PART I
1
Cameron
“Move now to the Warrior One pose,” the yoga instructor intoned, her voice melodic and irritatingly calm.
I mimicked the others around the room, stepping into a deep lunge and raising my hands above my head, stretching toward the ceiling as if asking God to save me from this torture. Beside me, my best friend Lesley sighed out a contented breath. When I glanced over, she had a happily placid smile on her lips. Her lithe, athletic body seemed to flow into each pose. Her blond hair was pulled back into a bun, and her milky-white skin didn’t look like it had a single bead of perspiration on it anywhere. She wasn’t dripping sweat like I was. In fact, she was acting like this wasactuallysoothing in some way.
“Now we will step forward into Warrior Three,” the instructor said.
All around me, the dozen other men and women in the class leaned forward, lifting their back legs toward the rearwall and reaching out toward the front of the studio, balancing themselves on one foot.
Holy shit.Is this chick serious?My hamstrings were going to snap if I did much more.
Lesley slid gracefully into the pose. I did my best to match her skill, but failed. Thankfully, I managed not to fall flat on my face, but the wobbling and overbalancing made me look more like a newborn deer than a master yogi. My sweat-soaked hair hung near my cheeks, obscuring the miserable expression on my olive-skinned face. My flexibility was terrible, as always.
Thankfully, the class ended ten minutes later, with the one pose I could pull off with no problem: corpse pose. Lying flat on my back andohm-ing along with the rest of the class had been the only relaxing part of the entire hour.
Lesley and I had been friends since college. She’d majored in chemistry and now worked for a big biotech company in Toronto. I, on the other hand, had studied journalism and English. I’d never really seen us as that different, but after suffering through yoga with her and seeing how much she enjoyed the torture, I had to admit our differences went far beyond our chosen career paths.
“Don’t you feel all loose and relaxed?” Lesley asked me as everyone began to roll up their yoga mats.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I said, trying to stretch out a cramp in my calf. “If anything, I’mmoretense now than I have been in days.”
“Ugh.” Lesley rolled her eyes. “Cameron, you need practice. It’s super soothing once you get the hang of it, and it can help you focus.”
I pushed back a lock of my curly black hair and wiped the sweat from my cheek. “I’d like tofocuson an ice-cold beer or something. That sounds way more enjoyable than whateverthatwas,” I said, waving a hand at the room. “I’m not flexible like you.”
“You’re not flexible about anything,” Lesley said with a knowing smile. “We all know that. One day, you’ll need to learn to let go and go with the flow.”
“I go with the flow,” I protested, indignant. “Who says I don’t?”
Lesley lifted an eyebrow. “Are you being serious right now, or are you really that lacking in self-awareness?”
She was right, I supposed. Sometimes, things were easier if you stayed in a nice rigid box. It was safe, predictable, and easy to understand. Plus, you’d never end up standing on your head in some high-priced yoga studio like a moron.
“Okay, I might be a bit…” I pursed my lips, looking for the right word, “…stringentwith things, but that doesn’t make me weird. Lots of people are. Speaking of, next time? We’re doing the self-defense class instead of Body Pretzel Hour, or whatever the hell that was.”
Lesley rolled her eyes. “You only like doing things you’re good at.” She tucked her yoga mat under her arm and shook her water bottle at me. “Like at that MMA gym you go to. I still can’t figure out how a cute little thing like you can be such a badass. Tossing grown men around in those martial arts classes and stuff.”
“I’m good at what I like,” I said, grabbing my own items. “What can I say?”
I glanced at Lesley again. She was almost a whole head taller than me, with long, slim legs and a ballerina-esque frame. My body tended toward curvy and fit like my mother versus Lesley’s ballerina-esque frame. Maybe I wasn’t built for yoga.
Lesley sighed. “That’s all well and good, but sometimes you need to let loose and get out of your comfort zone.”
“And be a yoga expert?” I asked, sarcasm thick in my voice.
“It doesn’t have to be yoga,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s just nice to be vulnerable. You’re amazing, Cameron. Everyone who meets you sees it, but you can get a lot more from life if you aren’t as rigid.”
She gave me a beseeching look, as though hoping to see something click behind my eyes.
“I highly doubt people think I’m amazing,” I said.
Her brow furrowed as though I just said something incomprehensible to her. “You’re smart, gorgeous, funny, and don’t take shit from anyone. When I first met you, I was intimidated as hell. Now that I know you, I see you’re a big softy inside, but I still admire you. That’s why I’d love it if you experienced more of life. You bust your ass at that damn newspaper, and I’m worried life will pass you by. I don’t want you to turn around in thirty years and realize you missed out by being totally insular. Right?” She gave me a searching look. “You’d tell me the same thing, wouldn’t you?”
Maybe, I thought, but my work was part of my life. I enjoyed it and didn’t hate my job like many people I knew.
