I don’t say anything to that, lest he call me out for being presumptuous.
“Okay, last one. Inhale, connecting breath and movement, stretch long as you come back up,” I tell him.
To his credit, he gets that right.
“Next, touch your toes together but keep your heels apart, and then go into a deep bend of the knees until you’re in chair pose.”
He does it as far as his brace will allow but doesn’t put up his arms and starts to rock backward.
I quickly reach over and grab his arms, pulling them up and out in front of him for balance, and the strength of his abs does the rest.
“See, you’re getting it,” I tell him. “Don’t forget to breathe.”
He scowls at that.
“So, people actually do this for fun?”
“Yes,” I assure him. “Fun but also to destress. You learn how to breathe. You learn how to connect to your body. You learn how to be grounded and flexible. All of those things are extremely important for an athlete like you.”
I run him through a few more poses and then make him sit down on the mat, almost cross-legged but not quite, his back straight, chin level, hands upturned on his knees. Then I sit down on the grass right in front of him and go into lotus pose with ease.
He stares at my tangled limbs with wide eyes. “Can I just watch you do the poses instead?”
“This takes practice. I don’t even want you sitting cross-legged because of your knee. Next time I’ll bring a prop so that you have a little more support.”
“Next time,” he says.
“Yeah. Next time. I’m making this a part of your therapy. Believe me, this will help. And most of all, it’s going to help you deal.”
His gaze sharpens. “Deal with what?”
“Being a professional football player.”
“I can deal with that.”
“Can you?” I ask, squinting at him. In the distance, another airplane takes off. “Because you’re injured, which is part of the job, and earlier you seemed to be quite angry at that fact. You think the team is losing because you’re not there. Whether that’s true or not, that’s a lot of weight on your shoulders.”
He stares at me for a moment, and I prepare for him to say something macho and dismissive. But instead he swallows thickly. Nods. “Si. Maybe it would be good for me.” He pauses, looks like he’s about to say something. Then doesn’t.
“What?” I prod.
He licks his lips, eyes resting on the turf between us, the short blades lit by the moon. “I guess I haven’t been myself lately.”
“It’s normal.”
“Do you think…do you really think yoga would help? With…you know, issues?”
“Of course,” I say softly. The whole moment has turned soft, with Alejo talking about something I’m not even aware of. This isn’t just about his knee.
God, how I want him to open up to me.
I want to know the man behind the eyes. Behind the easy smile and jokes and that body of sin.
So I continue to sit there.
I wait for him to be ready.
The night air fills with crickets and humidity.
“My father died when I was young,” he eventually says.
Oh.
That’s where this is going.
“I saw that in your record,” I say, my heart pinching at his admission. “What happened to him? It didn’t say.”
“He hung himself. And I saw him.”
My chest sinks. I immediately lose the pose, shoulders slumping with the weight of his words. “I’m so sorry, Alejo. I am…so, so sorry. I had no idea.”
He gives a little shrug, looking away, the moonlight reflecting in his eyes, which are watering slightly, breaking my heart. “I was young and I took my brother to the beach. My father was a drunk and a gambler and he had gotten fired, so my mother told us to leave. She said he would come home angry. We stayed out for as long as we could and I figured…” He closes his eyes for a moment, breathing hard. “I figured we could come home and he would be passed out or something. I didn’t expect…I didn’t expect to see him like that. I still see it, some nights, when I close my eyes. Like it happened yesterday. And yet, everyone, my mother, my brother, they pretend like it never happened so I have to pretend that it never happened.”
I see a single tear spill out beneath his eye and that’s enough to get me crawling over to him and wrapping my arms around his shoulders. I