Page 75 of The Yoga Teacher

This was who she was now.

Not a wife. Not someone’s forever.

Just a woman sitting in a guest room with her heart in shreds and a suitcase full of clean clothes and old ghosts.

She glanced at her phone on the nightstand. It was still where she’d dropped it after coming in. The screen dark. No new notifications.

She stared at it for a long moment before picking it up.

She opened Contacts. Scrolled down.

Gym Guy.

She tapped the name. Her thumb hovered over the keyboard.

She didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t know if it would make anything better.

But she needed to stop letting Daniel be the only story she ever told.

She typed:

You up? I think I’m ready for uncomplicated.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Daniel

THE WRENCH SLIPPED in his hand, scraping against the underside of the sink.

“Fuck,” Daniel muttered, pulling his hand back and shaking it out. A shallow gash opened along the edge of his thumb, the sting immediate. He pressed the wound against his shirt and exhaled hard.

The faucet had been leaking for months. One of those little things Hannah had asked him to fix a dozen times. And like most things that didn’t directly inconvenience him, he had ignored it. Promised to “get to it this weekend,” and then never did.

Until now.

The drip had grown louder in the silence of the house. Rhythmic. Mocking.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

He stared at the old pipe, rusted at the base, just misaligned enough to drive a person insane. He had no idea what he was doing. But that didn’t matter.

He wasn’t doing it for function. He wasn’t even doing it for redemption.

He was doing it because she had asked him to.

He wasn’t doing this for function. He wasn’t even doing it for penance.

He was doing it because she’d asked.

Because now, with her gone, this—this little act of care—was all he had left.

It was stupid. A half-fix. Too late.

And still, it filled something in his chest. A tiny, flickering warmth through all the hollow rot inside him.

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