Chapter 9: "Bound and Centered"

7:00 a.m. — Pop.

You wake up mid-scream.

Not your scream.

Hers.

Your left hand is fused to the inner wrist of a very bendy woman currently mid-cobra pose on your bedroom floor, shrieking like a fire alarm made of essential oils. She looks familiar. Very, very familiar.

“WHO ARE YOU?!”

You sit up. The room spins. Your hand tugs at her wrist and she shrieks again.

“Who are you?!” you yell back.

“I ASKED YOU FIRST!”

It’s at this point your brain, brave little thing, chimes in with two observations:

She looks exactly like Linda-from-HR.

Linda-from-HR has never done a full split while crying.

She gasps. “Wait. You're the Connor.”

“...what?”

“You’re the Connor. My sister told me everything. Everything.”

She’s not calming down.

You try to breathe. She’s not breathing. You are now both doing accidental couple’s pranayama in full panic.

7:12 a.m. — Sun Salutation to Panic Spiral

She’s pacing your living room in a sports bra and flowy yoga pants that have never seen peace. You’re following helplessly, because again, wrist-tethered. Your arm swings behind her like a deeply unqualified emotional support limb.

“Linda warned me you were unpredictable,” she says, mid-pacing. “But this? This is energetic sabotage. This is karma. This is—”

“I didn’t ask for this,” you say for the hundredth time this month.

She stops dead in front of your fridge and whispers, “I’m in a karmic throuple with a stranger.”

You offer her oat milk. She slaps it out of your hand and immediately apologizes. Then cries.

8:45 a.m. — Child Pose, Adult Problems

You sit in the passenger seat while she drives. She insists on it. She says she’s reclaiming power. You don't argue.

Your hand is still fused to her wrist on the wheel.

Her name, you learn, is Crystal.

With a “y.”

You also learn she teaches yoga and trauma-informed breathwork. On Tuesdays she screams into a jar and calls it “energy storage.”

“Why are you crying now?” you ask gently, after the fifth red light meltdown.

“I just feel so many things at once,” she wails, then offers you a gluten-free granola bar as if that makes it fair.

9:22 a.m. — Work, But Flexible

You sneak into the office like a criminal fused to a feelings bomb.

Linda is already at her desk.

She turns slowly.

Crystal waves.

Linda does not wave back.

You make it to your cubicle. Crystal immediately lays across your desk in pigeon pose and refuses to move.

“She needs grounding,” she says to Linda, who has now come over, arms crossed, expression made of knives.

“She’s your twin,” you whisper to Linda.

“She’s your problem,” Linda replies.

Fair.

12:10 p.m. — Lunch with a Side of Screaming

You order both of you salads. Crystal insists on adding six types of seeds “for emotional digestion.” Then she eats yours too and cries about it.

“It’s okay,” she sobs, chewing. “I have a shame metabolism.”

Someone from finance asks if everything is alright.

Crystal explains that you’re soul-bound by a misfired divine contract and you have lessons to learn. You mouth “genie” behind her head.

They back away slowly.

3:33 p.m. — Couples Yoga, Unrequested

There’s an all-hands meeting. Crystal interprets this as a chance to teach “corporate healing.”

She does a demonstration.

You are the demonstration.

In front of the entire company, she uses your fused wrists to anchor a trust pose that leaves you straddling a rolling chair, facing Bryce, who whispers, “I’m so uncomfortable, but I can’t look away.”

6:00 p.m. — Shavasana

Back home. You’re both on the floor. Crystal is finally quiet.

You broke her.

With calm.

“Do you believe in soul contracts now?” she whispers.

“I believe in Wi-Fi and boundaries,” you reply.

She sighs and hands you a lavender-scented stone.

“Hold this. It helps.”

You hold it. Nothing happens.

Except, 7:00 a.m. — Pop.

She’s gone.

In her place: a handwritten note that reads:

“Thank you for the lesson.

P.S. You and Linda have weird energy.

P.P.S. Tell her I still have her essential oils. She knows which ones.”