Page 48 of The Yoga Teacher

He let out a humorless breath. “Feel worse.”

She nodded once, without sympathy. “Sit down. I’ll get the whiskey.”

He obeyed, lowering himself onto the edge of the couch like he wasn’t sure he had permission to take up space. Like the air in the room was rationed.

The silence in the house throbbed. Cold. Dead.

He remembered the last time he’d been here—months ago. His father had made a passing insult about his mother. Hannah had been the one to call it out.

Isabella returned with two glasses, passing him one wordlessly before she sat on the opposite chair, legs tucked up, eyes sharp and waiting.

Daniel stared at the glass. The whiskey glinted amber in the light, calm and cruel. He didn’t drink. Not really. But he took a sip. It burned all the way down.

“I don’t even know why I came here,” he muttered, voice hollow.

That wasn’t true.

He did know.

He was desperate.

Hannah had been the air in his lungs, the gravity in his days. The thing that gave his life shape. Without her, he felt like he was floating. No direction. No anchor. No north star.

And somehow,this—this cold, sterile house—had become the only place he could think to go.

“I guess I thought he might say something,” Daniel admitted. “Tell me I’m not a total fucking lost cause.”

Isabella just sipped her drink like she’d heard worse.

Then Daniel exhaled sharply, the pain swelling too big to carry alone. “Hannah’s gone,” he said. “She’s really gone.”

Isabella tilted her head, unsympathetic. “What did you do?”

The words tasted like rust. “I cheated.”

There was no softening. No flicker of surprise.

Just disgust.

She blinked once. “Well.”

Daniel laughed, bitter and ugly. “Yeah. Well.”

The silence crackled between them.

“I thought—” He broke off, swallowing hard. “I thought if I showed her I was sorry… if I just gave her time… she’d come back.”

“Did she say she would?” Isabella asked, blunt as ever.

He shook his head. “No.”

“Then why would you think that?”

His voice cracked. “Because I needed her to.”

Because he loved her. Because he needed someone to save him from himself.

Isabella stared at him, something sharp in her gaze. “You’re just like him.”

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