“Like meditation?” Hannah asks.
“Similar, but you’re lying down the whole time. Completely supported. The teacher uses a script to guide you through body awareness, breath work, visualizations. It can help with pain, insomnia, anxiety—pretty much everything we deal with.” The words come faster now, my enthusiasm genuine. “Some studies show it’s as restorative as actual sleep. Twenty minutes of yoga nidra might equal two hours of regular sleep.”
“Sign me up,” Alexis says with feeling.
“Me too.” Maya’s already pulling out her phone. “When does the course start?”
“Next month. If I get certified, the four of you will be my first students.”
The conversation flows easily, moving from Alexis’s top baby names to the best dates for us to take a group trip to the mountains to the women’s soccer game Hannah is taking Katie—her boyfriend Michael’s daughter—to.
“I still think Luna is pretty,” Maya says, working on her crochet project—a tiny yellow blanket with white stars.
“Noah vetoed it. Said every other girl born in the last five years is named Luna.” Alexis rolls her eyes. “He’s not wrong, but still.”
“What about Ellis?” Flick suggests. “It works for either gender.”
“That’s actually on our short list.”
Hannah glances up from her knitting. “The soccer game is next Saturday if anyone wants to come. Fair warning—I know nothing about soccer, but Katie is excited and that’s what matters.”
“I might be able to make it,” Maya says. “What time?”
While they coordinate schedules, I pick up the dropped stitch from earlier, working it back onto my needle. The yarn is soft under my fingers, the pale green color reminding me of spring even though winter still has us firmly in its grip.
“Oh!” Alexis brightens up. “Speaking of sports, apparently some famous ice hockey player moved to town.”
I stiffen.
“Who?” Flick asks, only vaguely interested.
“I don’t know. He came into Rye Again and Noah nearly lost his mind. He loves hockey. He said this guy was really good until a suspicious injury ended his career. Noah doesn’t believe it was an accident. It’s a whole thing.” She shrugs.
Hannah turns to me, blinking innocently from behind her glasses. “Do you know who it is? Wasn’t your ex a hockey player?”
“Oh… I… I dunno. I don’t follow hockey.” I drop another stitch and bow my head, feigning focus on my knitting in order to hide from the conversation.
“He had such a weird order,” Alexis goes on. “Triple shot iced almond latte with caramel and only two ice cubes.” She laughs. “I remember because it was so specific, and after he left Noah came into the back all excited like the president had just been there.”
I swallow against a lump in my throat. I already suspected she’s talking about Oliver, but now I know for sure. That’s been his drink for years. Sometimes, on our days off, I would wake him up in bed with it. We’d drink coffee and watch TV, his arm around my shoulders, neither of us in any hurry to start the day.Eventually we’d get up to take a shower. And sometimes, in the shower…
The best moments of my life would happen. The way he’d look at me. The way he made me feel seen, wanted, cherished. The steam rising around us, the rest of the world falling away until it was just the two of us and nothing else mattered.
Shower sex with Oliver was unreal. Out of this world. Even if we were struggling somewhere else in our relationship, sex was the one thing that could repair it. Our physical connection was a tether bringing us back together every time.
Unless I was flaring. On those days, he treated my body like a foreign object. He would hardly touch me, like he was afraid I would break apart if he did. Or like touching me required too much effort, too much care, when I was already asking so much just by being in pain. The space between us in bed would stretch wider than the mattress. His kisses would land on my forehead instead of my lips. Careful. Distant. Almost clinical.
Or maybe he was trying to keep his distance, trying to send a message:since you’re exaggerating the pain level, I’m going to shut you out to show you how dramatic you’re being.
I close my eyes against the memories. I’m putting words in his mouth, he never said such a thing. It’s easy enough to infer it, though, when so much of what he did say was dismissive of my health struggles.
“Hey,” a soft voice says. It’s Maya, her face pinched in concern. “You okay?”
The room has gone quiet, all eyes on me. I realize my hands have stopped moving, my knitting frozen in my lap.
“Yeah.” I sit a little straighter, forcing my fingers to resume their work. “Just... tired. And tired of being tired.”
“For sure.” Hannah, who has fibromyalgia, nods with understanding.
