Breathless (Yoga in the City Book 1)

by Leigh LaValle

  “Thank you for coming tonight. And for the yoga lessons. And for…the rest.” His voice trailed off.

  The rest. Really?

  I squared up to him. Poked him in his chest, over his heart. “I hope someday you find someone who loves you like I love you right now. Because I love you fucking hard.”

  I turned on my heel and walked away. My heart breaking.

  “Bye, Hannah,” he called after me quietly.

  My eyes fell closed.

  Please don’t die.

  Chapter 42

  Jake

  My doorbell rang. My ride to the airport was early.

  I hopped over my luggage and opened the door. Then stepped back. “Mrs. O’Donnell.”

  “I need a word with you, young man.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Please come in.” I opened the door wide. Was she upset about my speech last night?

  She stepped in, surveyed my luggage, then turned toward me, her face pinched, her eyes flashing. I braced myself in case she whacked me with her purse.

  She poked her finger at me. What was it with women and their fingers lately? “Do you know one of my favorite things about Cody? He was brave. And kind.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Losing him was the worst thing to happen in my life. A mother should not bury her son.”

  “No, ma’am.” I straightened my spine. It had been years since I’d had a scolding from Mrs. O’Donnell. Cody could always sweet-talk his mom out of her Irish temper. But not me. I was all obedience and silence. She could be worse than a drill sergeant when she was in a mood.

  “You’re not fooling me with all this yes, ma’am and no, ma’am nonsense, Jake Marshall. I’ve raised four children. I see what you’re doing.”

  “Yes, ma—” I stopped and swallowed.

  “You listen to me. And you listen well. Cody made his own choices. He always did. There was no talking sense into the boy. He was as stubborn as my father, God rest their souls.” She touched her forehead, her heart, and her shoulders in a sign of the cross. “Cody knew what he was doing that day. He put honor and brotherhood above his own safety. Not for a day do I think he would regret his decision to save your life. He died for love. But you—” She shook her head. “You’re dying from fear. And shame. It’s a terrible thing to watch. And a terrible waste of life.”

  Heat flooded my face. My hands fisted. “This trip was always his idea. I’m doing it for him.”

  “Bullshit.”

  My head snapped back. I’d never heard Mrs. O’Donnell use such coarse language.

  “You want to honor him, Jake Marshall? You live. And you love. And you let yourself be happy. No more of this running away. No more danger and risking your life. Is this what Cody would have wanted for you? Is this why he saved you?”

  “This Alaska trip was his plan,” I insisted.

  “And you want to honor him or you want to run away? You look in my eyes and you tell me to my face what Cody would have wanted for you.”

  Good sex. Laughter. Craft beer.

  Hannah.

  “You come see me when you have your head on straight, young man.” She whacked me in the chest with her purse, then walked out and slammed the door behind her.

  I stood stunned in the front hall. What the hell just happened?

  A minute later, the doorbell buzzed again.

  My ride was here.

  Chapter 43

  Hannah

  Chatter filled the studio. A smattering of students had shown up for my Thursday morning class, about half of what I would have seen just last month. The old anxiety wanted to grip me. I didn’t push it away; I just let it be there. I just watched it. I noticed how my heart was racing and my palms were sweating and I just…let it happen. I tried to pay attention to what else was real. The room was beautiful, sunlit and peaceful. And six faces watched me with expectant expressions.

  My heart was full.

  “Thank you for coming to class this morning. For sticking by us during our renovation. Yoga Week starts Monday, and it’s going to be a blast. But, beyond that, I’m excited to move forward with you all, my students. It’s the mundane things, the everyday things, that matter most. Not something special we’re waiting for out there at some future time. Not Yoga Week or vacation or holidays. It’s the day in and day out, the small choices, the little things.”

  The little things like the scar above Jake’s lip. The way he put his hand on my lower back. The way he rolled and stretched when he woke up. I took a shaky breath. Felt my sadness. Let it rest.

  “I’ve been teaching yoga for years, and I’m always learning something new. I’m going to switch things up a little today, to reflect on what I’ve been doing in my own practice. We’ll go through our flow, as usual, but I want to really bring in the breath. Pranayama. The breath is what connects the inside and outside. It’s the line that joins what we can control and what we can’t control. It is where we fill and where we empty.”

  I was happy and sad at the same moment.

  Jake was gone. But he was everywhere in the building, as if his footsteps were echoing, the low rumble of his voice was caught in the corners of the room.

  I took a deep inhale. Exhale. Found my breath. And started our class.

  I didn’t feel bad about being a yoga teacher anymore. I didn’t feel like I was diluting the pool or something. Because, the truth was, yoga was alive in my heart. It was in my breath and in my blood. I was so grateful, for the rest of my life grateful, for the gifts it had given me. It was my sanctuary and my balm.

  I came to yoga because I needed to understand something about the world, and about myself. And, while I had no more understanding, I did have a sense of peace. A sense of place. A sense of contentment to just be me, as me. Not some other way.

  I didn’t teach because I had something great to teach. I taught because I loved the practice. I loved the questions. I loved the poses and the breathing and the ritual. I loved how I felt afterward. I didn’t teach because I was some awakened being, better than anyone else, or with more understanding than anyone else.

  I taught because it was what I did. It was that simple.

  And it was enough.

  After class, Crystal came in and gave me a long hug. I rested my head on her shoulder and let her hold me as long as she wanted.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  “Surviving. You should see my house. It’s never been so clean.”

  “Panic mode?”

  “Full on sky-is-falling.”

  She pulled back and studied me, her head tilted to the side. “You seem all right.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve just been watching myself go through all the motions. You know, the witness. It helps.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re in a good space. I’m guessing you haven’t seen the Gazette this morning.”

  “No. Why, is there some terrible article about Bloom in there?”

  “The opposite, actually.” She pulled a copy of the paper out of her bag.

  I shook my head. “But the reporter never called us back.”

  “Well, Cathy Cook called someone back.”

  Confused and worried, I held my hand out for the paper. “What are you talking about?”

  She slapped the paper in my hand. “Front page.”

  I scanned the paper. WOUNDED VETERAN JAKE MARSHALL FINDS PEACE THROUGH YOGA pg.8

  “What is this?” I asked, stunned.

  “Read it.”

  I scrambled the paper open to page eight. There was a picture of Jake in Warrior II pose, his arms long and straight, his legs strong, his eyes focused. He was sexy as hell. I shook my head. The photo was taken in Bloom Studio, right here. My heart started hammering.

  WOUNDED VETERAN JAKE MARSHALL FINDS PEACE THROUGH YOGA

  In a continuation of the Gazette’s series on Yoga in the City, I sat down with Afghan War vet and hometown hero Jake Marshall to talk about his experience on and off the mat. Marshall, a rugged, thickly muscled man�
��s man, surprised everyone, including himself, when he started doing yoga.

  “Yoga isn’t something soldiers normally do. I knew nothing about it. But I’d exhausted the world of physical therapy.” Marshall, 30, is well known in Boulder for his service in Afghanistan as well as his budding architecture career. In 2012, Marshall was riding in a convoy vehicle that was struck by an IED. Three soldiers were killed in the blast, including local Cody O’Donnell. Marshall suffered extensive injuries to his right leg and has undergone numerous surgeries. He plans to traverse 200 miles in the Alaska Range this summer, including several ascents. The tallest, Denali, is 20,000 ft. in elevation.

  “I’d hit a plateau where I wasn’t getting any more use of my leg, and I was in a state of chronic pain. I knew I had to try something else. When I began working with Hannah Roberts at Bloom Yoga Studio, I was skeptical it would help. But Hannah is very talented, and after every session, I felt better and stronger. I couldn’t deny the results. They were easily quantifiable in increased range of motion and pain reduction.”

  Marshall is not the first veteran to find relief in yoga. Classes are sprouting up all over the country. The Veterans Yoga Project offers special training for teachers interested in reaching this important population. Yoga offers not just physical relief but mindfulness training as well.

  Certainly, Jake Marshall has found that yoga works. “I’m still new to it and don’t know what you would call the kind of yoga I do. But Hannah is a great teacher, and she put together a system specific for my body and injuries. I have a lot of tools I can take to basecamp with me. Not just stretching, but breathing and focusing. I wouldn’t have been able to go on this expedition in Alaska if I hadn’t started doing yoga with Hannah.”

  Marshall explained that yoga helped to stretch and strengthen his quadriceps muscles that protect his wounded knee. Now, his muscles do the majority of the work and the joint itself literally has a load taken off. He also told me that yoga helped to break up the scar tissue that was holding him back.

  “The misconception is that yoga is for poofs. That it’s for soccer moms and guys hot for a date. But it’s more than that. It can be physically challenging, extremely challenging. The system is thousands of years old and is still popular today. There’s a reason for that. I do squat presses with hundreds of pounds. But one standing pose in correct alignment and my muscles are shaking. I’m toast.”

  Marshall doesn’t look like toast. He looks to be in exceptional shape. And his Warrior II pose, or Virbadrasana II, is in excellent form. He’s obviously been paying attention to his teacher.

  “Hannah explained to me that incorrect alignment could make my knee worse, not better. We worked hard on that together. She’s studied physiology and knows as much as any of my physical therapists. The joke is that yoga teachers are all airy-fairy, but that’s not true at all. Hannah would be a great teacher for anyone with injuries or other medical conditions.”

  Indeed, Hannah Roberts is offering a series of special workshops this Yoga Week at Bloom Yoga Studios. Yoga for Back Pain, Yoga for Knee Pain, and a class titled Yoga for Everybody Else: Bring your Oreos, Bring Your Love Handles, but Bring Yourself.

  I stared at the picture of Jake, too stunned and too heartsick to say anything. I hadn’t even asked him, yet he’d gone ahead and done the interview. For me. As a gift.

  His parting gift. His good-bye gift. His I-love-you-but-can’t-be-with-you gift.

  What was a girl supposed to do with that?

  Chapter 44

  Jake

  That slippery knot of regret, the one that tightened the more I tried to loosen it, was strangling me.

  I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t focus.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Below me, settled on the valley floor, five tents formed a circle. The rest of my team was asleep. As I should be. If I let myself become exhausted, weakness and clumsiness would follow.

  But something was off. Something I couldn’t name.

  That was a lie. I knew her name.

  Hannah.

  I scrubbed a hand over my beard.

  Brave, beautiful, funny Hannah.

  Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her in that sexy black dress, tears shining in her eyes, love on her face. She’d sat up front for my VFW speech even though I’d done my best to push her away. She’d sat up front and was there for my sorry ass because she knew I needed her. And she was right. I’d drawn strength from her that night. She was my rock. She, this little yoga teacher, was braver than me. Stronger than me. She’d let herself fall in love with me, and she hadn’t run away when I ended it. She’d still shown up and been present for me when I most needed her.

  So what the fuck what I doing?

  We’d been out for a few weeks now, tackling the easier section of the Alaska Range. The team needed to establish procedures before facing the formidable technical elements. The weather had been uncooperative, as expected, but progress was steady. We’d ascend Mount Deborah in a few days, a sensational ice climb that would require the best of our skills. It would be game on. Life-or-death stakes. From there, we still had over five hundred miles to go.

  I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out one of Cody’s notes. It was nothing, just a stupid joke. Just one of the small things that kept us going during those hellish months in Afghanistan. He’d stuck it in my bunk a few days before he died. I’d found it the next time I changed my sheets.

  Knock knock!

  Who’s there?

  Ima.

  Ima who?

  Ima horny, where are the chicks?

  I didn’t know why I’d brought it with me to Alaska. I’d just grabbed it and stuck it in my first aid kit. Like it was some kind of lifeline or something. A bandage.

  The sun was rising and the clouds were pouring down, and I knew what I had to do. It was just clear to me.

  I didn’t usually build fires when I camped—it left behind too much waste. But I climbed down from the outcropping and piled together dried leaves and twigs. For the hell of it, I used my flint and steel, striking them together until a small spark caught on dried moss. I babied my small flame until the twigs caught, and I sat back. I grabbed a branch and broke it into four parts, one for each of the fallen men in my troop, including Sgt. Pepper, and added them to the fire. Cody O’Donnell. Robert Wilson. Alex Dennis. Peter Pellinger. The smoke rose up to the endless sky. I took out the note, read it one more time, and put it in the fire.

  I dug into my other pocket and pulled out Cody’s map of Alaska. Before I could think twice, I threw that in the fire too.

  Pressure crushed my chest, like I’d been caught in an avalanche.

  But it was the right thing to do. The smoke and the sky.

  They were free now.

  I set them free.

  Chapter 45

  Hannah

  I padded to the door in my slippers. Who rang the doorbell three times? Overeager Girl Scouts?

  Nope. It was my friends. I stepped away from the front window. Maybe I could pretend not to be home.

  “We see you,” Annette called. “Open up.”

  I sighed and unbolted the lock.

  Crystal pushed the door open and barged into the front hall. “Okay, Hannah, we’re staging an intervention.”

  “It’s time to get out of the house.” Annette followed.

  “Or not. You can stay home too, but we’re going to stay with you.” Jennifer trailed behind.

  Annette pushed a piece of paper under my nose. “Since we know you love top ten lists, we’ve made one for you. These are your options for tonight.”

  “Some of them are repetitive.” Jennifer took my arm and led me to the living room. We plopped down on the couch. Something crinkled, and I pulled an empty chip bag from behind the pillow.

  “I hope you choose number seven.” Crystal frowned at my coffee table. It was covered in takeout boxes.

  I brushed crumbs off the couch and looked at the list.

  Top Ten Inter
vention Options:

  Paint toenails and drink

  ’80s makeovers and drink

  Watch a movie and make snarky comments and drink

  Retail Therapy

  Pot brownies

  Get drunk

  Go to a bar and pick up new guys—get back on the horse

  Voodoo doll

  Sauna/spa place

  Go dancing and drink

  My lips twisted. “’80s makeovers? Pot brownies?”

  “You put pot brownies on the list?” Jennifer leaned over my shoulder to look at the paper and shook her head.

  Crystal shrugged. “We never got to ten things. I was trying to make it fun.”

  “I do like the brownies part minus the pot,” I said. “We could do a movie and brownies.”

  “Looks like you’ve been doing that all week,” Annette said, piling up the takeout boxes.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have put it on the list.”

  “Or we could just stay and be supportive and join Hannah in what she wants to do.” Jennifer put her arm around me in solidarity.

  “Thanks, Jenny.”

  She gave me a squeeze. These ladies cared about me. Somehow, I’d been woven into their mix. Warmth spread outward from my chest, and I dropped my head onto Jennifer’s shoulder.

  Crystal put her hands on her hips. “You can’t wallow forever.”

  “At least not with us as your friends.” Jennifer squeezed my shoulder again.

  I blew out a breath. “Ironic, isn’t it? That his gift to me, that interview he did, would cut me up inside. The article was so perfect. Jake was perfect. We were perfect together.”

  And he still left.

  Silence settled over the room.