Page 88 of The Yoga Teacher

And by then, it would be too late.

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Hannah was gathering her things—tucking folders into her bag, slinging her jacket over her arm—when a knock at her office door made her freeze.

She looked up.

Daniel.

He stood in the doorway, his shoulders hunched, hands shoved deep in his coat pockets. Guilt. Regret. Pain. It lived in the way he looked at her, like she was something holy he had broken with his bare hands.

Her body tensed before her mind could catch up.

It was reflex now. Not fear. Not even anger.

Just the ache of memory.

The ache of remembering what it felt like to be seen, held, loved by someone who hadn’t protected any of it.

“I’m not here to talk,” he said quickly, voice rough, like it had been sanded down. “I just… I need to ask you something.”

She didn’t answer. Didn’t gesture for him to come in. She just stood still, waiting.

Guarded.

“The garden program launched this week,” he said. “I saw the updates. I wanted to ask if you still needed volunteers.”

Her brow furrowed. “You want to sign up?”

“I already did,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “I just… I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t make anything harder for you.”

That stopped her. The careful phrasing. The way he didn’t ask for permission—just asked not to be a burden.

She blinked. “Why?”

He looked at her then.

Really looked.

And his face did something quiet and terrible.

“Because it matters to you,” he said. “And that means it matters to me.”

Her throat tightened. She hated the flicker that rose in her chest—of grief, of recognition. He meant it. She could see it in every ruined line of his face.

He looked like a man hollowed out by love he no longer believed he had the right to express.

She folded her arms. “You’re not doing this to prove anything?”

“No,” he said immediately. “You don’t owe me anything.” He paused. Swallowed. “I’m not asking to be seen.”

There was a pause. A breath.

“I’ll do the shifts no one wants. The cleanup. The grunt work. I’ll be invisible, if that’s what makes it easier.”

There was something in the way he said it—like he wanted to be punished. Like anonymity was the price he’d finally learned to pay.

She almost scoffed. Almost told him it was too late for this kind of goodness to matter.

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