Chapter 17
Fai
Icouldn’t believe I had almost kissed Sarah. Okay… I could believe it. I had been wanting to kiss her since the day I had met her. The want never went away. It only grew in the last sixteen years, blossoming into an insatiable need to feel her lips on mine, her hands on me.
What I couldn't believe was that I had almost let myself do it.
I was a lot of things. I knew my faults better than most. I was a drunk, a screw up, emotionally distant, terrified of commitment… but I wasn’t a cheater. I wouldn’t be a part of any relationship where cheating was involved, whether it was on my part or the part of my partner.
It was one of the few lines I had always held. And I had nearly crossed it because I had been too lost in her to remember it existed.
I had an addictive personality. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. I was heading towards decade two of alcoholism. It wasn’t just alcohol I was addicted to. It wasn’t even the first thing I knew I was addicted to.
Sarah was.
Being around her had always been intoxicating in a way I had never been able to replicate or replace.
I had lost myself in her more times than I could count.
She could make me do anything, cross any line, any boundary, by simply asking.
She was my first addiction, my longest addiction, and the one I would never recover from.
She could tell me to jump off a bridge and I would sprint to the edge.
She could tell me to pick up a drink and down it without a second worry, and I would without question.
She was dangerous to me. To my sobriety.
To everything I had spent seven months building.
It was something I had always known, but I had hoped it had lessened since the divorce.
Last night while we stood side by side, breathing in each other's air, sharing each other's space, my devotion to her took over. I didn’t care about her boyfriend. I didn’t care about my sobriety.
I cared about closing that distance between us once and for all.
I didn’t know how I became self aware enough for just a moment to pull away, but I thanked God I did. Kissing her, crossing that line, would put me at risk… my sobriety at risk. For once in my life, I was putting myself first. It was hard, it was painful, but I had done it.
It was also why I was out of the house before the sun was up, with a scrawled note explaining I went into town, left on the kitchen counter.
I needed to refocus before I could face Sarah again. I needed to properly apologize for my behavior, for almost kissing her, for bringing her with me in the first place. But first I needed to feel remorse for my actions. Real remorse…
Not regret.
Regret that I hadn’t taken the leap. That I hadn’t closed the breath of space between us and kissed her with my entire heart and soul.
The drive to town was peaceful. With the car windows down, the cool air washed through the cabin, settling on my skin like a calm embrace. The sun was just peeking over the mountains when I pulled onto the main street.
It was barely seven in the morning, but the small town of Willow Creek, Montana, was already alive. Shop owners swept their storefronts, and children with heavy backpacks meandered toward the school—everyone seemed to be bracing for the new day.
I pulled in front of the coffee shop Gabriel had mentioned, relieved to see it was already open.
Putting the car in park, I jumped out of the driver’s seat, taking in a breath of fresh air.
I would always live in the city, but the escape to the mountains had to be good for the soul.
And probably my lungs, for getting out of the air pollution.
When I stepped inside, I was surprised to find nearly every table occupied.
There was a young couple huddled in one corner, a man in a flannel shirt and an honest-to-god cowboy hat in another, and an older woman tucked into a third.
I made my way to the register, waiting for the lone barista to finish her current creation.
Because of my years of struggle with alcohol, bars had never been a place for me to unwind.
Coffee shops, however, were my sanctuary—my bread and butter.
I had spent hours in them during college and again when I launched my business.
Even now, I still found myself wandering down the street from my office to work away the afternoon in the scent of roasted beans.
The barista called out a name, set a steaming cup on the counter, and turned to me. She was young, blonde, and wearing a smile that reached from ear to ear. “Ooh, a new face! What can I get for you, handsome?”
I gave a light laugh. She was at least twenty years my junior, but I appreciated the compliment nonetheless. I wasn’t even dressed well, still clad in yesterday’s jeans and black hoodie with a jean jacket over the top to stave off the chill of the morning air.
“A medium latte… and a macchiato with oatmilk. Do you have oatmilk?” I asked, realizing that a small town may not be the best place to cater to Sarah’s lactose intolerance.
The barista—I squinted at her name tag, Briar—smiled and nodded, pulling a cup from the stack. “We have all the bells and whistles here. Anything else?”
I shook my head and pulled out a twenty from my wallet as she rang me up and wandered off to make my order. I was hoping the drink for Sarah could serve as a peace offering.
Did a macchiato properly communicate ‘sorry I almost kissed you after treating you like crap in our marriage, to the point you divorced me and moved on and are now dating some douche canoe’?
Probably not.
It was hard to accept that Sarah had truly moved on. When we divorced, I knew it was inevitable. She was Sarah… all she had to do was walk out the door and a line would form, a dozen people waiting for her to take her pick. Knowing it would happen was one thing; seeing it was another.
I took a seat near the window and watched the world go by on the street outside. My mind drifted back through the years I’d shared with her. A ghost of a smile touched my face as I thought back to the day I proposed... or, well, kinda proposed.
Twelve Years Ago
“Will you hurry up?” Sarah called over her shoulder, trying to outrun the rain.
I ran behind her, laughing at the ridiculousness of our situation.
Only we would manage to be late to our own graduation.
Sarah was receiving her PhD—well, technically she already had, having defended her dissertation like the absolute beast of a woman she was.
Today was simply a ceremony for her. It was my official graduation day, but I didn't care about the pomp and circumstance.
I just wanted the diploma to make lenders have more faith in my ability to repay them so they would give me a business loan.
Fibonacci Files was expanding and I needed to hire a journalist to write with me. But to do that, I needed money. Much more money than what sat in my bank account.
The only reason I was going to the graduation was for Sarah.
She wanted to celebrate me. Had it taken me too many years to get the degree?
Of course, but I had done it. Despite all the odds, I was about to become a college graduate.
If we managed to run to campus in time. My older-than-dirt car finally broke down two miles from the campus in the pouring rain.
So here I was, chasing after Sarah, both of us dressed in our graduation gowns, soaked through and laughing like a couple of idiots.
She stopped at a red light, waiting for the crosswalk to indicate we could go. I skidded to a stop next to her and looked around. There wasn’t a car in sight.
“Is there a reason we’re not crossing?” I yelled through the rain.
She looked up at me, rainwater dripping from her chin and onto her neck. “Because it’s illegal.”
“Honey, there isn’t a single car in sight. I think we’ll be fine,” I explained, taking her hand in mine and trying to pull her across the road.
She dug her heels in, refusing to budge. “Some of us like following rules. We weren’t all delinquents.”
I barked a laugh. “You’re calling me a delinquent?”
She nodded, a challenge in her smirk. “Weren’t you one?”
She wasn’t wrong, but I had turned over a new leaf since meeting her. I was the definition of a rule-following citizen. I hadn’t even been pulled over in the last four years. I was about to hit three years sober on top of it all. My delinquent days were behind me.
Were.
Past tense.
I looked down at Sarah, knowing she was going to hate me, but I didn’t care. I leaned over and slung her over my shoulder, charging into the middle of the street.
“Faizal, you put me down this instant!” she demanded while hitting against my back. She was laughing the entire time, which made it impossible to take the threat seriously.
I dropped her back down on her feet, keeping my hands on her waist to keep her steady. “Look, you’re breaking the law.”
She laughed, glancing around at the empty, rain-slicked roads. “Okay, maybe I was making a bigger deal out of jaywalking, but was this really necessary?”
I nodded and pulled her close, her chest to mine. “Absolutely necessary.”
I held her there for a beat, then, in the most dramatic fashion possible, I dipped her. I kissed her with everything I had while the rain hammered down around us. We were soaked through, our gowns were ruined, and our hair was a matted mess, but damn, were we happy.
I pulled her back up, and she steadied herself in my arms, her hands resting against my chest. She glanced at my lips, then back to my eyes. “We’re going to be late.”
I shrugged. “We have all the time in the world.”
“What are we going to do with all that time?” she teased.
This hadn’t been the plan. The plan had been to wait until after graduation when we were out to dinner with her parents and their spouses who had flown in. But I had never been the best at plans.
I dropped to one knee, the wet pavement soaking through my slacks. I fished out the box I’d been hiding for months, waiting for a moment that felt right. Sarah’s eyes went wide as I knelt in front of her.
“Want to use some of that time to marry me?” I asked.
She laughed and dropped to her knees with me, taking either side of my face and kissing me hard. I pulled away and slid the ring on her finger as she continued to laugh lightly.
It hadn't been the plan to propose here, now, in the middle of an intersection in our ruined gowns. But it was perfectly imperfect. It was us.
“I’ll love you forever.” I cupped the side of her face.
She leaned into the touch. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
Now
It was twelve years later that I stood at that intersection again. The intersection that had decided my fate yet again, ultimately leading me here when I went straight. When I went to get help after finally losing Sarah. After breaking my promise to her.
I wanted to rewind time and fix all my mistakes, all the times I went wrong, but it was impossible. I was stuck with the consequences of my actions, consequences I had to live with for the rest of my life. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t try and do better.
I would never have Sarah’s love again, but I didn’t want to lose her as a friend. The almost kiss last night nearly did that. I needed to fix things, apologize, and explain it would never happen again.
“Fai?” the barista called out.
I stood and walked back to the counter. “Thank you.”
She smiled as she handed me the cups. “We don’t get many new faces around here. Are you just visiting, or did you move into town?”
I smiled politely at her. “Just visiting. My brother lives nearby.”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh my god, who’s your brother? I know everyone in this town, I bet I know him!”
“Gabriel Gomez.”
She tilted her head in question, pondering the name. “Gabriel Gomez? I don’t know that one…” She trailed off.
“He works most of the year in Alaska,” I explained. “He lives just up the road. He’s in the cabin just at the base of the mountain.”
Her face grew more curious. “The log cabin? Big windows, gorgeous view, wraparound porch?”
I nodded. “The very one.”
“That can’t be,” she muttered. “The Kellars own that cabin. They rent it out short term, usually for hunters. Are you sure that’s where he lives?”
I stared at her, trying to process. “To be clear, you don’t know any Gabriel Gomez? And he definitely doesn’t own that cabin?”
She nodded firmly. “Yes to both. I’ve never met the man, and I know everyone in Willow Creek. There is no Gabriel.”