Page 7 of Unclench Me Softly

this is the plot of like 3,000 kindle books and i’ve read every single one

i’m so proud of you

I groan and flop onto the meditation cushion behind me. The room still smells like printer toner and failed boundaries. Outside, I can hear Jax doing something loud, possibly involving wood chopping or soul damage.

This is fine.

I find him behind the Moon Dome, shirtless, of course, chopping wood with a level of aggression usually reserved for action movie montages or bear attacks.

Why is he chopping wood? No one asked him to chop wood. There’s no ceremony that requires wood. I’m 90% sure we don’t even have a working fireplace.

“Jax!” I call out, holding a clipboard like it’s holy. “We need to go over your welcome schedule.”

He stops mid-swing, looks up at me with a glint in his eye like he already knows he’s about to ruin my entire sense of structure, and says, “You made a schedule for... healing?”

“It’s a curated journey,” I say, walking toward him and thrusting the paper into his hand. “Each day is themed. Activities, rituals, intentional stillness. It’s all in there.”

He glances at it, reads silently, then raises one eyebrow.

“Day One: Unclenching.” He smirks. “Sounds like a cult code word for hand stuff.”

I snatch the paper back. “It’s about releasing internal rigidity, mental, emotional, energetic. There’s breathwork and a group intention circle.”

He gestures around. “Where? In that broken dome? Or next to the trauma bucket?”

“It’s an experiential space,” I say through clenched teeth, holding the paper toward him.

He takes it and scans it again. “And this one,” he points to the second day, “Rewilding the Inner Cub... That’s when you make us roll around in the dirt and bark at the moon?”

“No!” I pause. “Okay yes, but it’s symbolic.”

“Sure,” he says. “Symbolic dirt. Got it.”

I stare at him, hands on hips. “You know, for someone who voluntarily signed up for a divine masculinity retreat, you sure seem committed to resisting literally everything divine.”

“Let me guess,” he says, leaning in just a little too close. “Day Three’s all about how I need to cry into a crystal while whispering my father’s name.”

I hold his gaze. “Actually, it’s a mirror meditation. You stare at your own reflection until your ego crumbles.”

“Sounds kinky.”

I roll my eyes so hard I almost enter a higher dimension.

“I am trying to offer you healing,” I say, trying to sound calm and goddess-like, and not like I want to shove a quartz tower into his smirking mouth.

He studies me for a moment, then folds the schedule and tucks it into his back pocket like it’s a challenge.

“I’ll show up,” he says.

“Great.”

“But only if you do too.”

I frown. “I’m literally the one leading the retreat.”

“Then lead,” he says, already turning back to the wood pile. “Just don’t flinch when your inner cub bites back.”

I spin around and march off before my hormones make a scene, muttering under my breath, “Maybe you need a sixth pillar called Shutting the Hell Up.”

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