Page 24 of In Every Lifetime
Sarah
Our room for the next week was cozy, smaller than I had expected, but just as beautifully decorated as the rest of the cabin. My eyes moved around the space as I stepped inside. A sturdy bed rested against the right wall, flanked by two wooden nightstands worn smooth with age. Across from it stood a dresser, and a wide window overlooking the backyard filled the room with soft late evening light. Everything looked well loved and expertly made.
Gabriel had mentioned he didn’t receive many guests, but based on the wear of the room, he was under-exaggerating. The bed showed the years of love it had taken, the wooden frame having nicks and scratches. It didn’t take away from the room, instead making it seem more like a well-loved home.
I sat on the edge of the bed with a yawn. Gabriel and Fai were grabbing the bags from the truck, leaving me alone for just a moment. I was grateful for the solitude. It allowed me to properly game plan how to handle the next few nights sharing a bed with Fai. The car ride and the evening at my house earlier,while uncomfortable initially, we found our footing quickly. This was a whole new ball game.
No. It wasn’t just new… it was a bad idea. A really bad idea that I had committed to and was too much of a wimp to back out of now. If I did, I would have to explain why I couldn’t share a room and a bed with Fai. I just knew, somewhere beneath the logic, that this was a mistake.
Sharing a bed was intimate, at least for me it was. Especially when sharing a bed with my ex-husband. I didn’t want to jeopardize the budding friendship we had. I genuinely wanted Fai in my life in some capacity, and a friendship seemed like the safest option.
Friends shared beds, right? I had shared a bed with Jackie before. Well, I accidentally fell asleep in her and Will’s bed when she was reading her research to me. She ended up falling asleep too. It was an accident, but we had shared a bed and zero hanky panky had happened.
This would totally be okay.
Right?
Right.
God, I was so tired I was spiraling. Feelings had a way of amplifying themselves at the end of a long day. A good night's sleep and this would all seem like nothing.
“Hey,” Fai said as he shouldered into the room, my suitcase in one hand and my duffle bag in the other. “What of this do you want in the bathroom and what do you want in here?” He glanced up at me briefly, then looked back again, concern flickering across his face. “You okay?”
I nodded. There was no reason to get into my spiraling thoughts with him tonight. “Just exhausted. You can leave them both in here. My toiletry bag is in the duffle bag, but the rest stays in here.”
He nodded, setting the suitcase next to the dresser and the duffle bag on the armchair that sat in the corner between the dresser and the window. “Let me grab mine and I’ll be back, and we can chat about—” he glanced at the bed and then at me. “Well, this whole situation.”
I laughed despite myself and nodded in agreement. Fai sauntered out of the room, leaving me alone yet again.
I yawned and stood, making my way to the duffle bag and fishing my toiletry bag out. The hardwood floors were cold against my feet, the chill seeping through my socks as I walked from the bedroom to the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. The bathroom faced the front of the house, the window sitting in the shower in the strangest design I could imagine. At least there was a curtain over it so the neighbors… well, there were no neighbors. I guess it didn’t matter if I flashed the window. There was no one out there to see it.
I went through my nighttime routine methodically, washing my face, applying my skincare, and brushing my teeth. Fai used to laugh at the process, mostly because I used two different kinds of floss. The routine helped me unwind, the familiar steps grounding me as my racing thoughts began to slow. They were still there, lingering in the recesses of my mind, but no longer sprinting—now moving at a slow, manageable pace.
I drifted back into the bedroom, gladly taking my time and putting off the rest of the night, specifically the part of the night where we would talk about sharing a bed. It was very immature of me and at that moment, I didn’t care.
Fai was sitting in the armchair, my duffle bag moved to the closet opposite of the window. He had a manila folder open across his knee, working through what looked like a stack of documents. I closed the door softly behind me, and he looked up.
“Hey. You ready for bed?” he asked, closing the folder and placing it on the dresser.
"Almost. I just need to change and put my bonnet on." I nodded toward the folder. "What’s that?"
He sighed and leaned back into the chair, propping one ankle on the opposite knee. “The documents Gabriel has on my father. Rohan.” Fai huffed a laugh. “I can’t believe after all this time I know his name.”
I smiled softly and sat on the end of the bed, crossing my legs under me. “You were right about your last name coming from him.”
He smiled back, looking truly relieved. “Acharya always felt too unique to have been made up. It had to have come from somewhere. I wonder if I could find him now that I have his name. See if there's anything more he could tell me. Maybe form a real relationship with him."
“You just found your brother and are already looking formorefamily? The rest of the world usually avoids ours,” I teased, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them, resting my chin on top.
Fai barked a laugh. “Maybe once I get to know them all, I’ll feel the same. Right now… right now I just feel awestruck that it’s real. That Gabriel is real. I mean… he’s my brother. I have a brother.” He stopped looking up to the ceiling for a moment. At first I couldn’t figure out why, but when his eyes met mine again, filled with unshed tears, his jaw clenched as he held them back, I understood.
I understood the gravity of what was happening around him. The dreams he had all but given up on were seeing fruition. “I have a family, Sarah.”
My heart broke at his words, and at the hope in his voice, and at everything he had missed out on getting here. He had spent his whole life desperate for family, searching for it in the edges ofhis world, trying to build one wherever he could. For a time, he had.Wehad.
For years there had been our small found family. Jackie, Goldie, Fai, and me. Not many of us, but close in the way that mattered most. Not bound by blood, but willing to give the clothes off our backs and every dollar we had for one another. Some families born into each other never managed that.
“I can see you thinking over there,” Fai interrupted my train of thought and pulling me back to the present. “What’s on your mind?”
