Page 142 of The Yoga Teacher

“I had sex with Hannah,” he said flatly, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “I humiliated myself.”

Dr. Ellis didn’t blink.

He huffed a broken laugh, leaned his head back against the chair.

“She came over. I thought—hell, I don’t know what I thought. She said it was just sex. That she didn’t want anything from me. No emotions. Just…” He trailed off, jaw clenched. “Just my body, I guess.”

Dr. Ellis waited.

Daniel’s voice dropped. “It wasn’t casual for me.”

Silence.

He swallowed. “I was so desperate to make it good for her. I kept thinking about Tristan. The way she looked at him. The way he made her laugh. I couldn’t stop hearing his voice. I wanted to be better. Younger. Stronger. I wanted to fuck her so well she’d forget he ever touched her.”

His hands were clenched between his knees now, knuckles pale. “But the second she let me touch her, I—I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. I’d spent months remembering what if felt like, and then she was there. Right fucking there. Skin on skin. And I—” His throat worked, shame flooding every word. “I came the second I got inside her.”

Dr. Ellis didn’t flinch. “And then?”

“I wanted to disappear.” His voice cracked. “She hadn’t even come yet. She hadn’t even had a chance tofeelit. I pulled out, started apologizing like an idiot. Like she didn’t already know how pathetic I am.”

Dr. Ellis tilted her head slightly. “Did she say that?”

Daniel blinked. “What?”

“That you’re pathetic. Or a fuck-up. Did she say that?”

“No,” he admitted, quietly. “But she didn’t have to.”

Dr. Ellis scribbled something on her notepad. Then looked up. “And then what?”

Daniel swallowed hard. “I… gave her my hands. My mouth. Everything I had. Because I couldn’t—because she asked me forone thing, and I couldn’t even give her that.” His voice thinned. “But even then, I failed her. It was supposed to be forher, butIliked it. Ilovedit. And it shouldn’t have been about me.”

Dr. Ellis’s tone was careful. “Are you just ashamed of your body’s reaction, Daniel. Or are you ashamed of touching her at all?”

“I didn’t deserve to touch her,” he said, voice thin and raw. “Not after what I did. It was like—like I was staining her by being there.”

His breathing was uneven now. His voice dropped. “And it still wasn’t enough. It won’t ever be.”

“Daniel,” Dr. Ellis said gently. “You’re not a performance. You’re a person.”

“No,” he said sharply. “I’m a fucking punchline. The cheating husband who can’t even fuck right.”

Her silence wasn’t absence. It was restraint. Space.

Dr. Ellis leaned in slightly. “Let me ask you something.”

He looked up.

“Were you trying to prove something last night? Or were you trying to give something?”

Daniel blinked, confused. “I—I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

He exhaled. “I wanted Hannah to have whatever she wanted from me. I want to give her everything, anything she asked from me.”

She spoke softly now. “Daniel, you can’t heal her by hating yourself. That’s not how love works.”

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