Pushing himself up off the yoga mat, Alex grabbed his towel. “I’ve had enough.”
“Alex… I’ve had friends,” Two said in that calm, reasonable tone that made him want to scream. “Many of them, over the years… but even for someone not carrying your secret, it’s not easy. People have left my houder’s service, or had their contracts sold on. It can be hard to let go when that happens, to accept that it’s out of your control, that you may never see them again. Take you…” His voice faltered. “When we leave here, I probably won’t see you again, and that hurts me more than you can possibly imagine, my dear boy.”
Alex sighed and returned to the mat. “I’m just tired of it, Two. Tired of holding my tongue and pretending all the time.”
“But you’ve only just begun,” Two pointed out. “And this is the easy part; it’ll be much harder when you return to Mr Tyler.”
“I know that. Maybe I’m not as strong as everyone thinks. Maybe this is too much for me. Maybe I’ll never get justice for Solange.”
“Then what?” Two asked curtly. “What’s your alternative, Alex?”
“I don’t have one. I’m just sick of this!” Alex threw his towel at Two and stormed out of the room.
He needed a break. He needed to let off some steam or he’d explode. How the hell did Two do it, year in, year out – maintain that elegant, dignified persona and remain so effortlessly calm? How couldanyonedo that?
Alex ignored Two for the next few days and did the bare minimum in B’s lessons. Waking the following Sunday, he found Two crouching beside his bed, gently squeezing his arm.
“Alex, it’s precisely when it feels the hardest that you have to push on through,” he said.
Alex pulled his pillow over his head. “I can’t,” he muttered. “I’m tired of it. I’ve had enough.”
“I know. That’s precisely why I’m trying to teach you ways to deal with these feelings. When it’s tough, that’s when you must do more yoga and more breathing exercises, not less. You need an anchor, something I haven’t taught you, yet, but it’s been invaluable to me.”
“An anchor?” Alex sat up in bed and stared at Two moodily. “What does that mean?”
“You know about Pavlov’s dogs – how he always rang a bell when feeding them until they salivated upon hearing the bell, even when there was no food?”
“Yes.” Alex frowned. “So?”
“So, you need something that you associate with serenity. Something you practise with so often that eventually it has the power to calm and anchor you whenever you think about it.”
“What kind of thing?”
“It can be a memory, or a scent, or a piece of music, whatever works best for you.”
“What do you use?”
“You already know that.” Two grinned at him.
“Beethoven’sMoonlight Sonata,” Alex said slowly. It was always the first thing Two played when he performed his yoga practise.
“Yes, that works for me. For you, it’ll be something different.”
“I used to…” Alex smiled wistfully. “I used to use my mother’s scarf in that way, I think. Her scent still clung to it. It helped. Just breathing it in, feeling its silky softness on my cheek – it calmed me.”
“Well, we don’t have that, and it’s not a good idea to get attached to something that can be taken away from you easily. You tried to use those photographs as an anchor, too, remember,and were distressed when they were removed. So… something else.”
“You can’t always have access to theMoonlight Sonata,” Alex pointed out.
“No, but I can hum it, and that works almost as well.” Two smiled. “Please, Alex, let’s keep going. I think this could be a way forward for you.”
Alex sighed, but he allowed Two to cajole him back to the gym. He was surprised to find that he’d missed his daily yoga sessions, breathing exercises, and meditation. Maybe Two was right. Maybe they were a way of dealing with his situation.
Two flicked through the music available in the gym library alphabetically. It didn’t take him very long to reachAshton. Alex glanced over his shoulder and found the song that had been playing the night Peter had been murdered. He clicked on it to play.
Old dreams fade slow,
You once said that you’d never let go,
