Promise Me to Please | Please Me #2

TWENTY

   "Um, Leah... I don't think I'm doing this right."

   "Just try and cross your legs closer together and you'll be in the correct position."

  I stared at the screen, wondering how the fuck that women managed to hold that position for that long with absolute ease. Whoever said yoga was easy lied. There was no other way about it.

  Ezekiel was still complaining. "Leah, I swear to God, if I cross my legs anymore, I am going to pop a ball or something."

  It was the morning after my date with Austin and my head was still screwed. It felt like all my nerves had been jumbled into little knots, creating an enormous, knotted ball and anything I tried to get done would only knot the ball even more.

  So, I confided in Leah about my stressed brain and here we were doing yoga. Yoga.

  The woman on the screen changed position to what I assumed was a 'downward-dog'. Even getting into that position was all kinds of struggle, let alone having to hold it.

   "Remind me why this is supposed to be relaxing?" I spoke between struggling breaths.

   "Yoga," Leah held her position perfectly, "Is a mind-body practice that helps control your breathing."

   "I can't even breath to begin with."

   "That's because you're not focussing on it." She argued.

   "You have to focus on it?!" Ezekiel exasperated. "What is this? Some kind of torture?! Breathing should be natural!"

   "It is natural! By focussing on it, you're able to control it." Leah switched to a position now lying on her stomach, her back arched, and we both followed.

   "I think it only works if you're, I don't know, already flexible." I almost collapsed getting into the position. Jesus Christ, were her bones made of rubber?

   "I didn't think this was that bad. The video is a beginner's course." Leah looked at me with confusion.

   "Beginners?!" Ezekiel and I gasped simultaneously, both wide-eyed.

   "..... Yeah."

  That was it. I was in defeat. There was no way people did this for fun.

   "It looks like Piggy can do it." Leah chuckled as I watched my own fucking cat stretch back in front of us like some shit-stirring show-off.

   "Girl, what the fuck? We were a team!" I cried in exhaustion as Piggy pawed over to me and lied down. "Jesus, see what I mean about attention seeker?" I rolled my eyes, Leah laughed.

   "Well maybe this is at least taking away the stress from your date with Austin." That was a fair point. I hadn't thought about it once since starting this Satan-Sutra.

   "Yeah, it is. But I still need to text him back." I sighed.

   "Why didn't you text him back?"

   "I don't know." I did know. I was completely shaken when I'd left Knowles in that hallway and went back to my actual date. Austin could even sense it and I had to blame it on the crowdedness of the shop. Then we got ice-coffees to-go and took a long walk back to my apartment. And, yes, it was really nice.

  But Knowles was stuck in my head.

   "Even in a room full of people, you'll find loneliness with them. That safe space. And it's... it's everything."

  He shouldn't have said those words. I let myself be weak around him – vulnerable – and I was never like that. Let alone with him.

  Knowles didn't deserve to see my vulnerable because he spent so long trying to bring it to surface. He spent so long trying to break me. And I didn't break. No. I stayed on top. The only people who had ever seen me cry were my parents and Sienna.