Page 83 of Derivation

“She didn’t, actually. At no point did she ask me to keep our conversation between the two of us, but I also don’t care. I’ll apologize to her later if she’s mad. Sarai, you like her.”

“So?”

“So?” Arlowe challenged and rolled her eyes. “She likes you, too. She’s in the room next door, and you don’t want to be with her? I don’t get it.”

“I do want to be with her. I want to go out with her, at least. I don’t know how a date will go, but I know I like her. I also know that I’m not holding her hostage here, so if she’s saying she wants to move out, I’m not going to stop her.”

“Sarai, the only reason she wants to move out is that she wants to be with you,” Enya told her. “She couldn’t find an apartment the first time she looked, and I doubt she’s going to find one now, but even if she does, do you really need her to move out just to date her?”

“It could be easier,” she replied.

“You love having her here,” Arlowe said. “You’re just scared, like you always are.”

“Arlowe, what the fuck is your problem with me today?” she asked.

“My problem?” Arlowe said and leaned forward in her chair. “You’re doing it again; that’s my problem.”

“Doing what?”

“She’s right,” Violet added.

“I still don’t know about what,” Sarai insisted.

“You get scared of stuff, and you go hide. You question your decisions, your ideas, and you hide. You have an amazing woman who you liked all these years ago come back into your life, and guess what: she still likes you. She’s not going back to Paris, and you’re not going back to the US. She’s not about to start college when you’re finishing school. So, you had to make up more excuses to not date her because you’re scared,” Arlowe stated.

“They’re not excuses, Arlowe.”

“Yeah, they are,” Violet said.

“Enya, come on. Back me up here,” Sarai pled.

“I can’t. I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy.”

“No, you’re not,” Enya replied with a soft smile. “Sarai, you don’t want her to move out. I’ve seen you two around the house together – you like that she’s here. You don’t need her to leave just to date her because you’re a mature person, and so is she. You would handle things just fine if it ended. And Gabi’s lease is only for a year.”

“It’s already been more than a month,” Arlowe added.

“Exactly. If it ended, and things did go bad, we’d just let her move out whenever, but the longest she could be here is a year unless you want her here longer than that. We’re all fine with the two of you being together and being roommates, and it seems like Gabi doesn’t really care, either. She’s only doing this because of you. I think she loves living here, too, so it’s not what she wants. She’s just willing to do it. On top of that, none of us care that she’s sort of working with us, but you.”

“She’s doing something important, Enya. The hardware is the thing we’ve been wanting to work on forever.”

“And we don’t need Gabi to do it,” Arlowe said. “We’re pursuing partnerships right now, and I think those will get us where we need to go before we have our own wearable, but Gabi isn’t the only product designer with engineering experience in the world. We can always wait and get someone else. She’s amazing, I won’t lie, and the mock-ups she’s been working on are great, but we’d be okay.”

“Can you tell us what you’re really afraid of?” Enya requested softly.

Sarai looked around the room and let out a very deep breath.

“Remember how you told me you saw me after I came out of the train station?”

“Yes,” Enya replied.

“I don’t think I realized just how much those three days mattered in my life until she came back into it,” she admitted. “I tried to push that feeling of saying goodbye to her, that you witnessed, I guess, out of my mind.”

“Keep going,” Enya encouraged.

“I didn’t think it was possible to feel something like that for someone I only knew for one weekend and texted a little bit after, but…” She shook her head. “I still have the phone.”