Page 150 of The Yoga Teacher

She exhaled, almost a whisper.

“What if…” Her voice faltered. She forced herself to meet Mia’s gaze, her cheeks already warming. “What if something else I want… is Daniel?”

Her stomach twisted the second she said it.

Like she'd confessed to something shameful. Like wanting him made her foolish.

But the silence that followed wasn’t judgment. It was just Mia, watching her with quiet patience, giving her space to say the whole truth—even if it stung.

“He cheated,” Mia said gently.

“I know,” Hannah whispered. “I know.”

She set her glass down a little too hard, the sound sharp against the quiet kitchen. Her voice didn’t waver, but something under it burned hot.

“I loved him. I thought we’d grow old together. That we’d be the couple who got boring in the best possible way. Morning coffee, Sunday walks, maybe a dog eventually.”

Mia reached out to take her hand. She squeezed it.

“You want to talk about what I really feel?” she said. “I feelrage. Still. Some days it burns so hot in my chest I think it might crack me in half.”

She paused, breath shaking now—not from weakness, but from the force it took to hold that fire inside.

“I wanted to destroy something for months. And instead, I built.”

She let go of Mia’s hand to rub at her face. She looked up at them.

“I made space for that rage, and I used it. I lifted heavy. I negotiated harder. I stood up straighter. That fury taught me to stop compromising.”

Mia didn’t interrupt. Neither did James.

“And that’s the thing,” Hannah went on. “Taking him back—ifI do—isn’t about letting anything go. It’s abouttaking. Forgiveness will befor me. Not some gift I hand over because he’s sorry enough.”

She wasn’t broken anymore.

She wasn’t even healing.

She was whole.

And whatever she chose next, it would be from that wholeness—not from the cracks that Daniel had left behind.

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She stared at the unsigned divorce papers.

The rage that had fueled her for so long—that had helped her rebuild, reclaim her body, find her voice—had shifted. It hadn't disappeared, but it had transformed into something else. Something that left room for questions she hadn't allowed herself to ask before.

What if forgiveness wasn't about erasing what happened?

What if it wasn't about pretending the betrayal didn't cut her to the core?

What if forgiveness was actually about her power, not his redemption?

She thought about the woman she'd become in the aftermath—stronger, clearer, unwilling to compromise. She'd stopped making herself smaller. Stopped prioritizing comfort over truth. She'd built something real from the wreckage he'd left behind.

And that woman—this version of herself—she could look at Daniel now without shattering. Could see both the man who'd betrayed her and the man who'd been showing up, consistently, without demands or expectations, day after day after day.

Forgiving him wouldn't mean returning to who she was before. It wouldn't mean forgetting what happened in thatyoga studio. It wouldn't erase the nights she'd spent rebuilding herself piece by piece.

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