Cera #2
He's wearing a fitted dark gray T-shirt and black joggers that hang perfectly on his hips. Pushing his thick, damp hair back with one hand, he walks up to the counter and talks to the barista, laughing at something she says. He's glowing.
He orders, sits, and the espresso machine hisses behind us while the rain starts up soft against the glass.
I came here to do the thing I've wanted to do since his text lit up my apartment floor a month ago, and now that I'm across from him, the words crowd up the same as they did that night.
"How are you?"
"I'm good," I answer.
"I'm coming from yoga, forgive the sweaty shirt. I started taking classes at Holy Cow on Perrier Street. Have you ever been there?"
I want to thank you for the sweaty shirt, actually.
"I haven't. Do you like it?"
"It's interesting to see how different studios do things. I like it. The instructor isn't as cute, but that's probably best for my concentration, anyway."
I look down at my cup before my face can do anything stupid.
“You left Om.”
His smile fades a little, but not in a wounded way.
“I did.”
“Because of me?”
He drags his thumb along the side of his cup. “I wanted you to have your space. You should be able to walk into your own studio and do your job without wondering if I’m going to be in the back row.”
The answer is so simple it almost hurts. It was him, stepping back without me asking him to.
For a moment, neither of us says anything. The light rain outside the window fills the space, and somehow the silence doesn't make me anxious.
I look at his hands around the coffee cup. I've always loved his strong hands. And now there's no cigarette smell clinging to him, no restless glance toward the door.
"Do you even know where I went for the last six months?"
"I don't. I heard someone at Om mention in the hall after class that you'd been in India. I didn't ask, because I figured if you wanted me to know, you'd tell me."
"Would you like to hear about it?"
"I'd love that."
I tell him about selling off the life I thought I needed: the apartment, the furniture, my car, and all the little things I used to believe made me anchored.
He doesn't rush me or fill the gaps.
“It took some time for me to get used to having nothing to my name except a small storage unit in New Orleans. But one morning, about two weeks in, I woke up, and it wasn't sitting on my chest anymore. I could breathe under it.”
“What changed?” he asks, low.
I trace the rim of my cup with my thumb. “I think I stopped trying to make everything outside me prove I was safe.”
His eyes stay on mine.
“That sounds obvious when I say it like that,” I add.
“It doesn’t.”
I let out a small breath. “I spent a long time wanting something solid enough to make up for the ground I never had. An apartment, a routine, a man who didn’t leave. I curated a version of myself who had it all handled.”
My throat works.
“India didn’t fix that. It just made me sit still long enough to see what I was doing.”
He nods slowly, like he is putting it somewhere he won't lose it. “I hate that you had to carry that."
I bite the side of my cheek.
“But I’m glad you found some peace working through it,” he says.
Before things get too heavy, I flip it on him. “Your turn. You built that whole place, you quit smoking, and a week and a half ago I watched you stand up in a room full of strangers. Looks like I wasn't the only one digging deep.”
He turns his cup in a slow circle on the table. “I didn’t dig gracefully.”
“Does anyone?”
“I can't speak for anyone else.” His mouth shifts, almost a smile. “After you left, the office got quiet in a way I couldn't blame it on anybody else.”
That lands between us.
“I kept thinking I was private,” he says. “But most of the time I was just hiding.”
I don't rescue him from that.
He looks down at his coffee. “The Sol House was already in motion by then. I started it after our walk that day, but I was waiting until I knew it could actually happen before I told you.”
His thumb stops on the cup. “And after that, telling you would’ve felt like using it. So I didn’t. I just kept going.”
I keep waiting for the catch. The angle, the small lie I can hold up between us, the thing that would let me call him dangerous and go home safe. It doesn't come. He hands me the truth and asks nothing back for it, and somewhere in the second hour I notice my body has quit bracing.
The rain's quit too by the time we run out of coffee, and the light through the window has turned gold. I realize I don't want to get up. Not the old want, the starved reach to be picked by somebody, anybody. I have a whole life now, and it's mine, and I'm choosing to stay in this chair, anyway.
So when we finally stand, I don't hand him the careful line I walked in with. "Want to do a yoga class together?" I ask, and it's that simple, and I mean it down to the floor.
His face opens. "I'd love that."
"Tomorrow there is a class at New Orleans Museum of Art in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden at sunrise. You think you can hang?"
"Probably not. But it sounds like a challenge I'm up for."
We step out onto Magazine Street, and I wheel the bike off the rack and walk it between us toward the corner.
At the corner, I swing a leg over the seat. "See you bright and early tomorrow morning."
"I'll be there."
I push off, and the pedals catch under me. The street runs clear ahead, the sun poking through the clouds, already doing its job of drying the city.
Now, going home alone isn't being left. It's choosing my own way there.
And tomorrow morning, if he shows up, I'll choose that too.