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“Can I ask you something?”
Again, I nodded.
“Is this why you act like such a dreamer?” Gabe pointed the question at me as we readied for another round. “I’ve never met someone as inquisitive and in the clouds as you are.”
I blushed slightly.
“In a manner of speaking, probably,” I said. “For a while as a kid, I was scared to even talk to someone I didn’t know, even if it was someone in uniform who I could have turned to for help in another scary situation – and the therapist suggested that it might help me to pretend I was making friends with everyone.” I shook my head. “And being inquisitive is part of the reporter job I took. I suppose it’s a good combination for a reporter or a photographer, but I have left others feeling as though I’m prying too much. I apologize if I have made you feel as though I want to know too much personal detail. I only want to make conversation… and sometimes, I don’t know how to do that without asking a variety of questions.”
He nodded slowly as he finished dealing the cards.
“I see. Well, if it’s all right with you, I say this is our last round, and then we both get ready for bed. The benefit of being on city water is that no matter if our rooms have lost power or if the generator conks out, we’ll still have a way to shower and such. Just… no lights.”
“You will have a way to shower. I don’t have an extra change of clothes until we can get into my room,” I pointed out.
He nodded slowly. It appeared that had slipped his mind.
Regardless, we started playing. It was a quicker round, and I suspected that he was allowing me to hit all of the combinations to help with my adrenaline. I appreciated it. It accomplished the goal, and we headed towards our sleeping arrangements.
As I climbed into bed, I watched him get under the blanket on the floor. There was still a bit of streetlamp light coming into the room thanks to the fact that the other curtains didn’t shut well, but that was fine. We had been given sleep masks, after all.
I did find it difficult to believe I’d be comfortable in jeans. Even if I unbuttoned them and let the button hang, there was nothing worse than tight jeans for two days.
“Do you have anything I could borrow? Jeans are… not the most optimal for sleep?”
He looked over at me as he had been fussing with the blankets to find something.
“There should be some sweatpants in the duffel bag. They’re all clean. Grab a pair, and a tee shirt if you want.”
I grabbed the first pair of sweatpants I could out of the bag and quickly changed into them in the bathroom. My shirt was comfortable enough I could sleep in it. On commercial flights, I tried to sleep as much as possible, but it wasn’t always an option… and since I had been flying privately, I’d decided I would wear jeans.
I got back up on the bed, much comfier.
“Good night, Gabe.”
“Night, Grace. I hope you can get some good sleep.”
With that, he pulled the sleep mask over his eyes. It took him perhaps only a couple of minutes to fall asleep. I could tell it was a true sleep because there was a bit of a snore..
I pulled my own sleep mask over my eyes. The fact that I had a sleep mask also helped. The therapist had suggested one when I was younger, but I had never wanted to cover my eyes completely. I now saw why she had suggested one. The light from the secondary window had been my trigger for years when trying to sleep in a room like this. The sleeping mask covered any leftover hints that were still coming through the curtains despite them being clipped together in the middle.
As I realized this, and what a brilliant idea Gabe had had, I made a mental note to add clips like that to my standard packing list. And a sleep mask. This one wasn’t the best – but it had been free. It’d do for this trip.
As sleep stole over me, I realized that there was something else in the room helping me calm down enough that I could actually sleep. My breathing had synced up to the snores of the man on the floor. It helped to know that he was sleeping in the path of someone who wanted to get into the room, even if it was only if they stumbled forward thanks to the string.
Perhaps he had known exactly what he was doing when he offered to do the string on the windows, too.
I didn’t have long to ponder this before I fell asleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night, however, I did wake up because I had to use the bathroom. Instead of freaking out when I remembered I had two windows around me, I looked down to the ground. Gabe still slept soundly on the floor, his snoring a little louder as the night wore on.
I used the bathroom, and when I returned, I couldn’t help but think that it was actually Gabe who made me feel safe. For the first time in years, I wasn’t panicking about two windows. It was surreal.
Chapter eleven
Gabe
Despite our best efforts to keep the curtains closed last night, and my sleep mask, I ended up being the first one to wake up. There were a couple of spots where sleep masks would not keep covered in darkness, it seemed. Grace, however, was still fast asleep on the bed. I slept like a rock practically anywhere after my time in the military. It helped since I was on the floor. The fact that she was still fast asleep, even as I got up to use the bathroom, made me feel like I had done more for her than I had thought I could.
