Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

River

“WARRIOR TWO.”

Confusion greets my instructions. I realize a beat too late what I’ve done.

“Sorry, no, I meant … I meant warrior three.”

I try to catch myself, but this isn’t the first blunder I’ve made during this class. It isn’t even the second. I’m stumbling through this yoga practice, and my students are suffering for it.

I steer things relatively back on track and get through the routine as best as I can, but I can’t help feeling like I’ve let down a whole class of eager students. I can hardly meet their eyes when I end the class and send them out through the café. As usual, several stop to buy a drink or a snack. Unable to face them, I hide on the other side of the giant cat tree, in the area reserved for yoga classes.

It’s been three days since that hike with Clark. I need to snap out of this, but I’ve been off ever since Saturday. All of my classes have teetered on the verge of disaster as my mind ran off toward distraction. It’s hard to center myself, let alone others, when my heart is aching and my mind spinning.

We haven’t spoken since Saturday, which has left me to turn over the conversation again and again on my own. I’ve replayed our words dozens of times, searching for the moment I fucked up, the precise phrase that made Clark run. Was it truly as simple as the word “relationship?” I knew it was a mistake even when I said it, but is one little word enough to drive him away like this? I had an easier time reaching him back at the retreat, an occasion that’s starting to feel more and more like a distant dream.

Worse, there’s really no one I can talk to. Even if Megan showed up at one of my classes, it would be wildly inappropriate for me to talk to a student about her co-worker, who happens to be a man I’m more than a little interested in. I don’t know what insight she’d have to offer regardless. Clark is so tight-lipped I can imagine him withholding the truth even from her.

So here I am on my own, listlessly rolling up yoga mats as I wait for my students to disperse. The café has grown quieter, so perhaps people are beginning to leave, but I’m too scared to look and risk meeting someone’s eyes. If I were to glance their direction and find disappointment staring back at me, I’m not sure I could stomach it. My personal problems should never result in me letting my students down, but that’s been the case for days on end.

All this uncertainty has carved out an unfortunate amount of space for old fears, old worries, old insecurities. Part of me wonders if my family has always been right about me. Maybe I am the failure they see me as. Maybe I do inevitably let everyone down the way I’ve let them down. Clark is so professional and adult. No wonder he doesn’t want to be with someone like me.

I can almost feel my own aura clouding. The taint of self-doubt seeps in, rolling over me like a dark fog. I try to shake myself out of it, but I could barely even lead a class today. I’m in no fit state to combat these kinds of emotions while I’m at the café. What I really need is some time and space to go meditate, or, even better, a message from Clark, some kind of confirmation that I’m not the failure I’m starting to believe I am.

I can’t ask him for that. It’s beyond pathetic. I want him to take me seriously, to see me as more than young and frivolous, and I can’t do that by running to him to heal my hurt feelings. I’m going to have to figure this out myself. Step one, get myself out of this café so I can cast off the bad vibes clinging to me like bubblegum stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

I hurry to the back room to throw on my shirt and grab my things, but when I re-emerge I find the café empty and Cameron holding a broom.

“Are you taking off?” he says. “We haven’t cleaned yet.”

The last thing I want to do is help with closing up the shop, but it is technically part of my job. At a minimum, I’m supposed to take care of the yoga area, and I haven’t touched it except to put away my own mat.

“At least mop up the yoga area,” Cameron says. “It gets gross back there.”

Before I can stop myself, I growl with frustration. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be stuck in my own head. I want to get away from everyone and everything and lick my wounds in private, but I’m stuck mopping the floor in the very room where I did an awful job of leading a yoga class, and frankly, I don’t have it in me to keep facing down my failures like this.

“Hey, man, are you okay?”

I blink, and there’s Cameron in front of me, dark brows furrowed as he leans on the broom and studies me. He’s not one to ask about others’ feelings, so I must really be in a state for him to not only notice, but point it out.

I open my mouth to answer, but just then someone knocks on the door to the café, and Cameron hurries off to let his boyfriend Julian into the closed shop.

“Whoa, River, you alright?”

Great. Cameron might be one to avoid feelings, but Julian is not. The guy is perceptive too. He used to be a sales rep, and he was damn good at it thanks to his ability to read people and then win them over with charm and good looks. He might be a tour guide these days, but he’s every bit as keen as he was as a rep.

I sigh, and Cameron and Julian share a look. For all their differences, they understand each other on an almost creepy level. Without a word, Cameron sets his broom aside. The pair advances on me, steering me by the shoulders into a chair before they sit across from me.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Julian says.

“I’m sure there’s somewhere you two would prefer to be instead of here,” I say. “We should take care of the cleaning and get out of here. I’m sure you don’t want to listen to me whining.”

“Do you think I’d be here if I didn’t want to be?” Cameron says sharply.

There’s something to that. He can come across as harsh and cold, but that’s just him. He’s direct. And he does care — a lot. Some people misinterpret his intensity as disinterest, but they’re wrong.

He watches me, dark eyes boring through me. Beside him, Julian is just as keen, even if his eyes are a light, dazzling blue instead of black. They make for a formidable pair.

“There’s a guy,” I finally admit. “I thought things were going well, but he’s … he’s scared. He’s a little older than me, and I’m afraid he doesn’t take me seriously because I don’t have an office job and a conventional lifestyle. I thought he was opening up to me, but when I told him how I feel, he ran, and I’m scared he’s not coming back.”

Julian’s look of sympathy comes as a welcome balm for my hurt feelings. Cameron is more opaque, but the fact he’s here at all means a lot.

“Alright, slow down,” Julian says. “It sounds like a lot has happened in a short amount of time.”

I nod. That’s an understatement. This whole thing has been a whirlwind. The retreat was wild enough, but we’ve only just returned and everything has flipped on its head already. I can barely keep up, and I’m the one living it.

“Would you say your aura is clouded?” Cameron says.

I jerk my gaze up to him. He’s stony at first, then a tiny smile cracks one side of his mouth.

“A joke. That was a joke,” I say.

“I couldn’t help it.”

I smile more genuinely than I would have thought possible a few minutes ago. When Cameron and Julian were getting together, I noticed the shift in Cameron’s aura, the way it lightened and brightened, but he never believed me. He dismissed my observations every time, but here we are, our roles reversed.

“What happened most recently?” Julian says. “It seems like things went downhill suddenly.”

I sigh before explaining the show on Friday and that conversation out by the lake.

“And that’s when I admitted how I feel,” I conclude.

“He didn’t take it well?” Julian says.

“No, not really. He said he was afraid of hurting both of us and our lives are in different places and we could talk later, but we haven’t. It’s later, and we still haven’t talked, and I’m starting to get scared we never will.”

“Alright, take a breath,” Julian says. “It sounds like both of you are scared, actually, but you’re running in opposite directions, which doesn’t help either of you.”

“It also sounds like this guy is a jerk,” Cameron says.

Julian shoots him a withering look, but Cameron doesn’t relent.

“What’s with the back and forth? That’s just shitty. He should make a decision and stick to it.”

“He’s clearly nervous and unsure,” Julian says. “Maybe he needs time, like he said.”

“If he needs time, he should have the decency not to go on dates and stay the night as though they’re dating.”

“Guys,” I cut in. “Please. I don’t want to throw accusations around. Clark has … he has his own responsibilities. His dad got hurt recently. He’s got a lot on his mind. He’s not doing anything wrong.”

“He’s not doing anything right, either,” Cameron says.

Julian scowls, even as he agrees. “I kind of have to agree with Cam. No matter what he’s got going on, he owes you better than this. You aren’t letting him down, River. You’d never do that to anyone, let alone someone you care about. You’re one of the most kind and giving people I’ve ever met. You even put up with Cam when he was busy pretending he didn’t want to date me.”

Julian smirks at his boyfriend, who glares at him with murder in his eyes.

“Anyway,” Cameron says, “please don’t let some guy get you down. You deserve better than that, River. You honestly do. I’m not telling you to give up on him, but don’t spend your whole life waiting for him to make the right choice.”

I nod, but I turn the words over in my mind as all three of us pitch in to clean and close up the café for the night. I don’t think I can take Cameron’s advice and simply move on if Clark doesn’t reach out. It won’t be that simple. There are pieces of my heart he’s already marked by his presence, secrets only the two of us hold that I can’t let go of on a whim. I want to heed Cameron’s words, I want to believe him, but I need something from Clark in order to do that. Even a goodbye would help me set this behind me, but I’m starting to worry I won’t get even that much. And if that’s the case, how can I ever believe this isn’t my fault?

If it isn’t me pushing him away, then what the hell is going on?