Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

River

I RAISE MY ARMS OVERHEAD, greeting the rising sun. The twelve students arrayed before me follow my lead, all of us standing tall and breathing deeply as the world wakes around us.

“And release,” I say.

Exhales sigh into the crisp morning air. Everyone lowers their arms before circling them back overhead and taking another deep breath.

I lead my first class of the retreat through a sun salutation as dawn glints off the lake beside us. It’s cool, the dew clinging to the grass, so I’m starting with some deep breathing to warm them up and get them focused internally. As the sun rises, the day will warm rapidly, but for now, the lingering overnight chill provides a pleasant contrast to the heat we build within our bodies.

Clark lingers at the back of the class, breathing a little less deeply, exhaling a little more shallowly, glancing around like someone is going to call him out in particular for participating in this. I try not to notice, but even when we switch to warrior poses, my eyes keep sliding back to him. I know he placed himself at the back of the group on purpose, hoping to go unnoticed. He nearly jumped out of his skin when I greeted him last night in the cafeteria. Some part of me worries he’s avoiding me, but I try to breathe that thought out and let it drift away as I guide my students from warrior to down dog.

Slowly, we build a flow. I add a pose each time, until they’ve got a complete series of movements transitioning naturally into each other. I take them through the flow, encouraging them to let their bodies move naturally and find the positions without pressure, but once again Clark catches my eye as he transitions jerkily through the moves.

I can’t focus only on him, I tell myself. I can’t. There are eleven other students, not to mention the two other companies who are here for the retreat. I can’t get fixated on one person, no matter how badly that person needs me and how much I think I can help him.

Everyone is doing well, even Clark, so I give them more challenging poses to try. As they all work to find the correct posture, I pace among the students, offering gentle corrections. Megan is letting her hips drop, so I guide her upward. Another woman is locking out her elbows, and I encourage her to soften them and protect her joints.

Then there’s Clark. Even while pressing into the ground he’s managing to hunch his shoulders. I can’t stop myself from heading over to him. He tenses even more when I do, but I summon my most teacher-y persona as I encourage him to relax his shoulders away from his ears and enjoy the pose.

He scoffs. “Enjoy? My arms are shaking.”

“Because you’re pushing too hard,” I say. “This doesn’t require force.”

I set a hand on his upper back, right in that spot where I cracked his back before. He flinches, but lets me touch him, and with just a little guidance, I get him to relax a tick and bend into the pose.

That’s all I allow myself for now. I force myself to move on, returning to the front of the class so we can begin a seated sequence, but it isn’t long until I find Clark shoving himself through the motions once more. He moves as though doing the poses harder will make them better, but that’s not what this practice is about. This isn’t a problem you can solve with brute force, yet he shakes in his forward bend as though shoving himself at his knees will make his tight hamstrings relax.

I make myself leave him alone and switch everyone to a cow face pose, one leg crossed over the other, one arm overhead, the other arm reaching for it behind their backs. It’s a hard one, and most people don’t manage to clasp their hands together, but there goes Clark straining himself to reach.

I very nearly sigh, only barely holding it back as I pace among my students.

“Good job, Megan,” I say as I pass her. “That’s gotten really easy for you.”

She beams with pride, her hands clasped behind her back.

“It’s not necessary to reach as far as Megan,” I say for the rest of the class. “However far you can get today, that’s great. It’s better to do the move correctly than to lose your form to reach your hands.”

Most of the students listen. Not Clark, of course, and I find myself drifting toward him once again. His chest is puffed out, spine arched to allow him to clasp his hands behind his back. I kneel beside him, setting a hand on his chest and gently pushing to encourage his back to straighten. He fights me, trying to keep his hands clasped.

“Let them go,” I encourage softly.

“But that’s not the pose. The post is clasped hands.”

I shake my head. “The pose is whatever you can reach, and you can’t reach that far. That’s okay. Let them go and sit up straight. That’s the important part.”

He resists, and I push at his chest just a little harder. His heart taps at my hand, the warmth of his body seeping through his T-shirt to kiss my palm. Clark finally lets go of his hands, and I guide him into a posture where he’s sitting up straight instead of contorting himself so he can reach his hands.

“There, that looks so much better,” I say.

“But it’s wrong ,” Clark says.

“It’s not wrong. It’s just different. This is where you’re at right now. If we practice more, you’ll get to where Megan is, but that’s not where you are today.”

He seems like he wants to argue, but I force myself up. I’ve lingered here for way too long. Everyone is probably sick of being stuck in one position all this time.

I hurry back to the head of the class, instructing the students to switch sides as I do. Somehow, I get myself through the remainder of the class without returning to Clark to try to touch him again, though overall, this first class doesn’t bode well for me. If I yearned to give him so much attention the very first time I got a chance, how is the rest of this week going to play out?

I breathe that thought out as I encourage my students to wrap up their practices with a savasana to clear their minds. Little do they know I need that moment even more than they do. By the time I’m wishing them well on the rest of their activities for the day, the sun has fully crested the horizon and is turning the lake a crystalline blue. The birds are tittering. The dew has burned away, leaving behind a hazy warmth that portends a hot day. The world is awake and alive and green all around me.

Perhaps that’s what makes me bold enough to approach Clark one more time.

“Could I speak to you a moment?” I say.

His co-workers are filtering away, but Megan was talking with him when I approached. He glances at her, and she smiles in a way that makes my stomach swoop. Have I been so pathetically obvious or is she just encouraging a friend? She pats his shoulder.

“I should get going,” she says. “I’ll see you for lunch.”

Clark looks like he wants to argue, but he only manages to open his mouth and gape as she abandons him. Then we’re alone, his co-workers disappearing down the dirt trail that leads from the lakeside back to the house that contains the cafeteria and hotel.

“You wanted something?” Clark says. He shifts awkwardly from foot to foot and runs a hand over his short, shaved down hair. His beard is clipped so close today that it’s little more than stubble.

I have to collect myself before I can speak. I have to sound like his teacher, after all.

“I want to work with you more,” I say. “If you’re open to that.”

He reels back. “What? Why?”

The words come out sharp, involuntary, but he makes no attempt to soften them after the outburst.

I search for a professional sounding excuse. “We have similar bodies. I think we could do some fantastic work together.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Clark’s eyebrows flicker up toward his hairline. His dark eyes appraise me swiftly, taking in my shirtless torso and tight yoga pants. From what I’ve seen of Clark, he really is a similar size and shape, so I wasn’t lying. I could work closely with him on that basis, and I desperately want to.

“That’s okay,” he says. “I’ll stick to the normal classes.”

He makes to leave, but I grab him by the wrist. His gaze goes to my hand, and I jerk to release him.

“Sorry, I just, um,” I say. “I would like to work with you more, Clark. I think I can help you.”

“Help me?”

“The two times you’ve come to my classes, I’ve noticed you carry a lot of tension, mostly in your back and shoulders. I think you could really benefit from doing some deeper work there, and I’d love to do that with you.”

His eyes narrow. “Is this a sales pitch or something? The company paid for this retreat. I don’t have money to spend on extra classes or whatever.”

I wave my hands. “No, no. It’s not a pitch. I don’t want your money. It’s free.”

“Free?”

“That’s right,” I say. “This wouldn’t be official or anything.”

His eyes narrow further. “What’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch, Clark,” I say. “I want to help you. I want to work with you. It’s what I do. I could tell from the first time I saw you that you’re carrying around way too much, and I think I can help you with that, if you’ll let me.”

“But why? Why bother?”

I struggle not to grimace. Does he not believe someone might want to help him? Does he not believe someone could reach out for purely altruistic reasons?

“This isn’t just my job,” I say. “I enjoy it. It’s my life. It would … it would make me happy to work with you more, to help you.”

“Help me,” Clark scoffs.

“Consider it,” I plead. “We could come back here tonight after dinner. The lakeside will be clear, and the days are long enough that we’ll have plenty of light.”

Clark hesitates, and my heart hammers in my ears. I expected outright refusal, maybe even anger. This contemplative silence fills me with more hope than it ought to. For several long seconds, Clark simply stares at me, those dark eyes of his sharp enough to dissect me. I don’t know what he’s searching for, but all he’ll find when he slices me open is an earnest desire to help.

And attraction. Okay, sure, that’s there too, but it’s only natural. It’s only human.

“Fine,” he says slowly, as though his own voice surprises him.

“Fine?”

“Fine,” he repeats a bit more confidently. “After dinner. Sure. My neck hurts sometimes.”

His neck. Yeah. This is not about his neck, not if my racing heart is any indication, but I accept the excuse, let Clark throw that safe barrier up between us before he hurries down the trail. I watch him until the trees swallow him up, hoping against hope that he’ll really show up tonight, that he won’t talk himself out of it. I’ll be here either way, waiting for him.