I have this feeling she’s going to kill me.
Immediately, she starts talking to me about blocks and blankets—huh?—all while assuring me I can do this. I’m physically fit, so I should be able to.
Still, she scares me.
The background music is both exotic and folksy. She tells me to do the easy pose. Thankfully, the visual lets me know she’s sitting cross-legged. Why didn’t she just say that? Then she instructs me to roll my shoulders and shake my head. After that, I’m supposed to put my head over my heart, my heart over my pelvis. What? I already have to contort myself? No, just sit up straighter. Okay. I can do that. I’m good…until she says I’m supposed to come into the moment with “integrity.” What the fuck does that mean? Sighing in irritation, I decide to skip that part and press on.
Mostly because I can see Keeley doing this, which makes me feel weirdly closer to her.
From there, it’s a lot of breathing and a little stretching. I probably need it. I have to admit that the deep inhalations and exhalations are calming my head a little. At least I’m not trying to think about fifty things at once. It’s taking most of my mental energy to figure out how to press my palms together in a prayer pose and lift my sternum to my thumbs. It’s not so awful…until we shift.
Suddenly, I’m sitting on my knees, back on my heels, and curling my toes under my feet. That doesn’t feel good at all. I’m relieved when she instructs me to get into a tabletop position. I follow along, then realize I’m on all fours on my patio, wearing nothing but pajama pants. Any of my neighbors or the vacationers in the unit across the pool can see me round and sway my spine like a cat in heat looking for a good time.
Fuck whatever they think. This is for me. To better understand Keeley.
I’d rather pass on the downward dog stuff. Perched on hands and feet, my body in an inverted V shape, I kinda feel like a canine waiting for some random animal to come sniff my butt. Plus, my shoulders ache from holding up my weight for a few minutes while I stretch my hamstrings and calves like I’m made of rubber. I’m totally relieved when we switch positions again and finally do some standing shit. Warrior poses are more my thing.
Then after a little more breathing and her telling us to take this grounded center through the rest of our day, it’s over. I feel better…and worse. I’m definitely less scattered mentally. But the temporary Zen of focusing on the exercise is fast dissipating. Reality is crashing back in, as is my mental whine about missing Keeley.
With a curse, I roll up the mat and slip inside my condo, grabbing my laptop before I plop on the sofa. Magically, I manage some productivity. I answer a few emails, return a few phone calls to other agents. I even sort through the Stowe presentation for tomorrow morning, adding extra notes and incorporating some of the final research details we received earlier.
I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. I’m still not sure I’ve chosen the right tack. The listing may already be Griff’s. But I can’t control that. I can only do my best, give the Stowes something to think about, and work my ass off the rest of the year.
I’ll go through the motions of this pitch, but I’m not sure I care anymore. For weeks, it’s taken my time and stolen my sanity. And it’s cost me Keeley. Well, I helped, too, but…
I look at the clock. It’s just before eight. Some people go to bed this early. And I’m feeling exhausted. The sofa in my office must have had a former life as a torture rack in a medieval dungeon. I’ll be replacing it ASAP. I’m grateful that I’ll be sleeping in my bed tonight, except…I still can’t decide what to do about the sheets. Change them and get rid of Keeley’s scent altogether? Once it’s gone, it’s gone. But if I sleep on the sheets, I’ll likely be torn between crying and fighting the urge to hump the mattress all night.
I feel like I should hand over my man card for even silently making that admission.
My stomach rumbles again, and I raid the last of what Keeley had in the fridge, then come back to my laptop. I’ll deal with the great sheet debate later. I click open Facebook out of boredom…then remember that I accepted her friend request last week. Maybe she’s posted something.
At the time we became “friends,” I was so wrapped up in the Stowe deal that I didn’t look through her timeline, but I should be able to see her pictures now. I’d like to see snapshots of Keeley as a kid, of her adventures around Maui. I wonder if she posts her bar crawls with girlfriends, political rants…or her innermost thoughts.
When I click her picture from my friends list, the first thing that pops up is a change in her status. In big letters, a post last night proclaims that she’s now in a relationship with Griffin J. Reed. There’s a selfie of the two of them somewhere on the beach as the sun sets, his arm wrapped around her waist. My stomach free-falls to my toes—and beyond. Twenty-four hours after their first date, and Keeley is already fucking committing to my brother?
And when did Griff get a personal Facebook account? He hates making his private life public.
In the next instant, my chest implodes. Then a whole slide of symptoms I’m beginning to know well set in. I can’t breathe, can’t feel my fingers, can’t find calm.
I jump to my feet, pace, trying to figure out how all this has happened. I fucked up. I admit it. I’ve even tried to tell Keeley that. But Griff will be no better. He’s the sort of man to walk away from his own son, and she knows that. Why is she willing to be “in a relationship” with him so soon? I was with her for three fucking weeks. I got to know about her, care about her. I even tried yoga for her. And I can’t believe she chose him instead.
I also wonder why Griff is suddenly feeling so public about his commitment. He was never a PDA kind of guy, even with Britta, and now he’s practically proclaiming his love for a woman he barely knows all over social media?
Of course I wanted my brother to like her. Yeah, I expected him to dig her. But…this?
I want to hit something, strangle him. I already know if I did, it wouldn’t be enough to release the valve building pressure inside me. Fuck, it’s growing, straining my ability to hold it in. My panic is going to swallow me whole.
Maybe I should blame her or be angry that she’s already jumped in my brother’s bed. It would be easy, yeah. But I’m the one who sent her out my door. So no matter how much I want to slam my fist into a wall, I’m going to swallow it down, suck it up, and get my shit together.