Page 21 of Change My Mind
The instructor, a petite blonde woman who reminded me of Tori, called us into the studio, and Lucy sprang into action, standing up and grabbing my hand to lead us both in, a smirk on her face.
I thought she was going to direct us to the back of the room. A place that would have put us as far away from Eli as possible. Because, of course, he was a front-of-the-class person.
What Lucy actually did was wait for Eli to roll out his mat before selecting two spaces in the row behind him, and by the time I realised what she was doing, it was too late. Pretty much all the other spaces were taken.
So I had no choice but to roll my mat out with Eli in my peripheral vision.
I knew the exact moment he clocked me in the mirror because he frowned and then turned his head to look at me.
The room was already starting to warm, and I felt my skin prickle under the heat. I vaguely registered Lucy telling the instructor about an old wrist injury that sometimes got mad if she put too much weight on it, but mostly I just thought about how low-key horrifying it was that not only did I have a routine with the worst boy in the world, I also might have a crush on him.
The intentionI set at the start of the practice was to focus on my own mat.
I failed miserably the first time we pushed into updog. My eyes fell to the long line of Eli’s legs and the way the muscles were tensed, before he pushed into downward dog. Then they ran down the length of his arms and how they flexed to support his weight in the pose. The instructorcame round and gave me a gentle reminder to let my neck relax.
A.k.a. don’t gawk at someone else while they’re practising.
I didn’t want to be gently told off again, so I kept to my intention for forty minutes, focusing on my breath and the way my muscles moved and supported me throughout the movements. I was incapable of meditating in my day-to-day life. I felt like I was failing at it every time my mind wandered, no matter how many times I tried to remind myself that it was okay, just as long as I brought it back. It was a much more stressful experience than I think it was supposed to be. Instead, I had yoga. A moving meditation where, yes, my mind did wander sometimes, but I had no choice but to bring it back because I was moving my body in a way that demanded intention. I had no idea why I then moved on to doing it in near sauna-like studios, but it worked for me. Nine times out of ten, I thought about nothing else but flowing.
Then, sometimes, the flow led to the set-up for a crow pose, and instead of focusing on my own mat, my eyes drifted again.
Eli was dripping with sweat. I could see it sliding off his chin, and there was one strand of hair flopping over his face that had a bead of moisture just waiting for the opportune moment to drop. His triceps were glistening, his vest top plastered to his back, and his already short shorts were plastered to the bulge of his thighs as he tipped forward into the balance.
My knee slipped off my arm where I was hanging out in a squat, pretending I was going to go into the balance, and thudded onto my mat. Eli’s eyes flicked over to me while he maintained his pose, concern lining his face. I waved a hand vaguely and dropped back into child’s pose to try and regain some kind of composure.
I stayed in that pose for five minutes before I flipped onto my back for savasana.
Sixteen
ELI
It was staff and family menu tasting day, and my mind was split between two places.
The first was prepping all the main dishes for forty people alongside Darren while Kayla worked on the desserts. The second was Addie in my peripheral vision in my hot yoga class. I know she had joked about trying to be impressive for her instructor a few weeks ago, but shewasimpressive. Focused and strong. Long limbs getting into poses easily until some point at the end, where she moved into a resting pose.
When I had told her about the studio, it never occurred to me that we would end up taking the same class. Even though we ate breakfast together most mornings, it definitely felt like she took longer to become a person in the morning than me, so I assumed she would take a late morning or early afternoon class.
But no, she had managed to find a new way to intensify mycrush on her.
“How are you feeling?” Darren’s voice cut through my thoughts, and I noticed that my knife was resting on the chopping board instead of cutting the peppers I needed for the chicken recipe. That I had completely changed once again. But it was fine because this one, I was excited about presenting.
It was probably for the best that he brought me back into the room. It was his daughter I was thinking about.
He looked at me comfortingly, his own knife paused in his onion chopping. I cleared my throat. “Depends. How often do these things end with the head chef being ripped to shreds and left as a husk of a person?” I was trying to make a joke, but the very real underlying fear that this tasting could end my career at Vivi’s before it even began made me sound deadly serious.
“They’ve only done that once. It was before we opened for the first time, and it had more to do with the person than the food.” There was a smile on Darren’s face, like the memory of this botched tasting session was a fond one. It sounded like my worst nightmare, and I wanted more context, but it felt like I shouldn’t pry.
“Well, who was in charge?” Kayla said from behind us at the dessert station. She was in the middle of rolling out the pastry tarts.
“Oh, it’s not my story to tell,” he said as he resumed chopping onions. Now I really wanted to know.
“What’s not your story to tell?”
Darren’s chopping stopped. I knocked the dial on the hob and turned the heat up on my red wine reduction, bringing it up to a boil instantly.
“Fuck!” I turned it all the way off. It had barely reached a boil, but the sharp increase in heat might have ruined the balance of flavours I was going for, which was not what I needed on todayof all days.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Addie said as she walked over and kissed Darren on the cheek.
