Page 136 of Derivation

“I have five apartments that I think you’ll like, and tomorrow is Saturday. I can schedule appointments for all five of them, or, if you want, we can go through them now, and you tell me no on any of them so that we can narrow it down and look for more if we need.”

Sarai loved how excited Gabi was about this. She was, too, but she also knew that telling her friends that they were leaving was going to hurt. When Violet had moved out, it had been hard because she was the first to move, but Sarai would be moving out with Gabi, and Enya and Arlowe both loved Gabi as their friend and roommate. They’d be losing both of them, and she wasn’t sure how they would handle it.

“Okay. Yeah, let’s look,” she replied because ultimately, Sarai had to do what was right for her relationship, and while them sharing this room hadn’t been all that bad, it had created some issues.

Not sharing a room when Gabi lived in the same house had felt strange to both of them, so outside of the time Gabi had gone to visit her mom, they hadn’t had a night apart yet, and Sarai wanted to keep it that way, but the house felt really crowded, even though it was still just the four of them.

“Yeah?” Gabi checked.

“Show me what you’ve got.”

They sat back against the pillows, and slowly, they went through the five apartments that Gabi had picked out. Sarai liked four of them and said that the last one was a maybe, so Gabi made the appointments for them for the following day, which would make it a very long one, but Sarai wanted to give this to her. Gabi had been so supportive of her not being able to leave the house when moving out together had first come up, and she’d been ready for them to have their own place for a while.

The following morning, they woke up before Enya and Arlowe and headed out to grab some breakfast together near the first apartment that they were checking out so that they could also explore the neighborhood a bit. It was nice. Sarai liked it, but what she liked even more was how excited Gabi seemed to be about the prospect of them moving in together, decorating an apartment however they wanted, shopping for furniture, and cooking dinner together without being interrupted or having to worry if they were cooking for four instead of two.

“I love you,” Sarai said as Gabi pulled the car into the parking lot.

“I love you, too. What was that for?”

“I just wanted to say it.”

Gabi smiled over at her, and they went into the leasing office. Thirty minutes later, they had the link to fill out the application, but they had to go to their next appointment first, and after five and a half hours, they had visited not five, but six apartments, and they had four links for online applications to fill out. Gabi was still very excited. Sarai was, too, but finding possible apartments to live in had been the easy part for her. The hard part would be telling her friends.

◆◆◆

“Hey, can I talk to you two?” she asked when she caught Arlowe and Enya in the kitchen three days later.

“Sure. What’s up? Where’s Gabi?”

“She went into the office already. I wanted to talk to you two alone.”

Hearing that, Enya leaned back in her chair.

“It’s happening, isn’t it?” Arlowe asked, doing the same.

“Yeah,” Sarai replied, sitting down in her own chair.

“When?”

“We got accepted for an apartment last night. We have to put down the deposit today if we want it.”

“That’s fast,” Enya said.

“We only started looking on Saturday, thinking it would take a while to get a place we can afford around here, but we found a few that we liked, applied, and the one we liked the most has actually accepted our application. We have to pick a move-in date that’s within twelve days because that’s how long they can keep the apartment open for us before we have to start paying the rent, and Gabi’s mom is coming to town in about five weeks, so she’d like us to be all moved in by the time her mom gets here.”

“She doesn’t want her mom to see you two sharing one small bedroom and sharing a house with two other women, huh?” Arlowe joked.

“Not really, no, but it’s more than that.”

“You two are ready to live together,” Enya said. “That’s amazing. I’m really happy for you, Sarai. Arlowe is, too.”

“Arlowe can speak for herself,” Arlowe said and looked from Enya to Sarai. “And I am very happy for you, Sarai. For both of you. I want you two to have this. I know what it’s like not to have it, you know?”

Sarai nodded and said, “It’s been another year, Arlowe.”

“I know,” she replied. “I’m still working on it.”

“I won’t push you, but…”