novelraw Chapter 199: All Three of Us
Chapter 199: All Three of Us
Bharath blinked awake to the sound of muffled hallway chatter and the dull buzz of the Smith 202 radiator.
The room was dark, save for a shaft of morning light cutting across the ceiling.
For a second, he was confused.
No soft arms wrapped around his chest. No bountiful breasts pressed against him. No sleepy kisses on his collarbone.
No tangle of perfumed hair across his face, no muffled giggles from the other side of the bed, no whispered “good morning, amor” from Marisol’s sexy morning voice or Sarah’s warm purr.
The bunk bed creaked beneath him as he shifted and realized with a thud: he was alone.
Truly alone.
No girls. No shared warmth. No Marisol tracing his ribs with idle fingers while Mia tried to steal the other side of his pillow. No Sarah rubbing circles into his back with sleepy affection.
It was just… him.
A single guy on a cold bed in a dorm room that suddenly felt twice as empty as it should.
He lay there for a while, letting the silence press into him. It was almost funny - how normal this used to be. Just a couple of months ago, this was his every morning. But now?
Now it feels like I’ve been exiled from paradise, he thought, rubbing a hand across his chest.
There was an ache. A missing.
He swung his legs down and sighed.
Tyrel was snoring on the other bunk, Ravi face-planted into his pillow with a sock hanging off one ear. Jorge had long since claimed a sleeping bag on the floor, arms flung wide like he’d won a wrestling match in his dreams.
Bharath smiled.
Okay, he thought. There are still some joys here.
Eventually, they stirred and groaned their way out of sleep, complaining about sore thumbs and snack-induced bloating.
“Gym?” Jorge suggested through a yawn.
“Only if Bharath wears something other than girl-approved joggers,” Tyrel muttered, tossing a bundle of clothes at him.
Bharath caught it and raised an eyebrow. “You’re lending me your shorts?”
“You’re lucky I’m in a giving mood,” Tyrel said. “Use Ravi’s shoes though. My feet have standards.”
Ravi, too sleepy to protest, just grunted. He had to be frog marched to the common bathroom to change.
Jorge and Tyrel insisted that Bharath do his oft neglected duty to do so for once.
They shuffled toward the SAC together, half-joking, half-yawning. Bharath pulled on Tyrel’s oversized hoodie and Ravi’s slightly-too-tight sneakers, laughing inwardly at the contrast.
He was back with his boys. He was joking. He was grunting through weights and teasing Jorge’s form and racing Ravi on the treadmill.
And still… he missed them.
Already.
Just a few hours. Not even twenty-four. And his arms already felt too empty. His chest too quiet.
He never realized how spoiled he’d become.
It started as a subtle discomfort. A vague awareness of something missing.
Sarah shifted under the blanket, eyes still closed, her cheek pressing softly against the pillow. She reached back automatically - a habit, now - searching for warmth behind her. A chest. An arm. The slight weight of a thigh draped protectively over hers.
But all she touched was Mia’s hip.
Warm, yes.
But not him.
She opened her eyes slowly, blinking into the soft glow of morning light filtering through the curtain. The room smelled of jasmine oil and cotton - familiar and safe. Mia was curled into a tight crescent, her lashes still resting on her cheeks, breathing steady and slow. Peaceful.
But something was wrong.
He’s not here.
Sarah exhaled quietly.
“Mari,” she whispered, her voice still gravelly from sleep. “Are you awake?”
A soft groan from the other side of Mia answered her. “Mm-hmm.”
“Do you… feel weird?”
Another pause.
Then: “Yes,” Marisol said quietly. “I miss him.”
That did it.
Sarah rolled onto her back and sighed, staring up at the ceiling with her arm thrown across her forehead. “God, same. I woke up and my chest hurt for a second because I thought something was wrong.”
“I know,” Marisol whispered, her voice wobbling just a little. “I reached out and… I expected to feel him. That stupid scruffy chest. That warm arm.”
“Or that breath on the back of your neck,” Sarah added. “Or how he curls into us halfway through the night even if he starts on the edge.”
Marisol shifted closer to Mia’s back, curling her legs tighter, as if trying to fill the Bharath-shaped void behind her.
“It’s ridiculous,” she muttered. “He’s just… across town.”
“A few miles.”
“A morning away.”
They both sighed at the same time.
Sarah buried her face into the pillow and groaned. “How did we get so dependent on him so fast?”
“Because he’s perfect?” Marisol offered.
Sarah chuckled into the sheets. “Yeah. That checks out.”
Mia stirred between them but didn’t wake, her brow twitching as she snuggled deeper under the covers, a small smile playing on her lips.
“Look at her,” Sarah whispered. “Smiling in her sleep. Girl’s got dreams of him wrapped around her already.”
Marisol leaned in and kissed the top of Mia’s head. “I would too, if I were her.”
Sarah went quiet again. She felt that ache - dull, steady - blooming at the base of her spine.
“It feels wrong without him,” she murmured. “Like the balance is off.”
“I used to like sleeping alone,” Marisol said, her voice rawer now. “Used to need it. After breakups, after stress. It was how I recharged.”
“Same.”
“But now?”
“Now it’s like something vital is missing.”
They both watched Mia for a moment - her quiet smile, the softness of her skin in the morning light, the way her fingers curled gently against the pillow.
“He does this thing in his sleep,” Sarah said suddenly. “Where he rubs slow circles into my hip. Barely even there. Like he’s checking that I haven’t disappeared.”
Marisol nodded. “He holds me like he owns me. Not possessively. Just… like he’s memorizing my shape every night.”
Sarah turned on her side to face her. “When he sleeps between us, he wraps one arm around each of us. Like we’re his world.”
Marisol smiled faintly. “Because we are.”
Sarah reached across Mia and took Marisol’s hand. Their fingers locked.
“Do you still think,” Sarah asked softly, “that you’d be okay if he had to go back to India?”
Marisol didn’t answer immediately.
She stared at the ceiling, her throat tightening.
“I thought I could be,” she said after a moment. “That I was strong enough. That I’d wait. That love could endure.”
“It can,” Sarah whispered. “But…”
Marisol closed her eyes. “But even this - this one night - hurts. Physically. Like a muscle I forgot existed is aching.”
Sarah nodded, blinking away a sudden sting behind her eyes. “It’s not weakness.”
“No,” Marisol said. “But it is truth. And I don’t know what to do with it.”
There was silence again, but it was full. Heavy with emotion. Thick with honesty.
“I think,” Sarah said finally, “you need to stop pretending you’re okay with any version of the future that doesn’t include all of us together. Especially him.”
“Yeah. I don’t know how I could have thought I did not need to be with him all the time.”
Mia sighed in her sleep and rolled slightly toward Sarah, burying her face into her shoulder.
They both looked down at her.
“She has no idea,” Sarah whispered.
“She’ll understand soon.”
Marisol leaned over Mia to press a soft kiss to Sarah’s temple. Then she snuggled closer from the other side, molding her body to Mia’s curve.
“We’ll get through this,” she murmured. “Together.”
Sarah smiled and kissed Mia’s hair. “All three of us.”
They fell into silence again, but it was different now. Less mournful. More resolved.
They missed him.
They ached for him.
But they had each other.
And that - for now - was enough to hold them.