Page 54 of The Yoga Teacher

Not brutal. Not in the way he expected.

But exhausting.

Dr. Ellis hadn’t lectured him. She hadn’t shamed him. She had just listened. Asked questions. Made him say things out loud he hadn’t wanted to hear.

“Why did you cheat?”

A question with a hundred tangled answers.

He didn’t even know where to start.

And yet, for the first time, he had forced himself to sit with it. Really sit with it.

Not the excuses. Not the justifications. Not the lies he had told himself to make it easier.

But the truth.

The ugly, aching, sickening truth.

I was selfish. I was weak. I was insecure. I wanted to feel relevant. I wanted—

God.

Daniel dragged a hand down his face, exhaling hard.

It all sounded so fucking pathetic when he said it out loud.

Because it was.

And the worst part—the absolute worst part—was that none of it had been worth losing her.

Hannah.

Lovely, brilliant, patient,Hannah.

His eyes burned, his throat tight.

She had loved him. God, she had loved him.

Without conditions. Without hesitation.

She had been steady, warm, soft where he was sharp-edged and restless. She had built a home for them—a real home, full of quiet laughter and sleepy Sunday mornings and inside jokes and stupid little rituals.

And he had taken it all for granted.

Because she had always been there.

Always in his corner. Always the person who believed in him, even when he didn’t believe in himself.

She was the only person in the world he had ever truly talked to.

And now?

She wasn’t his.

Not his wife. Not his person. Not his anything.

She had been so good to him. Too good.

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