But what are we going to do after that?
I mean, Lakeview is eight hours away. And I love it there, my one-bedroom, my job, my friends... I don’t want to give that up. I shouldn’t have to give that up.
And it’s not like the alphas can leave, given the orchard. Their entire lives are bound to its success, and it’s their family legacy...
So that’s the whole, ugly, unsolvable math of it, and I’m doing it upside down with all the blood rushing to my face.
“Alright, gently release,” Bodhi’s voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. “Press back into a brief Child’s Pose. Rest your forehead on your mats. Let the breath settle.”
I sink my hips back onto my heels, letting my arms go limp. I close my eyes, trying to focus on the soft sitar music, but my mind is already racing ahead. Ten seconds later, Bodhi’s voice rises again.
“When you’re ready, let’s find that Extended Puppy once more. Walk the hands out, stack the hips, and let the heart sink.”
I slide my hands forward, finding the cool cork of the yoga block again, and drop my head back down. And as the stretch digs back into my shoulders, the worry-wheel starts spinning right where it left off.
Because there’s also the fact I recently got out of yet another relationship. Derek is the most recent disaster in a long line of them, every single one with one thing in common: me, the thirty-one year old unpacked omega. I do not make things work. I’ve got a championship-level record of not making things work.
I know this is supposed to be different, but what if I mess this up with my actual scent matches?
That’d be such a Luna thing to do...
You ruin everything you touch. You know that, right?
Oh, shush, brain.
A shadow falls across the cork block in front of me. “Hmm.”
I turn my head sideways without lifting it, which earns me a stellar view of two bare feet and the hem of a pair of linen pants.
“There’s a blockage here.” Bodhi crouches beside my mat. He has a soft, unhurried face and a small, graying topknot that bobbles slightly as he sinks onto his heels. He hovers a warm palm a few inches over the center of my back, between my shoulder blades, and closes his eyes. “Right here. You’re holdingsomething closed,” he says gently. “Something around love. Around letting yourself be held.”
Buddy. You have no idea.
“Oof,” says the woman in the good leggings. “Yeah. Same. Mine’s been closed since my divorce.”
“I don’t think mine ever opened in the first place,” sighs another omega two mats up.
“Well, ladies, then let’s open that gate,” he says, rising. “Everyone—from Extended Puppy, walk the hands forward a few more inches. Let the chest melt toward the floor. Soften the throat. We’re going to surrender the front body to the earth.”
Surrender.
I walk my hands forward, let my chest sink, my shoulders roll open, still half in my head running the math.
“Breathe down into the front of the body,” Bodhi says, somewhere above me. “And feel it. Feel that gate begin to open.”
Feel what, exactly? I don’t feel anything but my own ribs and the cork against my cheek and the low-grade dread I haul around like a—
Oh.
Oh.
Something gives, and, good news, I don’t think it’s a bone.
I blink at the grain of the cork, an inch from my nose.
Holy shit.
This is... actually quite nice.
