Page 125 of The Breaking Point

Maybe he’d be happy, or angry, or maybe he’d be so confused that he wouldn’t know what to say.

I hoped he’d be happy. He’d pull me into his arms, kiss me, and tell me that he still loved me no matter what. Butterflies filled my stomach.

I’d missed Brady so much. It’d been torture not to speak to him or touch him or hear his laugh. The few times I ran into him at work, it’d taken all my strength not to launch myself into his arms.

I parked my car and took a deep breath when I reached Brady’s apartment. I was afraid I’d faint before I even got to his front door.

I had gotten out of my car, locking it behind me, when I spotted a woman: a curvy brunette who looked eerily familiar.

It took me a second to realize she was wearing a flight attendant’s uniform. And then I recognized her: the woman on the plane who’d been flirting with Brady.

Tatiana. That was her name.

Brady hadn’t known I’d seen her flirting with him since I’d been sitting in the back. But I’d come up with aisle to talk to my dad when I’d seen Tatiana nearly shoving her tits in Brady’s face. It hadn’t taken much for me to find out that he’d hooked up with her previously.

And now I was watching her go into his apartment.

Feeling sick, I got back into my car and drove all the way back home.

GRACE

It was the next-to-last day of my retreat up in Ojai. It was just after dawn, and I was spending it doing yoga and meditation until we ate breakfast.

“Take a deep breath in, and let everything go,” our instructor said in her calming voice. “That’s it. I can tell some of you are still hanging on to things that are heavy. Release it.”

I focused on my breathing. I’d had a dream about Brady last night, and it was difficult to let go of the memory of that dream.

It’d been a happy one, at least. Sometimes I had dreams where I went into his apartment and saw him sleeping with that Tatiana woman. And then he’d just laugh in my face and tell me to get lost.

The happy dreams, though ... they stuck around longer. They were worse, in a way, because they reminded me of what I’d lost.

I exhaled and moved to child’s pose. My body was stiff, and it took all my willpower to let my muscles relax.

By the time our yoga session ended, I was sweating and starving. The nine other people attending the retreat and I went to the outdoor area where we were served a breakfast of green tea, some kind of healthy protein, and loads of organic fruits and veggies.

When I’d booked this retreat, I’d wanted to get away from LA—and from Brady. I’d never been much interested in yogaor meditation, but it’d promised a respite from reality. So I’d booked it and driven up here, hoping against hope it’d help.

And to be fair, Ojai was a gorgeous area. We weren’t far from the ocean, and some of us had gone there to meditate more than once. We also had the opportunity to go hiking in the mountains. The weather was always gorgeous: warm and dry with bright-blue skies.

I could see why this was a popular place for retreats. It truly did feel like another world.

But my mind and heart were back in LA. Every night when I lay in bed, I couldn’t help but think about Brady.

I wondered if I could ever trust him again. I wondered whether I’d been seeing things, that maybe that woman hadn’t been Tatiana. I wondered whether he’d been sleeping with her, and if so, did I really have a right to be hurt?

We’d broken up. He was as single as I was. If he wanted to distract himself with another woman, did I have a right to get angry about it?

But it still hurt. It made me feel sick to my stomach that he’d moved on that quickly. It was the principle of the thing.

Then, in my darker moments, I thought about finding a guy and just getting some dick, as Kelly would say. Purge Brady from my system. Show him that if he could sleep around, I could, too.

“Are you going to the cooking class this afternoon?” Trina, one of my fellow students, asked me as she began eating a grapefruit.

“I think I might go for a hike,” I replied.

“Oh, that’s a good idea. I might join you.”

I nearly told her not to since I wasn’t in the mood for company, but I bit my tongue. Trina was harmless. Although she tended to go on and on about other people’s auras and loved to practice tarot readings on everybody, she meant well.

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