I knew it. This was going to be lame.
The bony woman introduced herself as Willow. Yup—so lame. She launched into housekeeping and the usual spiel before beginning.
“Let’s take a moment to arrive in this space together,” she exhaled, eyes closing. Everyone else followed suit. “Perhapsnoticing what you can hear,” she paused. “Maybe noticing where your body connects to the surface beneath it.” Recognising the similarity of the words from when I had my meltdown at the children’s home, I looked over at Dax, who was grinning, his eyes still closed. He’d been grounding me.
I wish he’d ground me.To kiss those grinning lips. I sighed. Focus Riley. Focus! You’re here for a reason. And not that reason!
I let my eyes flutter shut as I brought my attention back to my breathing. Taking a deep breath in and managing to sigh it out when instructed, even though my brain screamed at me that this room full of exhaling adults was a cult.
Cult, and this being stupid, were currently battling for the front page of today’s tabloid issue of my brain.
But… I had to admit, my body was already more relaxed than it had been five minutes ago—even if my mind wasn’t.
Willow guided us to move our attention through different points of the body, “like a leaf floating down a stream.” Lame. But the more I tuned in, the more surprised I was by how tense I’d been without realising. I allowed every part of me to soften. It felt like a game-changer. My body grew heavier, sinking into the floor. With my back against the wall, I finally felt safe enough to keep my eyes shut.
A snort from across the room startled my lashes open again. Willow just smiled and glanced in the direction of the sleeper, then dipped her head as if to say—it happens.
I let my eyes close again.
“Now we’ll move to creating a safe space within ourselves,” Willow drawled.
Okay, that was my threshold of stupid officially crossed.
My fidgeting must have given me away because I felt a hand reach out and squeeze mine. Dax. His long fingers wrapped around mine, even as the rest of him remained perfectly still.The tremors in his hands must come sporadically as they were still around mine in this moment. He squeezed again softly, and I sighed, letting my head tip back against the wall behind me. Fine, I’d stay. But only because he was holding my hand, and my life was falling apart, and my chaotic self would take any physical comfort it could get. Especially his completely normal volunteering, workaholic, perfect change paying comfort.
“This is a space within you where there is nothing for you to do and nothing for you to protect. Where you feel complete ease,” I heard Willow say. I’d never known such a place. But sure, I’d play along, mainly so I could take the piss out of it with Rick later. I’d fill mine with giant dildos and jelly doughnuts.
“If you can see a place there,” she said, “could you bring it to life in your mind? Fill it with sounds, colours, smells…”
Sure. Pink dildos, glittery dildos, ones covered in strawberry-scented jelly doughnuts. I bit back a snort.
“Maybe you’re there on your own, just enjoying the space…”
Did she have any idea what I’d created?
“Or perhaps you invite someone in. Someone who makes you feel safe or protected. They could be real or imagined, earthside or not—it’s completely up to you.”
I wanted to mock the “earthside” bit. But then a figure appeared in my mind, uninvited.
A salt-and-pepper-haired man with rectangular glasses. He smiled at me—Mr Vee, the caretaker from my first school. The man I now knew to be my biological grandfather.
Yup, the same one who’d always gone out of his way to be kind to me? He had his reasons.
His wife—my grandmother—had died recently, following his own passing eighteen months earlier. That’s what triggered the will and the ownership of Bellamy Children’s Home changing hands.
His matching grey eyes twinkled as he held out an open tin of colourful sweets. I smiled back at him, taking a purple one and popping it in my mouth. Saliva filled the space around it as the grape flavour tingled on my taste buds. He reached into his pocket, his other hand emerging with a palm full of mints. I chuckled and took one of them too, enjoying the smoky smell left on them from his clothing. He stretched an arm around me and pointed into the distance with his free hand.
Imagination is a powerful thing. Or maybe this meditation was. Because I could see her—a woman emerging from between the forest trees. My heart froze. She looked like me. Long brown hair, my build, and?—
A dimple in her left cheek. A dark freckle above her lip.
Just like the young woman in the photo next to my grandparents. She was my mother. Without anyone saying anything, I knew it.
Mr Vee pulled me close again before dropping his hand to hold mine. He reached for one of the woman’s hands with his other. I hiccupped as unexpected emotion rolled up through my seated body leaning against the wall. She pulled me into her arms, and we both sank to the ground sobbing. It felt like running into someone I hadn’t realised I’d been missing my entire life, and her image in front of me emptied me with relief. We both felt it.
We’d been separated by my lack of knowledge about her, but now we didn’t have to be. At least not in my mind.
I didn’t know how much time passed as I let the woman hold me, stroking my hair gently behind my ears as Mr Vee leaned against a tree nearby, watching over us.
