Then my mind drifts again.
To Talon.
To the garage.
The way he looked—tense, strained…
Stop.
He never meant for me to see that. I definitely shouldn’t have kept watching.
But now I can’t stop thinking about him.
Luke says he grew up on this mountain. I can’t even picture that. No family except a grandmother. Living alone out here.
Why?
“Now shift your attention outward,” the instructor says. “Listen to the sounds around you. Just let them exist.”
Almost there? This was supposed to be thirty minutes. It doesn’t feel like it.
“Take one final breath in… and out. Begin to move your fingers and toes.”
I do, relieved no one’s watching.
“Gently open your eyes.”
Light floods back in. Most people still have their eyes closed. Some are smiling. One woman is crying.
They took this more seriously than I did.
Towards the front of the class, Bertha opens her eyes slowly, calm, almost serene. She looks… happy. More at peace than I’ve ever seen her—but somehow that doesn’t reassure me nearly as much as it should.
Talon’s eyes are still closed. I study him—the sharp lines of his face, the calm expression.
Then his eyes open and catch mine.
My heart jumps.
That same pull—tight, invisible.
For a second, everything else fades.
“Hello.”
“Oh!” I jerk, startled to find the instructor behind us.
“Sorry,” he says, grinning. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I was curious. Haven’t seen you before.”
“Yeah. I just arrived a couple of days ago.”
“Welcome. How was the session?”
“It was good,” I say, because I’m not sure what else to say.
“How about you?” he asks Talon.
Talon nods.