If someone had told me that my Sunday morning would begin with my face inches away from my wife’s toes in a room full of stretchy strangers, I would have blocked their number.
Yet there I was, barefoot on a yoga mat, while she cheerfully waved at the instructor.
“Isn’t this exciting?” she whispered.
“No,” I whispered back. “This feels like cult initiation.”
The instructor clapped their hands. “Welcome to Harmony of the Body! Let’s begin with some breathing exercises. Inhale love. Exhale resistance.”
I inhaled resentment and exhaled regret.
We moved on to poses with names like “Happy Baby,” “Loving Warrior,” and something called “Twin Lotus.” I suspected at least three of them were invented by people with no spine.
Then came the couples balance pose.
She sat on the mat, legs crossed, arms open.
“You’re supposed to sit behind me and wrap your arms around my waist,” she said sweetly.
“Absolutely not.”
“Trust. Intimacy. Healing energy,” she chanted mockingly.
With a sigh that carried all my past lives, I obeyed.
Somehow, we ended up back-to-back, leaning into each other, arms intertwined.
“You’re heavy,” she mumbled.
“You’re bony.”
We stayed like that, breathing in sync—accidentally, of course.
Then she whispered, “You smell nice. What is that?”
“Resentment and expensive soap.”
She laughed, and the sound did something odd to my chest. Warmth. Familiarity. Danger.
—
After class, we walked through the park, stretching sore limbs.
“I think we were the least flexible couple there,” she joked.
“I’m emotionally flexible.”
“Mm-hmm. That’s why you cried during the fifth yoga pose.”
“I did not cry. I sweated near my eyes. There’s a difference.”
She giggled, grabbing my hand as we passed a vendor. “Want a popsicle? My treat.”
I blinked. “You’re bribing me with sugar now?”
“No,” she said, handing me one. “This is a thank you.”
“For what?”
“For showing up. For trying. For not running away when things get… annoying.”
I looked at her, standing there with a lime popsicle in her mouth and hope in her eyes.
And just like that, it hit me.
She wasn’t just annoying.
She was mine.
—
Later, at home, she sprawled across the couch like a satisfied cat.
“You’ve changed,” she said suddenly.
“How?”
“You tolerate me more now. You even laugh sometimes. You look at me like I’m… real.”
“You are real.”
“I know. But now I feel it.”
There was silence for a while.
Then I said, “You’ve changed too.”
“How?”
“You’re still annoying. But now you’re the highlight of my day.”
She smiled.
“Damn,” she said softly. “You’re getting dangerously close to sounding like a husband.”
And maybe, just maybe—I was.
To be continued…
