Love Never Fails

Chapter 7: Dara

"Good morning."

"Ugh?" I reply, barely a person yet. The curtains open, the sun enters the room, flooding it. I turn around in the tiniest of foldable beds. It's small, but it's mine, and I'm not ready to leave it. At least the duvet is cozy. I take it with me as I roll over with difficulty -this bed wasn't made for rolling- to face the wall, ignoring the room around, and very specifically the daylight. Let. Me. Sleep.

"It's almost eight, sleeping beauty," my sister tells me, sitting on the bed, putting on her shoes. "I'm not going to be late, so you should better hurry." She softly smacks my head.

At least she didn't call me "monkey."

Jon comes out briefly from the toilet. "If fy ifinewary on ny fuifcase, love?" He asks while rushing his toothbrushing morning protocol. He's been rushing the whole morning. Both have. Jon has to be at Bethel at 9.30am, but he wants to be earlier. Apparently he'll spend the day there. They told me something yesterday night, but I didn't pay much attention. My mind was very much in the clouds.

Right now is in things much much more earthly. Even worldly. As much as I don't like waking up, the sight of Jon shirtless is always a welcome one, so I lower my duvet discreetly, enough to see my sister giving him a peck in his cheek and watch him still in his boxers.

I'm not a pervert! I'm... Just making sure that they have fixed whatever differences they had yesterday before I decide to be in the middle of their day again. And for that I need to look at his body language. If it happens that the body is a well built one and beautiful from a purely artistic perspective, then that's an extra win, right?

OK. Maybe I'm a bit of a pervert. But peeking is no sin. So shut up.

The very real problem, though, is that at this rate I'm not going to be able to get up. Something else is trying to say "good morning," and I don't appreciate it saying it to either my sister or her husband. I turn around again hoping it goes away.

"Here it is," Jon says, finding something in his suitcase and coming over to me. "Here you go, Dara. That's all the tickets and papers I got for this trip."I pull the duvet a bit lower, showing my face. He's right next to me. Quite a nice view. This doesn't help, Jon! I try to not look at him, but at the bag of papers he gives me as I sit up on the bed. I discreetly make sure the duvet covers what it needs to cover. "It's everything. Itinerary, prepaid tickets... All that. Don't lose it."

I yawn and pick it up. "Sure but... Sis, shouldn't you have it?" I mean, she's his wife, I'm just here to make use of their prepaid tourist itineraries and not let them go to waste. I didn't organise any of this. And if he is giving them to me instead of her because of some twisted idea of male headship or because he's trying to punish her for some reason for wanting to have kids I'm going to kick his beautiful butt out of the room.

"I've got another, Dara. We print two copies in case anything happens, they get wet or stolen, or whatever. We learned our lesson when I lost everything in our honeymoon." She puts on her earrings. "Just put it in your backpack. And get up." She goes back into the toilet, and so does Jon.

The room is empty, but not for long. This is my chance. In a second I'm up and putting on my jeans and try to adjust them so I'm not too obvious. Then I can relax a little. I hate sharing the room with anyone. I look through my clothes and start choosing what I'm going to wear today. I find my pink t-shirt and put it on. I just need shoes, hair and washing my face, but I'm done. So much stress and I am ready before anyone.

"Are you wearing that?" My sister says, as she gets out of the toilet, looking oddly at me.

"Uh... Yes? What's wrong?" I'm putting on my walking shoes, sitting on the bed, but look around in case my shirt or jeans have something wrong.