Volleyball Journey - Part 3

The following night, is much the same she comes prepared with the brace on, and goes through some training with Andrew and Sam, but also does some light court work with the rest of the team. After the training Sam takes another look and then she ices her ankle for 20 mins. 

 

The next night and match night, Alex shows up with the rest of the team. Dressed and ready to go. Andrew pulls her aside to see how she is going. “I’m good, a little nervous but excited to get back on the court.”

“Ok well good luck out there.”

“thanks Andrew” and Alex smiles. 

 

The match starts and Sam and Andrew and the rest of the team watch on. Its noticeable that Alex is being very sure footed at the start. Making sure she lands good and doesn’t try too many awkward steps sideways. The girls go down in the first set but get off to a thrilling start in the second. Alex is feeling more relaxed and comfortable, making lots of shots and moving around quite freely. Towards the end of the second set, Alex is moving briskly to hit the ball as she corrects herself, she just catches the edge of her right sneaker on the court and her ankle very slightly rolls outwards against the ankle brace. Instantly she feels a shooting pain from her ankle. 

 

Andrew watches for the sidelines and goes to grab his bag when it sees it happen. He watches as the point ends, she moves around a little slower now showing a definite limp on her right ankle. They take out the set to tie things up at 1-1. They go to change sides and take a short drink break. Andrew goes to see how she is going. 

“Are you ok Alex, I saw you tweak your ankle at the end of that last point.”

“yeah I just caught my shoe on the court. I felt a sharp pain as it rolled a bit, but it feels ok, just a bit sore. Don’t tell Sam though I’ll be fine.”

“ok well just take it easy on that ankle.”

 

The team makes it back out to the court for the last set. It’s a gruelling set too, they return point for point pushing them into a tie breaker. Alex is noticeably favouring her right ankle now, and the other team starts to target her making her move quickly on her ankle, which is becoming more painful each step. Finally, they get a break and Alex takes the spike to win the match. The girls cheer as the referee calls the game. Andrew watches from the sidelines, as the group move off the court, trying to see how Alex is fairing. Once the group breaks apart, he sees that Alex is limping quite heavily and walking slowly. He rushes to the trainer’s station and grabs the crutches. And goes over to Alex.

“Here Alex, use these and stay off that ankle, and let’s get you to the trainers station.”

“Thanks Andrew” as she takes the crutches. She makes her way to the trainer’s table with Andrew, keeping all the weight off her right ankle. 

 

As they make their way, Sam spots them from a distance, and heads towards them. 

“Oh no, what happened.”

Andrew jumps in quickly to diffuse the situation.

“nothing nothing, just a little precautionary and we will get her ankle iced down for the night.”

“Ah ok, that’s good you had me worried. Good thinking from you though Andrew.”

Sam parts ways and Andrew and Alex continue on. When they get to the table, she places the crutches down and gets up on the table. 

“Thanks Andrew”

“That’s ok, just want to make sure you’re ok.”

The two smiles at each other. 

 

Andrew helps Alex to remove her shoe and he loosen the straps on the brace and slowly starts to work it off. “Ahhh, uggghh” Alex moans in pain as the brace breaks free from her ankle. He continues to remove her long black sock sliding it down her leg, and then over the ankle. Alex winces again as the sock squeezes past her ankle. 

 

As soon as the sock is removed, Andrew places her foot down gently and goes to grab some ice. When he has to run to the freezer for some ice and returns after about 5 minutes. When he gets back Alex is sitting there waiting, with her sock covering her right ankle. Thinking to himself he put the sock on the side before. As he lifts up the sock again, he instantly notices the outside of her ankle has swollen up again. The inner and outer ankle is looking swollen about 1.5 times what it was at the end of their session yesterday. 

He looks at Alex, “That’s not good”

“I know that’s why I covered it.” Alex smiles. 

 

He gets the ice pack on her ankle immediately and secures it in place with some athletic wrap. 

“Ok keep that on for as long as possible, Take the crutches and stay off the ankle all night.”

“ok thanks Again Andrew”

They have a quick chat before Andrew has to go to watch the next game. 

 

After a while Alex leaves and heads to her room on the crutches staying off her ankle as suggested. That night her ankle is throbbing a lot, so she takes a few Advil to help her sleep. 

 

The next day, Alex is limping around quite heavily. Choosing to just bandage her ankle and wear a ballet flat. Her ankle still swollen from the night before, she takes some Advil throughout the day to help numb the pain and hopefully reduce the swelling. The team has the night off from training so that afternoon, Andrew decides to head over to Alex’s room to see how she is going. As he approaches her block, he sees her enter the building. And picks up the pace. He enters the door and makes his way to the stairs. There are 3 flights of stairs to her level as he rounds the first flight of stairs, he sees Alex halfway up the next set of stairs. As he watches, she tries to take a step, limping very heavily and wincing in pain as she stands on her right ankle. He scurries up the steps behind her, “you look like you could use a hand.”

 

She turns to see Andrew their smiling at her, “Talk about good timing.” And she smiles. 

He positions himself on her left side and puts his arm around her back. “Stay off that ankle and ill help you hop the rest of the way.”

 

They make their way up the stairs slowly, one hop at a time and down the corridor to Alex’s room. She opens the door and then he helps her inside. He takes her straight to the small 2-seater sofa she has in the room and sits her down. He looks around the room for the fridge and goes straight to the freezer and gets an ice pack out. Straight back to the sofa and he takes a seat next to her on her right side. “Ok let’s get the ankle up shall we” Alex leans forward and supports her leg as Andrew supports her foot as she lifts it onto his knee. Andrew slowly and gently slides off the ballet flat on her right foot and then starts to remove the bandage. Once removed he takes a quick look and sees that her ankle is still as swollen as the night before after the game. He puts the ice pack on her ankle and sits back in the sofa. After some chat, he offers to go get some dinner for the two of them. 

“That’s very kind Andrew thank you. I’ll have a shower in the meantime and freshen up.”

“ok well stay off that ankle no walking tonight ok”

“ok”, Alex repsonds.

 

Andrew heads off to grab some dinner, whilst Alex has a shower and freshens up, when he returns, she is sitting on the sofa with her ankle up and the ice pack on it. She is wearing these cute little shorts and a nice top. 

Andrew gets them some cutlery and they chat on the sofa for a while as they enjoy there dinner together. They get to know each other a little better and even start to get a bit personal. “So does your girlfriend know you’re out having dinner with a damsel in distress.”

Alex smiles. 

“Well if I had one, she might know, hahaha”

“And what about you Alex, no boyfriend around to help out?”

“nope just me” and she gives him this real cheeky smile. 

 

They finish dinner and Andrew makes a suggestion. “I have been reading into a technique for helping with the swelling if you’re interested in trying it maybe a little painful though.”

 

Intrigued, “ok what is it” Well is basically a form of massage that will help to shift the fluid around. 

“ok can’t say no to a message”

Andrew positions himself on the floor in front of the sofa and gets Alex to rest her foot in his lap. He starts by running his hand gently down her leg starting just below the knee and over the ankle and to her toes. Gently working the whole lower leg. With each pass he starts to increase the pressure. Alex starts to wince a little as he passes over and around her ankle with his hands. 

“Are you ok Alex, is that too much”

“it’s ok, it just a bit tender” as she clenches her teeth as his finger pass over her ankle again. 

After about 15 mins, he finishes and goes to the freezer for a fresh ice pack. When he returns, he bandages her ankle up first and then rests it down on the sofa with the ice pack on top. He cleans up their rubbish from dinner and then writes his number on a piece of paper. 

 

“Well I should let you go to sleep I guess, so here is my number if you need anything just let me know, ok” as he passes over the piece of paper. 

 

“Ok thanks so much Andrew for all your help.” They smile and Andrew leaves. 

 

As he makes his way out of the building Andrew can’t help but think he should ask her out on a date some time. As he enters his own building and makes his way to his room, his phone vibrates in his pocket. As he grabs his keys to open his door, he unlocks his phone to see who it was. Instantly he fumbles the keys and drops them to the floor when he sees the message. 

Alex sent him a photo of her ankle up on pillows and the bandage showing her cute pedicured toes, with a little note. “Good night” and a smiley face. 

 

Unsure how to reply or what to say, Andrew just sends a smiley face and goodnight in return.

 

Andrew doesn’t see Alex until the following evening at training, she comes over to him at the trainer’s station before the training starts. 

“Hi Andrew, How are you today?”

“Hey Alex, I’m good, but more importantly, how are you? How’s the ankle feeling today?”

“it’s feeling much better the swelling has halved overnight, the massage really worked a treat. It’s still a bit sore today, but just been taking it easy.”

 

“Ok well be careful at training and if you want we can do the massage again tonight afterwards”

 

“Ok that sounds good. See ya” and she smiles and heads towards the team. 

 

As planned after training they head back to Alex’s room and he massages her ankle again and helps with some ice and re-bandaging the ankle. Over the next few days they start to see each other a little more, and exchange text messages through the day. 

 

By Tuesday night her ankle is doing much better. Most the swelling has gone, she is relatively pain free and the bruising has finally started to disappear. Sam checks in with her during the training sessions to make sure she is on track and doing well and is happy with the progress. 

 

 

The following few weeks go by uneventful and the season is going well. The girls are winning consistently, they have had a few injured players return and they are getting their stride back. Alex wears her ankle brace when playing now and her ankle has been doing great. 

 

Week 18 and 4 weeks out from the finals they are streaking ahead on team points. Now clear first and several wins ahead they are sure to get a spot in the play offs. Everyone is pumped for another great game and the girls go out blazing. Looking unstoppable, Andrew watches on from the side lines. Andrew is on by himself tonight with Sam at a work meeting. There is only the one game, so he is on call but knows Andrew is qualified enough now to handle the game. 

As he watches the game, from the side lines, he notices Alex starting to limp a bit. For a moment he thinks maybe it’s just how she is walking. At the end of the first set, the girls break for a drink and to change sides. Alex goes over to Andrew and takes a seat.

“You are doing great tonight Alex, you are smashing it out there. Is everything ok I thought I saw you limp earlier?”

“Thanks Andrew, the whole team is doing great. Yeah, I just stepped a bit funny and my ankle felt weak all of a sudden, but I think its ok now.”

“Ok well at this rate you girls will win easy”, as the referee calls the teams on. 

 

They head out to the court and the game starts, once again they get off to a killer start jumping several points ahead. Alex sets the ball for Jasmine, who flies high and spikes for the point, to take out the second set. Once again, the girls break for a drink before swapping ends. They switch ends and start on the attack. 

 

Alex sets for a spike to Jasmine again, but the team defends it this time. As they prepare for the return, Alex steps backwards in preparation as the shot is hurdled over the net. Alex rapidly shifts sideways to make the shot, as her left foot lands in a slightly tippy toed position, her ankle gives out on her collapsing outwards sharply, she stumbles to the floor and grasps at her ankle. “Oh shoot.”

 

The ball falls to the court and the other team takes the point. She rolls onto her knees briefly holding her ankle with her hand. A couple of the girls surround her as she moans in pain. Andrew looks up to see something has happened and immediately grabs his bag. By this stage a couple of the girls have helped Alex up and she is testing the ankle. Andrew goes to go onto the court, but Alex looks at him and kind of waves him away. 

 

Not wanting to let on to the other team that she is injured again. She moves the ankle around slowly testing it out and takes a few steps, trying to hide her limp. The team breaks apart and positions for the next point. Andrew watches on anxiously to know if Alex is alright. Throughout the next few points it’s obvious that Alex is struggling to walk little lone run. Her movements are much slower, and she is very tentative with her landings. The other team starts to notice as well and starts to target her on the court making her move side to side. They go down in game three giving the opponents some hope. As they rotate off the court for a break, Alex goes straight over to Andrew on the bench. She takes a seat and he position himself in front of her kneeling trying to block the other teams view. She leans in as Andrew takes positions and feels her ankle. “I think it’s sprained again Andrew”, she comments. 

 

“I think you need to come off Alex so that we can get that ankle resting.”

“My team needs, me. I can keep going, can you tape it up for some support.”

Andrew grabs his bag, knowing that she had already made her mind up. He quickly loosens her laces and removes her shoe, then slides down her sock, and removes it from her foot. Once removed her ankle is noticeably swollen already, a golf ball lump on the outer ankle already forming. He grabs the pre wrap and starts to wrap her ankle, followed by some rigid tapping. Doing his best to make it tight but not so tight to cut off the circulation.

“How does that feel” he asks.

“That feels good and tight, thanks Andrew.”

He helps her to get her sock and shoe back on and then she stands up testing the ankle out. The tape has added a lot of support which helps but she is still limping moderately. 

 She makes her way back to the team and then they head on for the 4^th set. 

 

As Andrew watches from the sidelines he is concerned that she is going to go over on the left ankle again, making it much worse. Alex tries her best to hide the injury, trying to keep minimal weight on the ankle, but the opponents keep bombarding her with shots. By the end of the fourth set the girls go down and the score is tied at 2-2. 

 

Alex is limping quite heavily now, and every movement or jump sends waves of pain from her ankle. They keep attacking her making her put more and more pressure on her ankle. The hold their ground though and return some killer shots, at the final point Alex makes a courageous move, Jasmin sets for her at the net, Alex positions and jumps, lightly taping the ball over the blockers for the win. She lands comfortable, but the pressure from the landing sends a shooting pain instantly from her ankle. 

 

As she hops a bit the girls all cheer and start to celebrate the win. As the group starts to break up, Andrew then sees that Alex is being supported by Kristin and Brielle as she slowly and heavily limps off the court. As soon as they reach the side lines, Andrew is ready to go with his bag and a set of crutches. He Passes her the crutches, and he immediately takes her to the Trainers table. Once their he helps her up and then starts to go to work on her left ankle. He removes the shoe and sock slowly, every movement of her ankle causing her to wince in pain. He takes out he medical scissors and cuts away the tape and pre-wrap from her ankle gently peeling it away. Once removed her ankle immediately starts to swell up, forming quite a large lump in the outer ankle. The pressure has also caused the swelling to be more noticeable on the inner ankle this time as well. He puts the ice pack on her ankle and secures it in place with the sports wrap.

“Ok, how’s that feel” he asks.

“much better with the ice on there now, thanks Andrew, you have taken good care of me.”

He smiles, “it’s my pleasure Alex. How about we get you home so you can get that foot up.”

She agrees, and he helps her of the table. As they start to make their way out of the gymnasium, the coach pulls them up. 

“So what’s the verdict, Alex? We need you for the play offs next week.”

“just another sprain, I’ll be fine coach” and she smiles. 

“That’s the attitude”

And they part ways. 

 

That night Alex is less pain than her last sprain on her right ankle. She follows the previous instructions and bandages it and wears the air cast. She props it up on some pillows through-out the night and takes some Advil. In the morning, she tries some weight on it, wanting to be weight bearing earlier than last time so she can prep for the game. After a few attempts she is managing with about 30 % of her body weight, while using the crutches for support. Throughout the day, she crutches and weight bears trying to keep the ankle mobile. She arranges with Andrew to come and see her that night and he tells her that he will bring dinner.

 

When he arrives, he finds her walking around her apartment without the crutches but limping quite heavily. 

“Alex, you shouldn’t be walking yet.”

“I know Andrew but I need to get the ankle mobile for next week so I thought I would try get some weight on it as early as possible.”

 

They sit down to dinner, and Andrew has her prop her foot up on his knee while he applies an ice pack to her ankle. 

 

He goes on to tell her that he spoke to Sam, and Sam is concerned that she is going to be pushing your injuries to hard. He thinks you need to sit out of the next game. Alex ponders the thought for a moment, “if I play the next game then we will have a week off and advance straight to the finals.”

 

Feeling that there is no chance of changing her mind, Andrew decides to work on a plan to get her up to speed quickly. He suggests they do the massage twice a day to get the swelling down and start the exercises as well. 

 

After dinner Andrew goes straight to work, they start with some exercises, focusing on some resistance band work, followed by 20 minutes of intense massage and finishes off with some ice. After a little conversation, Andrew decides to leave and tells Alex that he will return in the morning before she heads off to class for more treatment. 

 

He returns in the morning as promised and they carry out another exercise session and massage. Alex insists that she is going to weight bear throughout the day, so Andrew is sure to bandage her ankle up nicely and fit the air cast before he leaves. Throughout the day they exchange text messages, Andrew concerned on how she is travelling weight bearing. She mentions its getting a bit sore, but she is managing ok. They rendezvous at her last class and Andrew walks with her back to her room. She struggles up the stairs and Andrew decide he can’t watch and has to help her. He slides her left arm over his shoulders and his arm goes around her lower back, slowly she ascends the stairs one step at a time. 

 

Once they reach the room, he sits her down straight away on the sofa. He fetches some ice from the freezer and returns to the sofa. Gently he supports her leg and places it down on his knee and wastes no time removing her shoe, the air cast and the bandage. He looks over her ankle and can see its very swollen from walking on it all day. The outer ankle is swollen over, and the inner side is partially swollen, bruising is starting to show up darker by the day, extending along the outer side of her ankle just below the bone and a small amount is appearing on the inner ankle. Alex gives a concerned look, “it’s very sore tonight.”

 

Andrew looks up, “I bet it is, your ankle is swollen quite a bit today. You really need to have at least one day off your ankle to help let it heal”. 

“Ok I think you are right, I should have stayed off it today”.

Finally, Andrew has a breakthrough. He retrieves the crutches from the room and positions them nearby for Alex to use. They skip the exercises for the night, but Andrew continues with the massage to try and work the swelling down. 

They relax on the sofa for a while afterwards, Alex has her ankle on his knee still. Whilst they watch some television, Andrew gently runs his fingers along the sole of her foot. He feels every soft inch of her sole as his finger progressively move to her toes. Alex catches on and shuffles her left ankle over enough so she can rest her right foot up as well. Alex doesn’t mind having her feet gently touched and actually relaxes into it after a few minutes. Andrew sees Alex starting to nod off and decides he should let her go to sleep. He helps her to the bed slowly keeping the weight off her ankle and helps prop her foot up on two pillows. 

“Goodnight Alex.”

She smiles back and says, “Good night Andrew.”

 

Andrew departs switching off the lights as he leaves. 

 

The next day he returns in the morning as planned for the morning ritual. The swelling had eased off overnight which was good, but it was still quite swollen around the outer ankle. He walks with her to her first class, Alex keeping her word and using the crutches today, keeping the weight of her ankle. 

 

Andrew heads in to see Sam and report back on Alex’s progress. Sam is happy that she has final taken his advice, but still stresses his concern that she wants to play on the following week. Sam tells Andrew that he doesn’t want to see her at training tonight and to rest over the weekend and they will start with a light session on Monday. 

 

Andrew leaves to go to class himself. Throughout the day he ponders his thoughts and grabs his mobile phone.

 

He writes her a message, “Hi Alex I hope you are having a good day. I spoke to Sam and he said he doesn’t want to see you at training until Monday so you can rest over the weekend. So, I was wondering if you might want to go and see a movie tonight?”

 

He sits there waiting for a reply. His lecture finishes and still no reply so he heads to the next one. After about 20 minutes he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket and quickly retrieves it. It’s a message from Alex, He opens it up and it reads “Ok, thanks for taking the time to talk to Sam and letting me know. I would love to see a movie tonight.”

 

Andrew smiles to himself for a moment as he ponders a reply, when another message comes through. He looks down at his phone and it’s a picture from Alex, it’s a picture of her feet flat together on the floor in her lecture room. Her left foot in the bandage and air cast and her right foot bare. Then another comes through, this time her left foot is flat on the floor and her right foot is raised in a tippy toe position, shooting low to show her sole and heel. 

 

Andrew is beside himself, as he looks at the pics. 

 

Not sure how to reply, he ponders for a few moments. 

“Thanks for the pics J I will come over after my last lecture and we can head out from there.”

 

The rest of the day he can’t help but look at the pictures over and over, thinking what an amazing girl Alex is. He heads to her room after his last lecture and she lets him in, when she opens the door she is wearing this gorgeous summer dress that goes just below her knees, a floral sandal on her right foot and she is crutching with the left ankle still bandaged and in the air cast. 

“Ok are you ready to go Alex, I have my car just down stairs”

“Yup already” she replies

 

They head off to the car and then Andrew drives them into the local cinema. They decide on a movie and then grab some popcorn as well and make their way into the cinema. Alex takes a seat on Andrews left side and he places the crutches down on the floor under the seat so that don’t obstruct anyone’s view. As he gets comfy, he hears the distinct sound of the Velcro on Alex’s air cast stirrup, as he turns, he sees that she is removing the air cast. She repositions herself and raises her right foot onto his lap. 

“pass over the popcorn” she says with a cheeky grin. 

They share the popcorn as they watch the movie. 

 

Andrew gently runs his hand over her bandaged ankle and her cute toes throughout the movie. At one stage his hand wonders up her leg a little, and to his surprise, Alex places her hand on top and slides it up a little further. Before the movie ends, Alex repositions herself so that her foot is on the ground and she snuggles in to Andrews right shoulder. After the movie they head back to Alex’s room, and he carried out the usual treatment on her ankle. Finally resting her ankle back on the sofa on a pillow, bandaged up and with an ice pack on top, and then leaves for the night. 

 

On the way home he gets a message from Alex saying “Thanks for tonight Andrew it was nice to get out for a while. I really enjoyed it.”

 

“My please Alex, I’m glad you had a good night, as I definitely did. I’ll see you in the morning”, he replies. 

 

The weekend proves to be relaxing, he continues with treating her ankle, they spend some time together at her room, at the park on campus and even go and get lunch one day. By Sunday evening her ankle is looking a lot less swollen. The bruising is still quite dark but that usually takes a little while to fade away. 

 

Monday night training and Alex arrives raring to go, weight bearing quite well already, is a positive sign. Sam takes her aside to do quick assessment before fitting her left ankle with a sports ankle brace as well. They start some light training away from the team, working on Alex’s agility and movements. Picking up the pace bit by bit. About 35 minutes into the session and a scream echo’s through the gymnasium, Andrew and Sam look over to the court to see what is going on and see a player down on the court. Sam turns to Alex, “just continue on with what you’re doing. Andrew grab the bag lets go.”

 

Sam and Andrew scurry off to the court. Alex tries to see over to see what is happening but there are too many people in the way, so she just focuses on her training. 

 

Sam and Andrew near the player and it becomes evident that its Lara that’s injured. She is in a seated position holding her right foot up and close to her. She is sobbing lightly as they approach. They clear the others away as they take a kneel next to Lara. Sam asks her what happened. 

 

She wipes a tear away, and through her sobs says “I went up for a block and landed funny and went over on my right ankle.”

 

Judging by her reaction the immediately think it’s going to be a bad sprain. Sam helps to support her leg and can see the swelling already growing on the outer side of her right ankle. 

 

Sam looks to Andrew an says, “let’s get that shoe and sock off straight away.”
Andrew goes to work as Sam supports the leg and ankle. Starting by removing the shoe slowly, Lara lets out a scream as the shoe releases from her foot. Her sobs start to increase. Andrew grabs the scissors, and cuts away at her long white sock. Working his way down until the sock is peeled away completely. Once removed the severity is very clear, there is a tennis ball sized lump already forming on the outer side of her right ankle. Andrew and Sam help her to stand on her left foot and then one either side, to help her over to the trainer’s station.  

 

Lara continues to sob briefly as they make their way over. Alex gets a glimpse from a distance and sees that Lara is hoping and her right shoe and sock has been removed and suspects it must be an ankle injury. Sam does a quick assessment of the swollen ankle, satisfied at this stage that there are no fractures but wants her to be non-weight bearing for a week and they will do a reassessment and follow up with x-ray if it doesn’t improve. 

Sam hands over to Andrew, “You are the expert with these injuries now so I’ll let you run with this one, just keep me update.”

 

Andrew takes over and gets some ice for Lara. Sam heads back over to Alex to see how she is going. 

Concerned Alex asks, “is she ok, is it bad?”

Sam responds, “It looks like a bad grade 2 sprain at this stage.”

“oh, that’s not good”, Alex comments knowing that Lara is a real asset to the team. 

She gets back to her training with Sam, who is very pleased with her progress tonight. 

As Alex looks up and she sees, Andrew helping Lara towards the exit on crutches. 

 

Alex heads of shortly after and goes back to her room to ice her ankle after the training. 

 

The next day she doesn’t end up seeing Andrew at all. Expecting to see him at training she arrives to find that Sam is there by himself. She goes about her routines with Sam and then joins in for some court time with the rest of the team. After training she heads home again and decides to send Andrew a message wondering if he is ok. 

 

“I hope everything is ok Andrew, I missed you at training tonight.”

 

A few moments pass and Alex finishes icing her ankle and then takes a shower when she returns there is a message back from Andrew. 

“Hey there Alex, sorry I have been busy with Lara last night, she was a bit distressed when I took her back to the room, so I helped her out a bit and stayed with her for a while, and have been checking in on her tonight.”

 

“That’s ok, and very sweet of you to look after her.” 

Almost feeling a little jealous, she clears her thoughts and shrugs it off.