A wave of sadness crashes over me, so intense my shoulders sag under the weight of it. I care about Myles, of course I do. And I had him—I had the chance for something with him—and I pushed him away again. I let my fear jump in at the first hurdle and push, push, push, until he was gone. It thought it was keeping me safe from hurt, but now, I realize as my chest feels hollow with loss, it wasn’t. Now I feel more hurt than ever. Because it doesn’t matter if I’m pushing Myles away or not—that doesn’t change the way I feel. That doesn’t change the fact that I love him.
Wait.
No.
That can’t be right. I can’t…
I swallow hard against the emotion clogging my throat, my eyes flying open. I want to get up and run from this room, from Geoff and his well-meaning persistence, from this meditation teacher and all his crap about fear, from my own inner turmoil.
And then it hits me—thisis it. This is the fear in action. And now I have the chance to do something different.
Geoff peeks over at me, his eyes softening as he sees the agony on my face. He reaches out and squeezes my hand. “Just breathe,” he whispers and I gulp in a breath.
Just breathe.
And as I do, I feel the tightness in my chest release, feel the fear start to ebb away—so that I’m left, confronted with the truth.
I love Myles.
My brain instantly kicks up a fuss, saying that can’t be right—because it hasn’t been long enough, because he let me down. But my heart is speaking too, and it’s yelling to be heard.
I love Myles.
And suddenly I know, with absolute clarity, thatthisis the only thing that matters.
Wow. I do have a working inner compass buried inside, I just haven’t known how to hear it properly. It’s been drowned out by fear, by all the stuff from my past, creating a cynical filter that has tinged my whole view of the world gray.
And as soon as I step away from all of that stuff, I can see so clearly how much I love Myles.
I realize now that I don’t care that he didn’t do the website—or rather, it’s not so much that I don’t care, as it is that I understand. I know it wasn’t to spite me—it was because he was hurt.
“And we’re going to slowly bring our awareness back to the room,” the instructor says.
I open my eyes again. My whole body is buzzing, my mind is working a mile a minute. I’m itching to get to my feet, to run to Myles, to tell him how I’m feeling. Not just that I love him, but that Iknowit, deep in my bones—that I heard it from myself, that I took a meditation class and it really helped, that I found some truth within myself and he was right about it all.
But as everyone around me stands and stretches, I sit stock-still on my cushion, pressing my eyes shut again.
Because I can’t go to him and do any of those things. It doesn’t matter that I’ve come to these profound realizations. I hurt him so badly, and the website is proof of that—that’s how I know he won’t forgive me. That site meant everything to him; he was working so hard on it and pouring himself into it for me. But he just let it go.
And that’s how I know he’s let me go, too.
“Hey, you okay?” Geoff scooches over beside me, slinging an arm over my shoulder. “You looked a bit worse for wear there.”
I nod, inspecting the carpet. I’m on the brink of bursting into tears and I can’t do that. Not here, not with Geoff. If I cry in front of him it will be a whole thing and I can’t do that right now. I can’t let myself unravel, because I’ll never put myself back together again.
Instead, I summon all my inner sass and turn to him with an arched eyebrow. “You tricked me into a meditation class. Of course I’m worse for wear. Can we go now?”
He eyes me for a moment, words clearly dancing on the tip of his tongue, then pushes to his feet with a frustrated sigh. “Sure. But I want you to meet someone first.” He grabs my hands and pulls me up, gesturing to the front of the room.
“Really?” I whine as he drags me along. “I don’t—”
“Cat, this is Daniel.” Geoff gestures to our instructor, beaming.
“Oh,” I say, surprised. “Daniel. I’ve heard so much about you.” I pause to properly take him in: tall, hazel eyes, almost-black hair.
He grins. “I should hope so.” He slips an arm around Geoff, planting a kiss on his cheek. “Did you enjoy the class?”
“Um… yes.” I glance between the two of them, my eyes narrowing. “Geoff, did you set this whole thing up?”
