Page 35 of My CEO Neighbor
"Good changes or bad changes?"
Monica considered this.Was falling for your emotionally unavailable neighbor good or bad?Was discovering that the man you'd written off as soulless actually had more depth than you'd imagined good or bad?Was having mind-blowing sex with someone who immediately regretted it good or bad?
"Complicated changes," Monica said finally.
Margaret nodded like this made perfect sense."Those are the hardest kind.Take care of yourself."
The drive back to the Towers felt longer than usual, rush hour traffic giving Monica too much time to think.She kept replaying the rescue scene, analyzing every micro-expression on Ted's face when the elevator doors opened.Had he looked embarrassed?Regretful?Or just professionally inconvenienced?
Monica's phone buzzed with a text from Mal:Coffee?You never answered yesterday, and I have Derek drama to dissect.
Monica typed back:Can't today.Teaching schedule is packed.
Which was a lie.Monica had deliberately left her afternoon open, planning to catch up on administrative tasks and maybe experiment with some new class sequences.But the thought of sitting in a coffee shop, pretending to care about Mal's relationship drama while her own emotional life was in shambles, felt impossible.
The parking garage felt different now, charged with memory.Monica found herself staring at the elevator bank, remembering how Ted had looked when they'd first stepped inside together—checking his watch, radiating the kind of controlled urgency that had initially annoyed her.
Now she missed it.She missed his intensity, his barely leashed energy, the way he'd fought the meditation exercise like it was a personal attack on his productivity.
Monica took the stairs.
Her apartment felt too quiet, too empty.Without the background noise of Ted's conference calls bleeding through the walls, the silence was oppressive.Monica had always valued quiet, but this felt different, like the absence of something essential rather than the presence of peace.
She tried to prepare for her afternoon classes, reviewing sequences and selecting music, but concentration felt impossible.Every few minutes, she found herself listening for sounds from Ted's apartment, wondering if he was home, if he was thinking about her at all.
Monica's first afternoon class was at the studio downtown, a mixed-level flow for office workers looking to decompress after lunch.Twenty-three students filed in, unrolling mats and settling into the familiar ritual of transition from work to practice.
"Welcome," Monica said, taking her place at the front of the room."Let's begin by setting an intention for our practice."
But what intention could she set when her own heart felt scattered across multiple time zones?When every breath reminded her of teaching Ted to breathe properly, of the way his shoulders had dropped when he'd finally relaxed into it?
Monica guided the class through sun salutations, but her usual smooth transitions felt choppy.She called out poses a beat too late, forgot to cue the left side of standing sequences, and during a particularly complex arm balance demonstration, she simply couldn't hold the pose.
"Let's try a different variation," Monica said, covering her stumble with a smile that felt brittle.
The students followed along without complaint, but Monica could sense their confusion.These were people who'd been coming to her classes for months, who expected a certain level of expertise and presence.They were getting a distracted substitute instead of their usual teacher.
During final relaxation, Monica found herself thinking about Ted's Dexter Capital meeting.Was it happening right now?Was he sitting in a conference room somewhere, delivering the presentation he'd spent months perfecting?Was he thinking about her at all, or had yesterday been filed away as completely as everything else that didn't serve his business objectives?
"Take three deep breaths," Monica instructed, but her own breathing felt shallow and insufficient.
After class, several students approached with questions about poses, but Monica's answers felt automatic and hollow.She packed up her props with unusual haste, eager to escape the studio and her own performance anxiety.
The evening class was worse.
Monica's regular students noticed immediately that she was off her game.Her sequence was disjointed.Her voice lacked its usual warmth, and during a particularly complex flow, she completely lost track of where they were in the series.
"Let's just move into child's pose," Monica said, abandoning the sequence altogether.
During the final meditation, while her students lay in peaceful relaxation, Monica still hadn’t been able to exercise Ted from her thoughts.And then she remembered the way he'd looked at her in the hallway, like she was an afterthought to his big meeting.
Monica rang the singing bowl to end class, but the sound felt discordant, lacking its usual clear resonance.
"Thank you for your practice," she said, but the gratitude felt forced.
As students filed out, Monica noticed the concerned glances, the hesitant expressions of people who wanted to ask if everything was okay but weren't sure how.These were people who came to her for guidance, for the kind of centered presence that helped them navigate their own chaos.
She was failing them completely.
