Wells
THIRTY-TWO
The Resurrection: Easter is the turn from the sealed tomb to the open one, proof that what looked finished could come back into the light. He hands her the last buried thing himself, unasked, and lets her hold all of him at once.
I get to the sculpture garden twenty minutes early because apparently growth has not cured me of being ridiculous. For some reason, I'm especially nervous about this one. I've been doing yoga, now, for four months. I'm comfortable in my own skin on a mat and have learned most of the basic poses.
But this isn't a beginner’s class. I'll stick out like a sore thumb.
And more than that, Cera will be here.
The sky is still soft when I park, the kind of gray-blue morning that makes the city look like it has not decided what it wants to be yet. The air is cool for New Orleans, almost gentle, with the last of yesterday’s rain still clinging to the grass and the leaves.
I get out of the car and stand for a second with my mat tucked under one arm, trying not to look like a man who has spent the last twelve hours thinking about this. It's a yoga class, for Christ's sake, not an engagement party.
But she initiated, and I'm sure as shit not taking it lightly.
I walk through the entrance and follow the inaudible murmur of voices.
A small group has gathered on the lawn between the sculptures, people unrolling mats, tying back hair, sipping from water bottles.
The trees spread above us, dark against the brightening sky, and the whole place has the reverence of a church before the preacher starts talking.
I used to hate mornings like this.
I find a spot near the back and roll out my mat. It lands with a soft thud on the damp grass. I crouch to smooth the corners.
Cera walks in with her mat under one arm and her hair pulled back from her face.
She wears black leggings, a faded green sweatshirt, and a softness around her eyes that knocks the air out of me more efficiently than a punch ever has.
She sees me, and her smile comes slowly, not careful and not polite.
Real.
I grip the edge of my mat with one hand and remind myself not to be a fool about it.
She crosses the grass toward me. “You made it.”
“I was promised humiliation at sunrise.”
“That was implied, not promised.”
“I know how to read between the lines.”
Her smile deepens, and I want to keep putting words in front of her just to make it stay. Instead, I step back and give her room to unroll her mat beside mine.
She sets her mat down and presses the corners flat with her palms. “Have you done outdoor yoga since that day in the park?”
“No.”
“You're going to love this. They do these once a month. I try not to ever miss.”
No pressure.
The instructor calls everyone to settle in, and Cera drops onto her mat with an easy grace I have no business noticing this closely.
I lower myself beside her and cross my legs, trying to look like a man who belongs in a sunrise yoga class.
At least this time my knees sit a little lower, and I'm not in actual pain in this position.
The instructor begins with breathing. I can do breathing, in theory.
The first inhale catches in my chest because Cera is beside me, because yesterday she sat across from me for two hours and told me pieces of where she went, because I told her pieces of where I have been, and because the space between us no longer looks like a locked gate.
I close my eyes and take another breath. The air moves in cleaner this time. Damp grass, rain-soaked earth, and a trace of the soap Cera uses, familiar enough to reach down into me.
The class moves slowly at first. We start the same with a downward dog, then a low lunge. I follow as best I can, which is not the same thing as following well.
Cera moves beside me like her body and breath have been speaking the same language for years.
During warrior two, she glances over.
My front knee has apparently gone rogue.
She leans slightly toward me without breaking her pose. “Bend that knee more.”
“I thought I was.” I correct it, and my thigh immediately starts to shake.
“There it is,” she says.
By the time we reach tree pose, I am sweating in places I don't care to name. Cera plants one foot into her mat and lifts the other to her inner calf, hands pressed together at her chest. She is as still as the trees around us.
I get my foot up, wobble once, and put it back down.
She looks over. “Try again.”
“I did try. That was the entire performance.”
“Again.”
The instructor says something about balance coming from the gaze, not the grip. I fix my eyes on a sculpture ahead of me, lift my foot again, and manage to stay upright for three whole seconds before tipping sideways.
The old me would have made a joke and ducked behind it. The old me had a thousand dark corners and called them personality. I have fewer places to hide now. I built some of them shut with my own hands.
“I’m trying,” I say.
Her expression changes, just a little.
“I know.”
We move through the rest of the class in quiet. The sun rises higher, turning the wet grass bright. People around us breathe and stretch and laugh softly when their bodies refuse instructions. The city wakes beyond the trees, but in here, the morning stays quiet.
At the end, we lie back on our mats. I stare up through the branches while the instructor leads us into stillness. Cera’s hand rests on the mat a few inches from mine. Close enough to touch, not close enough to claim.
I don't move.
That might be the hardest thing I do all morning.
When class ends, people roll up mats and drift toward the path. Cera stays seated, legs crossed, face turned toward the sun. I sit up beside her and reach for my water bottle.
“That was not terrible,” I say.
She opens one eye. “It's a powerful way to start a Sunday morning, right?”
The best start to this Sunday is seeing her, but I don't say that.
“It was.”
“You almost fell over during tree pose.”
“Trees fall all the time. It’s natural.”
“Usually after storms or disease.”
“I’m choosing not to take that personally.”
She laughs, and the sound moves through me before I can brace for it. I've missed that laugh in ways that make no sense, since before I knew the real name behind it, since after I lost every right to ask for it.
Now she gives it to me in the morning light, freely, and I don't know how to hold something that precious without gripping too hard.
So I don't grip. I take a sip of my water and let her sit.
After a minute, she pushes to her feet. “There’s one thing I’ve been working on. Can I show you?”
I stand with her. “Am I about to witness advanced suffering?”
“Possibly. It isn't graceful yet.”
She sets her water aside and steps onto the center of her mat. “It’s a dancer’s pose. I can do it, but I’m trying to hold it longer without fighting my own body the whole time.”
I know enough now to picture it. One foot grounded, the other lifted behind her, one hand holding the ankle as her body opens forward.
She gets her body positioned. It's beautiful when she does it. Everything she does on a mat is beautiful.
She looks at me. “Can you stand in front of me?”
My heart trips.
I do exactly what she asks without answering with words. I stand a few feet in front of her with my hands loose at my sides.
She studies me for a second, and I understand the test before she says a word. It isn't whether I can hold her. It's whether I can wait.
She lifts her right foot behind her and catches it with her right hand. Her left arm reaches toward me, palm open.
“Just give me your hand,” she says.
I raise my hand, palm up, and stop halfway between us. She's the one who closes the distance. Her fingers slide over mine, and my whole body goes quiet with the effort of being worthy of that choice.
She presses her foot into her hand and tips forward. I keep my hand steady. I don't pull at her or try to adjust her. I don't make myself the reason she holds the pose.
She breathes in, lifts through her chest, and steadies.
“There,” I say quietly.
Her mouth curves with concentration. “That's the first time I've been able to get all of this in place and hold it.”
She's grinning, proud of herself. Her fingers tighten around mine. Not much. Enough.
“You’re steady,” she says.
I look at our hands. “I’m working on it.”
She holds the pose for another breath, then another. Her balance wavers, and every instinct in me rises at once, but I keep my feet planted and my hand exactly where she put it. She adjusts herself. She finds her own center again.
Then she releases her ankle and comes down laughing, breathless.
I let go when she does. She looks at my hand, then at me. Her eyes stay on mine, and the thing between us turns over, quiet, like a latch giving from the inside.
The garden has emptied around us. A few people talk near the path, but they are far enough away that their voices blur with the breeze moving through the trees. Cera rolls her mat with careful hands, and I do the same, though I could not say if mine ends up straight.
We start walking without discussing it.
The path curves through the sculptures, past wet leaves and bronze shapes catching the new sun. Cera walks beside me, her mat tucked under one arm, close enough that her shoulder almost brushes mine. The almost of it takes up more room inside me than contact ever used to.
I used to think wanting meant reaching.
I used to think love was the thing a man took when the door cracked open because he was terrified the door would close again.
Cera taught me what damage that kind of hunger can do. Or maybe I taught myself, and she paid for the lesson.
She stops beneath a live oak where the branches spread wide over the path. Sunlight breaks through in thin gold lines across her face. I stop with her and keep both hands on my mat because I am not taking anything she hasn't given.
“I meant what I said at coffee,” she says. “I’m not looking to fall into anything.”
“I know.”
“And I can’t do secrets dressed up as protection.”
“I know that, too.”
She turns toward me fully then. “I need the ground under me to be real, Wells.”
The words settle in my chest, and they're deserved.
“It is,” I say. “And when it isn’t, I’ll tell you before you step there.”
Her eyes search mine.
I let her. There's no mask to hold up anymore, no shadow to tuck myself into or a version of this where I win by hiding the ugly parts and hope she thanks me for the shape of the lie.
“I can't promise I’ll always know the right thing fast enough,” I say. “But I can promise I will not build another life on something I’m afraid to say out loud.”
Her breath moves through her slowly.
"So I'll start now," I say. "The morning you left my apartment and went dark, I traced your phone.
I told myself it was because I was scared something had happened to you, and maybe it was.
It was also the exact thing you'd never trust me to stop doing, and I did it anyway, and you never knew.
I'm telling you because you should hear it from me instead of finding out later that I sat on one more thing. "
She goes very still. I make myself hold her eyes and not look away from what I just handed her.
"I'm not asking you to be fine with it," I say. "I'm telling you it's the last one you'll ever hear about after the fact."
That's all I offer. I don't give a speech about what I want or a list of everything I have missed.
Cera steps closer.
My heart hits hard enough that I nearly look down to make sure it has not done something embarrassing.
She reaches for my hand, not for balance this time, not for a pose. Her fingers slide between mine, and she looks at our joined hands like she is studying the truth of them.
“I told you I wasn’t looking to fall into anything,” she says.
“I remember.”
Her thumb moves once across the inside of my wrist. “Then I guess it matters that I’m not falling.”
My chest tightens around her words.
“No?”
“No.” Her eyes lift to mine. “I’m choosing where I put my feet.”
I do not move and realize I'm holding my breath. I only stand there while she rises on her toes and kisses me.
For one second, I am nothing but the shock of her mouth on mine in the morning light. Then I come back to myself enough to answer her without taking over. My free hand lifts to her cheek, slow enough that she can pull away before I touch her. She does not.
Her fingers curl tighter around mine.
When she eases back, her forehead rests against mine. Her breath shakes once, and mine does the same.
“I’m still mad at you,” she whispers.
A laugh leaves me, rough around the edges. “As you should be.”
“And I might be for a while.”
“Naturally.”
“But I don’t want to keep living on the other side of it.”
The words go through me slowly, too large to answer fast. I brush my thumb along her cheekbone. “Then I’ll walk where you let me.”
Her eyes shine, but her mouth curves. “That sounds suspiciously obedient.”
“I’m new to it.”
“You’ll need practice.”
“I’ve been attending yoga. I understand practice now.”
She laughs, and I kiss the corner of her mouth because she is close enough, because she has not moved away.
This time, she kisses me back without hesitation.
By the time we start walking again, the garden is brighter, and the city beyond it has fully woken. Cars move along the street. Someone laughs near the entrance. A bird calls from somewhere high in the branches.
Cera keeps her hand in mine.
I don't tell myself that I have her back. That's not the shape of this.
She is not a place I return to or a thing I recover. She's a woman walking beside me because she looked at the truth, looked at me, and decided to take one more step.
At the edge of the garden, she glances up at me. “Coffee?”
I look down at our joined hands. “Again?”
“Unless you have somewhere else to be.”
“No,” I say. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”