Page 168 of The Yoga Teacher

She nodded, biting the inside of her cheek.

“At myself,” he added quickly.

She looked at him.

“We were separated,” he said. “Because of me. And it’s humiliating—God, it’s humiliating—to know I work next to him now. To have to look him in the eye. To remember what he’s seen. What you gave him.”

Her throat tightened.

“But I don’t get to complain,” he continued, voice low. “I forfeited that. The day I broke us? I gave up the right to be jealous. I gave up the right to be mad.”

He looked down. Then back at her.

“It hurts like hell. But I don’t deserve better. Not after what I did to you.”

Hannah didn’t reply right away.

She just looked at him.

And he stood there—open, ashamed, honest in a way he never used to be. Not when it counted.

She could see it all over him.

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The late afternoon air was soft, cool, fragrant with earth. Hannah crouched by the carrot bed, running her fingers through the soil.

She wasn’t working. Not really. She just needed something to do with her hands.

A shadow crossed the planter.

“You’re still here,” Robert said, settling onto the bench behind her.

“I needed to think,” she murmured, not looking up.

Elaine joined a moment later, easing beside her husband with a soft groan. “My knees weren’t built for this much wisdom,” she said, rubbing one leg before resting her hands in her lap. “But we saw you here, and thought you might need some.”

Hannah smiled faintly. “Is that what you two deal in? Wisdom?”

Elaine shrugged. “Only the kind that comes with messing things up first.”

They let the silence sit.

A bird trilled in the fig tree. In the distance, someone started the hose.

Hannah sat back on her heels and finally looked at them. “How did you know?”

Robert tilted his head. “Know what?”

“I told myself I couldn’t take him back. That if I did, I’d be weak.” She shook her head, voice thickening. “I got out. I rebuilt. I didn’t run back.”

Elaine leaned forward slightly. “And now?”

“I want to come home,” Hannah whispered. “Not to the past. Not to what we had. To something new. But I want it with him.”

Robert smiled, eyes kind. “Then take it. You’re allowed.”

Elaine squeezed her hand. “It’s about whether you’re ready to love him with your eyes open.”

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