I don’t know what I expect from seeing him for the first time in four years, but it definitely wasn’t indifference. He blinks and looks away like he doesn’t even know who I am. It cuts deep.
Yes, I may have lost some weight—thank you to my depression and eating disorder—and grown my previously blonde hair longer and dyed it a flaming red, but I’m still the same person he dated for six months back in high school. Six months. It wasn’t just a fling. I thought I was in love with the guy.
“Do you want to leave?” Willow’s voice breaks me out of my trance, and I nod.
Keeping my head down as we pass Dylan and Theo, I tense when Theo calls out, “See you around, Red.”
I ignore him and allow Willow to hustle me out of the store. “Do you think he’s back for good?” she asks when we’re halfway down the street. “I thought he was at BHU.”
I shrug. “Who knows?”
She studies me. “Are you okay?”
“Me?” I plaster on a fake smile and try to forget that if it weren’t for what Dylan did to me, Willow never would have found me crying in the school bathroom and we wouldn’t have become best friends. “I’m fine. It was just a shock seeing him.”
Willow sighs. “You don’t have to lie to me, Len. I’m always here for you.”
“I know.” Linking my arm in hers, I press a kiss to her cheek. “I love you for that, but I’m honestly fine. Dylan who? It’s all in the past. Let’s keep it there, yeah?”
“What doyou need from me?”
“A distraction.”
“Your wish is my command.”
Twenty minutes later, Willow’s proving yet again why she’s my best friend as she pants and puffs her way through one of my more intense yoga routines by the pool. She survives the first ten minutes with minimal complaining, even if she spends more time looking at me than actually doing the poses.
“Why are all your coping mechanisms cardio-based?” She groans, lowering herself from plank with shaking arms.
I snort. “Babe, this is not cardio. Yoga is meditation for your mind, body, and spirit.”
“My triceps hate you right now.”
“Engage your core,” I coach.
“Engage your therapist,” she shoots back as her arms give way and she flops onto her mat with a muffled, “Oof.”
“Are you okay?” I ask, failing to hide the laughter in my voice.
“I’m fine,” Willow says, her face squashed against her mat as she waves me off. “Keep going. I’ll catch up.”
Focusing, I breathe through my next transition, moving into upward dog, then downward dog, while Willow spends a solid thirty seconds trying to push herself up. Once she joins me in downward dog, I lead her into the lunge transition, stepping one foot forward between my hands, smooth and practiced. She hesitates a moment, lifting her foot halfway, then dropping it back to the mat and shuffling it the rest of the way in little scoots like she’s trying to park a dodgy shopping trolley.
“Elegant.” I smirk.
“I hope you get a cramp in your glutes,” she grumbles.
We move through Warrior I and II standing poses any beginner can master, and Willow actually looks like she’s getting the hang of it… until I throw in Warrior III.
She lifts one leg, and wobbles.
“Oh, shit,” she cries as she goes down with a thud.
“Willow!”
I rush to her side, but she waves me off.
“I’m fine, but that’s me done.”
