Chapter Seven
DELANEY
The shrill scream of my phone alarm sliced through my sleep.
I flung an arm out blindly, fingers scrambling across the coffee table until I knocked my phone to the floor. The vibration rattled against the thin rug, echoing on the hardwood beneath it.
I lunged for it.
And lunged too far. The couch betrayed me.
My shoulder rolled, my weight shifted, and the momentum carried me straight over the edge like I’d forgotten gravity existed. Pain exploded through my hip as I hit the living room floor with a thud hard enough to rattle my teeth.
“Fucking hell.” I rolled onto my back, blinking up at the ceiling fan spinning above me, unhelpful, and possibly mocking me. My pulse thudded in my ears. My hip screamed. My hair was in my face, and my soul felt like it hadn’t fully returned to my body.
I turned my head and glared at the upholstered floral monstrosity I’d been sleeping on since I moved to Ruby River three months ago.
Three months.
The couch was faded and lumpy and too short for any human with legs. The cushions were worn and smelled faintly of lavender. And yet, as ugly as it was, it held some of my fondest memories of time spent with my aunt.
Every morning, I woke up with a crick in my neck and an ache in my ribs, along with the same exhausted thought: You could always sleep in a bed.
The thought came soft. Cruelly.
My gaze snagged on the closed door to my great-aunt’s old bedroom. And my throat tightened instantly.
I wasn’t ready.
The brass knob caught a thin line of morning light. The door was the same as it always had been—unchanged and indifferent to everything that had happened. As though Aunt Jem might be inside, humming off-key while she folded laundry and told me my chakras were unaligned.
But she wasn’t here anymore.
She was gone.
And the room behind that door still belonged to her so completely that walking in there made me feel like I was trespassing.
It was why it took me so long to finally move to Ruby River after she passed.
I packed most of my belongings and flew in for Ruby Night, but I didn’t even make it into her apartment.
I stayed with Cheryl that weekend. After I spent Christmas with my parents, since my lease was up at the end of January, and my things were already packed, there was nothing left but to try and do what my aunt asked of me.
To come home. To run Sacred Serenity. To be where she wasn’t.
Tears came, hot and unrepentant. I pressed the heels of my hands to my face, but they fell regardless. I hated how quick grief could ambush me—as if it had checked my calendar and found an opening.
Because it wasn’t just the room.
It was what the room meant. If I slept in her bed, I’d be admitting she wasn’t coming back to it.
If I packed up her clothes, I’d be proving she’d never wear them again.
If I opened that closet, I might smell her perfume, and I didn’t trust myself not to collapse right there on the carpet and not get up.
So instead, I slept on the couch each night.
Like a coward.
“Get up,” I muttered to myself.
Because that was the thing about me. I might fall. I might avoid. I might cry in yoga poses meant to be empowering.
But I got up.
Every single time.
I pushed to my feet, hip throbbing, and drew in a deep breath through my nose, held it, and let it out slowly like I’d teach in class.
Inhale. You’re here, and you’re going to be okay.
Exhale. You’re still standing, and that’s all that matters right now.
With my hip protesting each step, I thanked the universe I practiced yoga daily. Without it, I’d be moving like a ninety-year-old woman right now.
The coffee machine was my first stop, because if the universe was going to keep testing me, I’d need caffeine to back me up.
I popped in a pod and hit the brew button for the most ounces. The familiar gurgle and hiss was weirdly comforting, and when the bitter, grounding smell hit a second later, my brain thanked me.
While it finished brewing, I shuffled to the bathroom and studied myself in the mirror. Bedhead. Smudged mascara remnants from last night. Purple-dipped hair that had somehow become my trademark in Ruby River, even though I’d sworn I wasn’t the kind of person who had a “signature look.”
“You’re doing your best,” I whispered, but the woman in the mirror looked unconvinced.
I showered quickly, but lingered under the hot water long enough to let it seep into my sore hip and ease the tension between my shoulder blades. Grief lived in muscles. People didn’t talk about that part. How it made your body clench like it was bracing for impact even on an ordinary day.
I toweled off and pulled on comfy clothes—leggings and a soft oversized sweater that Aunt Jem had loved and had let me borrow. It was a little big, faded, and it smelled faintly like her clean laundry and the lavender oil she dabbed on her wrists.
Wearing it was the closest thing to a hug from her.
I took my coffee to the small kitchen table and sat down with my journal.
The table had tiny scratches along the edge from years of use and my restless teenage tapping.
When I was younger, I used to sit here while she made tea and told me there was nothing wrong with being sensitive.
It meant I noticed things other people missed.
My parents used to call that sensitivity dramatic. Too much.
With a heavy sigh, I opened my journal.
Every morning, I focused on intention—writing as though my best life had already happened.
It wasn’t magic. It was direction. A compass.
A way to remind the universe I was here and excited for my future.
It was a way to remind myself I wasn’t stuck, even when everything around me shifted like quicksand.
I wrote the date at the top and began:
I am so overwhelmed with gratitude.
My pen hesitated.
Overwhelmed was … ambitious. But that was the point. It was to help call into existence all that I wanted. To allow me to focus on the daily things to make that happen.
I wake each day with purpose and intention.
Even if that purpose was simply getting up, making coffee, and refusing to drown in sorrow.
Sacred Serenity has grown so much I hired more help. I can easily pay my rent for the building, buy inventory and supplies for my classes, and I can finally breathe.
The word breathe came out harder than the rest, the ink bolder where I pressed firmly down on the paper.
The people of Ruby River have fully accepted me and treat me as though I’ve been a lifetime resident all along.
My chest tightened as I wrote those words. It was ridiculous that acceptance still mattered so much, that part of me still felt like an outsider who needed permission to exist here.
I’m energized each day and am able to offer energy healing sessions on a regular basis and have a full class for my Reiki I certification. In addition to everything we offer, I’ve hired another staff member to read cards at the shop and we’re working really well together.
I could practically see it: the bustling shop, laughter, full classes, Cheryl and I moved along like a well-oiled machine.
The animal yoga classes Marc and I ran at the shelter were so successful that we helped many of the animals get adopted, and my personal yoga classes have been booked solid since. I’ve even been asked for private 1:1 sessions.
My hand stilled.
Marc.
A flicker of irritation sparked in my chest, sharp and quick. It annoyed me that my body reacted before my brain could rearrange the facts into something calmer. It was the same every time his name appeared or was spoken. Like my nervous system had its own memory.
How were we going to make this work?
I could barely stand to be in the same room as him, and that’s without him turning into a walking encyclopedia of “Everything Delaney Is Doing Wrong.”
I knew—logically—that he struggled to connect. I knew facts were his coat of armor, his safe place.
But when that armor was directed at me, it was a weapon, aimed and deliberate.
And it didn’t matter how many times I told myself not to take it personally. It still landed in the same place.
The place that whispered: Maybe you’re too much. Too loud. Too sensitive. Too opinionated. Too … Delaney.
Like my parents had told me countless times.
I stared at the page, throat tight, and hated myself for how quickly the angry thoughts sank their hooks into what was supposed to be my peaceful time.
I’d been hearing versions of it my whole life—from Mom and Dad, from kids at school, from the people who smiled politely and then drifted away when my feelings took up too much space.
Aunt Jem was the only one who’d never made me shrink.
Aunt Jem always told me I was exactly enough.
Aunt Jem, who loved me unconditionally.
I swallowed hard and shut the journal.
Not because I didn’t believe in intention. Because right now, my thoughts were a chisel, and I didn’t want to accidentally carve bitterness into my morning before the day had even started.
It was time to begin my day. Cheryl was opening the shop, and I’d planned on working through inventory after I completed the admin tasks that needed my attention.
Inventory. Ordering. Marketing. Bills. Classes. The endless list of things to do that never stopped just because my grief felt heavy.
Sometimes being a small business owner was balancing on a yoga block while someone threw rocks at you. And sometimes it was like trying to breathe underwater because I missed Aunt Jem so much.
My phone buzzed from its spot on the counter.
I rinsed out my mug, loaded it into the dishwasher, and picked the phone up with slightly damp hands.
THEO: Hey, I talked to Marc about coming by the shelter today to plan for the yoga session.
My first instinct was to ignore it.
My second was to throw my phone into the sink.
My third—because I wasn’t twelve anymore, and I wasn’t going to let anyone down—was to respond.