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Still, she stood up and unfolded her sheet of paper. “My ex-husband cheated on me after being married for twenty years and my kids took his side.”
I winced and physically leaned away from her admission. As others stood up and read out their biggest traumas in a single sentence, I grew more and more uncomfortable. I recognized that I was shifting back and forth in my seat, but I didn’t want to read my sentence.
Jake cleared his throat and stood up. “I got a woman pregnant on the road, tried to do the right thing by marrying her, and then found out she knew our daughter wasn’t mine all along after years of a toxic marriage that made me hate my life.”
My heart squeezed at the idea of how much that would’ve hurt him. His bad attitude made a little more sense to me after hearing that. Without thinking about what I was doing, or who I was doing it to, I reached over and grabbed his hand. “I’m sorry.”
He looked down at me with surprise flashing across his face before it vanished and he was back to a blank stare. “Yeah.”
Meg looked at me and frowned when I shook my head. “We’ll come back to you then.”
Sebastian stretched his long legs out in front of him and blew out a deep breath before cracking his neck and standing. “I tried dating again after my divorce and brought a truly awful woman, a truly greedy woman, home to my kids and forced them to deal with her until I realized she was only there for the money.”
Several of the men in the room nodded and I had to wonder just how many gold diggers there were around Austin. Or maybe they’d all dated a handful of the same women? It was just hard for me to imagine there were women like that.
Before Meg could come back to me, Ryder stood up. “I built my career with my ex-wife and when things got really great, she didn’t like how busy I was and accused me of cheating in a very public way that made a lot of the country, and my oldest son, dislike me.”
How had they found just terrible people? I grimaced to myself at the idea of them all being so hurt by the women they trusted and cared for. It was probably sexist of me to just believe that women treated men better than men treated women, but I’d only been going off of my experiences. Apparently, every gender sucked.
“Alright, we’re back to you, Fiona. Please.”
Sebastian reached over and patted my thigh. “The sooner you do it, the sooner it’s done.”
Groaning, I stood up and uncrumpled my sheet of paper. I tried smoothing it out and just gave up. I squeezed my eyes closed and just let my most embarrassing story out. “The father of my son dated me in secret because he didn’t want his friends to know he was with me and when I got pregnant, he made fun of me and told everyone that I was insane and to this day, he’s never had any contact with Avery and people from our art school still believe I’m a stalker.”
Meg nodded encouragingly. “Good job sharing with us, Fiona.”
I nodded back at her and sat down heavily. There. I’d said it. Everyone knew that a guy who was willing to screw me was too ashamed to admit it. That was how embarrassing he’d found me. Just the memory made my skin feel too tight and the press of my leggings into my stomach feel grotesque, like my belly was probably protruding out in every direction. I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.
Jake leaned over and whispered with his mouth right against my ear. “Do you think Carl is watching this and rating our traumas? Zero for go home and get over it to ten for don’t leave any sharp shit around? Highest score gets a free fart suit?”
I pressed my lips together tightly and tried not to smile. I knew he was trying to make me feel better and I appreciated it more than he could know. “Highest score gets a carb, maybe?”
Meg clapped her hands together even louder and pointed to the tabletop fireplace just outside of the cabin. “I want everyone to silently reflect about their personal trauma for a while now. Sit in it and let those feelings come to the surface. We’re going to take our traumas and burn them soon. We’re going to let go of our traumas and open ourselves up for a better life.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to sit in silence with my thoughts but no one else complained or ran out crying so I crossed my legs and bobbed my foot. I could hang out with my thoughts. No big deal.
After ten minutes I made a promise to myself that I would kill Mallory if I survived.
6
***Fiona***
Isank to the floor just inside our cabin and groaned. “I hate my sister. I spent every day teaching a couple hundred teenagers about art and every night listening to Avery tell me about space. I sell art at the farmer’s market on the weekends. I just wanted a break. A tiny, little break.”
Ryder stepped over me and went straight to the bathroom. “I’m going to shower off all of the emotions from today.”
Jake went right to the folded out couch and sat down. “Am I remembering correctly? Did someone try to align my chakras today?”
Sebastian closed the cabin door and stared down at me with his hands on his hips. “Try? You mean your chakras aren’t perfectly aligned now? Get off the floor, Fiona. There’s no telling what Carl does in here.”
I shook my head. “I don’t care. We started this day thirteen and a half hours ago. They made us do yoga twice. Is that even safe? And the woman who did the chakra alignment hated me. She pinched me and told me she could see my chakras not taking her seriously. But I was! At least, I was trying to.”
“She pinched you?” Jake snorted. “Wow. She was very sweet to me.”
I waved my arm in the air at him. “Of course, she was. Everyone loves y’all. Carl said he was so impressed with how open each of you are. That woman who served us a leaf and a prayer for dinner was just gawking at the three of you for so long that she accidentally put a few extra pieces of grass on my plate. If Carl had seen that, she would’ve been canned.”
“Someone sounds bitter that they didn’t get to become teacher’s pet.” Sebastian reached down and grabbed my hands. “Come on. Up.”
