Page 27 of The Yoga Teacher

She wasn’t just mourning the loss of him.

She was mourningthem.

Their present and their future. What she had thought they were. What she had believed they would always be.

Hannah threw back the blanket and sat up, her breath coming fast. The air in the guest room felt thick, suffocating.

She pressed a hand against her chest, but it didn’t stop the ache blooming there, the raw, hollow space where her life used to be.

Whereheused to be.

She lay there—staring at a ceiling that didn’t belong to her, trying not to break.

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Hannah woke to the smell of clean sheets and someone else’s detergent.

For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. Then the ache in her chest returned, sharp and immediate, and it all came rushing back.

The yoga studio.

Daniel’s bare back.

Sienna’s laugh.

The way her own voice had sounded when it broke in half.

She lay still, staring at the ceiling of Mia and James’s guest room, the unfamiliar texture of the blanket bunched against her chest. Her body was heavy. Her skin felt tight, like it didn’t fit her anymore.

Is this the end of my marriage?

The thought pressed in before she was ready for it. She didn’t know the answer. She didn’t know what she wanted the answer to be.

She hadn’t texted him. Hadn’t called. Hadn’t screamed, or thrown something, or let herself cry in front of anyone. Because if she let go—if she admitted how much it hurt—she didn’t know what would be left.

Her marriage. Her life. The version of Daniel she had spent years believing in.

She closed her eyes and tried to find something solid. A reason to stay. A reason to go.

But all she could see was his face, blurred with sweat and pleasure, in a place where he wasn’t supposed to be. With someone who wasn’t her.

He didn’t even look guilty.

That was the part that kept replaying. Not the betrayal. Not the humiliation.

The ease.

Like it was nothing. Likeshewas nothing.

Her throat burned. Her hands curled into the blanket.

There was a voice in her head—rational, measured—insisting this wasn’t her fault. That his actions said everything about him and nothing about her.

But that didn’t stop the shame from blooming anyway.

She had given him everything. Her loyalty. Her softness. Her mess. She had handed him the truest version of herself and said,please, hold this with care.

And now?

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