds, but he doesn't look at me.

"Okay. I'm going to go study then," I say. This is not how I imagined this weekend to go. And Alexander hasn't been like this last year. I don't remember the year before, but it was bad, just not like this and I can't help but wonder if Lena said something to make everything worse. I don't think she knows about the accident yet.

I don't know how much later Alexander cracks the door open. I haven't done much studying, to be honest. I couldn't focus because my mind was going elsewhere. "I'm going out."

He has my attention immediately. "Where?" I ask him. Looking at the clock, I see it's only 4 in the afternoon.

"Going out with the guys. I'll be late."

"Oh. Okay," I say. "Where are you going?" I ask him, genuinely wanting to know because I'm worried when he's like this.

"At some bar probably. Cred's celebrating his birthday."

"Alright. Have fun and I'll see you in the morning?"

"Yeah," he says. He changes his clothes and before he goes, he leaves a cloud of cologne behind him, making my concentration fall even more.

˙˙˙

Alexander is not quiet when he comes home and he wakes me up. I don't know what time it is, but I feel pretty disoriented. I stayed up late because I didn't know if he had a key and he wasn't answering my texts. I hear he let himself in with no trouble.

"Ah, goddamn! Where are you, motherfucker?"

I sit up on the bed, putting my palms over my eyes for a second and sigh. I'm really, really tired. I get up and turn the light on in the bedroom, flinching when it blinds me. I have to blink a few times to get used to it.

I open the door and turn the light on in the living room. "Alex?" I say as I see him standing in the middle of the room, frowning. He looks my way and everything inside of me tightens. "Oh, my God! What happened?" I go to him. His clothes are ripped at some parts and his upper lip is bleeding. His eye is also slightly swollen.

"Oh, hello there," he slurs and smirks.

I grimace. I can smell the alcohol on him. He's not big on drinking. In fact, he mostly avoids alcohol because that's just not his thing. Parties, yes, alcohol, no.

He's smiling stupidly at me as if he doesn't know what to really do. "Did you get into a fight?" When I step closer to him, I smell some light, floral perfume, but I don't think much of it until I lightly grab his chin and turn his head to the side and there it is, staring at me in a mocking way. It's lipstick. A red one. All over his collar and on his neck as if someone was kissing him. And I can literally smell a woman perfume on him.

I immediately step away from him. I'm going to be sick. "Alexander, what did you do?" I ask him quietly. I feel I'm starting to shake.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I just had some fun." He tugs at the shirt I'm wearing. His shirt. "I like you in this." His words are slightly slurred, but still easy to understand.

"Why is there lipstick on your neck?"

He puts his hand on his neck, on the other side where the lipstick is, and frowns. "No idea. Maybe it's yours."

"I don't wear lipsticks!" And I definitely wouldn't wear a red one because it's really not my colour at all.

He just shrugs. He walks to the bedroom, pulling the shirt off on the way and just throwing it on the floor, while I continue standing in the middle of the living room like an idiot on the verge of tears. I can't even imagine he'd do something so reckless. Maybe I don't even want to know what he did.

I see the water running in the bathroom and with a big intake of breath, I go to the bedroom. I pick his discarded shirt off the floor to have a better look. He didn't even close the bathroom door so I can hear and see him singing ... I don't even know which song, if not multiple songs in one.

I look at the shirt in my hands. It's ripped and stretched and there's some blood on it. I take a closer look at the collar, but this is definitely lipstick. I feel like someone just punched me in the stomach.

I sit on the edge of the bed because I don't know what to do. When he comes out of the shower, I watch him dry off and tie a towel around his waist. He brushes his teeth and cleans his face, wincing when he gets too rough. He doesn't bother cleaning the cut on his lip, even though it stopped bleeding.

He comes out and sits down beside me, laying back. "Fuck, I don't feel good."

Yeah, I bet. I look at him. His eyes are closed. "You should really put something on that wound," I say quietly. I want to ask him so many questions, I want him to tell me what happened, from start to finish, and I want to press him for answers, but I know I won't get any from him tonight.

"Can you do it for me? Please, baby."

I look at him and he gives me one of his disarming smiles.

I get up and go to the bathroom, grabbing a cotton pad and a disinfectant then head back. "Sit up," I tell him, dapping some disinfectant on the pad. He opens his legs so I can step between and, without a warning, I press the pad on against the wound.

He hisses and immediately moves the head away. "Fuck, Gabrielle! What the hell?"

"Sorry," I mutter, not sorry at all. I do it slowly and lightly the second time, holding it against and wiping around it. He puts his hands on the back of my thighs and I move my eyes from his lips to his eyes. He gives me a wicked smile before he moves the hands upwards until he's cupping my butt and he squeezes it.

Are those the hands you touched someone else tonight with, Alex?

"You're so fucking hot. Felt like it's my birthday when I saw you come out in nothing but my shirt." He pushes me forward so I have to straddle him and he tries to kiss me, but I turn my head away so he ends up placing a kiss on my neck.

The lips you kissed someone else with?

"What's the matter?" he asks.

"I'm not in the mood for this right now," I say and slowly stand up. I put all the stuff away and wash my hands.

"Not even for cuddling?" Alexander asks when I come back out, still in the same position as before, only now his towel is opened and his hair is all dishevelled.

"I'm not in the mood for anything with you right now. Good night," I say and turn the light off. I go out and into the living room because I can't bring myself to sleep next to him tonight. My heart feels so, so heavy.

I settle down on the couch and hug a pillow to my chest. I spend most of the night crying.