Home > Centered(6)

Centered(6)
Author: Elise Faber

She lay awake, eyes on the ceiling, already having gone through her tried and true techniques for sleep—quieting her mind by going over the next day’s lesson plan, reviewing the forms she taught her students, the precise combinations of kicks, blocks, and punches came in varying degrees of difficulty based on their level, even counting backward from one hundred—but nothing helped.

Her gaze stayed on the ceiling, her brain was still alert.

Sighing, she pushed out of bed, fingers running over the smoothed edge of the large abalone shell that sat on her nightstand as she went. It was the single bit of clutter in her apartment, but it remained next to her bed, nonetheless. A bed she should be sleeping in, but since she wasn’t, Mia knew it was a pointless endeavor to stay under the covers, counting the minutes until the sun rose. Instead, she padded on bare feet through the apartment that was above the studio, the one she’d purposefully circled the block and entered through the back door instead of the interior one when she realized that Liam was going to sit all night in his car watching the place until he saw her leave.

That probably should have made her instincts prickle uncomfortably, or even to piss her off that the man, the stranger who’d dared put hands on her thought he could out-wait her.

But . . . he seemed lost.

That was her first and most overwhelming thought.

Liam seemed like he had a good core, had been helpful, and was apparently also protective, making sure she got out of the studio okay.

He didn’t know that there was a staircase hidden behind a door in her office, that she lived above, and while he was giving her instincts definite good-person vibes, she also hadn’t wanted him to know where she lived.

She’d spent too long guarding that secret, guarding all her secrets.

Sighing, she turned on the shower, letting the water begin to warm up and thankful that she’d invested in a tankless system for the building a couple of months ago after another in a long line of too many cold showers. Still, it took a few minutes to get hot, so she used her time wisely, brewing a pot of coffee, pulling out what would become her breakfast—a whole wheat bagel, peanut butter, and a banana.

By the time she had laid everything on the counter, the water was warm, so she made her way back into the bathroom, stripped down, and showered.

Wash hair. Wash body. Wash face.

Efficient, graceful movements that didn’t waste water or time.

Nothing extra. No fluff. No girlie fragranced soap or perfumed shampoo. No soft towels or floral-scented wall plug-ins that filled her apartment with the scent of something fanciful and sweet.

There wasn’t room in her life for anything superfluous.

Scents. Men.

They were one in the same to her.

Extra. Meaningless. Of no use.

Or at least, that was what her father had tried to engrain in her.

It had worked for the most part, too, she knew. Aside from a warm shower every morning, she didn’t long for much, was content with her small apartment, her students, her hot water.

She finished washing her face then immediately turned off the water, another expectation entrenched in her by her father, and reached for the plain white towel. They were the same towels she and her father had since after her mother had passed. Thin now, needing replacing, but she still knew that when she bought another set, they wouldn’t be something fluffy and soft and pink.

They would be utilitarian. Steadfast. Efficient.

Just like her.

She slipped on clean underwear, a bra, sweats, and a T-shirt. Moved back to the kitchen to toast her bagel, to get her mix of grains, protein, and fruit. A well-rounded meal to start the day, even though it was—her eyes flicked to the clock—just after three in the morning.

The building housing her apartment and the studio was old. There was always something that needed repair or replacing, though she tended to rely less on duct tape, super glue, and white paint than her old man, and more on YouTube tutorials and proper supplies from the hardware store.

Plenty of elbow grease was required in both instances, however.

And speaking of elbow grease, Mia washed her dishes, set them on the drying rack, and slipped out the front door of her apartment, down the stairs, and into the studio.

She had lived her whole life above the space, knew exactly where to step, how to avoid any obstacles and not trip over anything as she made her way over to the light switch and flicked it on. Then she spent the next few hours doing her least favorite thing in the world . . . disinfecting the foam squares that snapped together to make up the floor.

Clean one side, pull it up, flip it over, sweep beneath, then clean the other. It didn’t take long in the grand scheme of things, less than five minutes per square, but . . . there were a lot of squares.

And so the sun was firmly up by the time she finished.

She glanced over the nearly-sparkling floor for a long moment, thinking about all the times she’d done this before.

Too many to count.

Too many to remember.

Too many times in front of her.

Not liking the sudden tightness that rushed into her at the last thought, Mia tucked the bottle of cleaner away and washed her hands. Then she found her way back out onto the floor, to the X marked with a small strip of tape in the center of the mats, to the spot she’d stood at so often over the years.

Front and center and with plenty of room to move.

This was her favorite place to stand, the spot she always took when they weren’t lined up by rank or when she had to present herself to the judges during a testing ceremony or . . . when she had to present herself to her father.

For his tests. His approval. His—

How was it that he had been gone for five years?

It seemed like yesterday he was standing in front of her, the center judge in a group of others who were testing her on her knowledge and abilities in order to decide if she was worthy of that fifth degree.

Five years of training solely for her current rank, having had to wait that long after gaining her fourth degree, protocol demanding she take the time to train, to focus, to put in the years of effort in order to prove herself worthy of the fifth yellow stripe embroidered into her black belt.

Her father had lived to see her pass that test.

But he had only lived six months beyond it.

She sank onto the mat, her body automatically dropping into the warm-up routine she did in her classes, push-ups and sit-ups, planks, and mountain climbers, feeling her heart begin to beat faster, her body temperature to rise.

When her muscles were loose enough, she stood, stretched for a few moments.

And then she began to move.

There were a number of forms she had to know, both to teach to her students and for her own work toward her sixth degree. She still had at least a year before she’d be ready to test for it, but the sheer volume of knowledge she needed to be able to present at a moment’s notice meant that regular practice was required.

But not only that, the open form she’d been required to prepare—basically she got to make up her own combination of moves as one part of the test—was one of her favorite forms she’d ever done.

Mia had been able to do all her favorite things, play to her strengths, focus on her flexibility, her grace, her ability to transition smoothly from one move to the next.

Inhaling deeply, then releasing her breath slowly, she took one moment to focus.

Then she began to run through that beloved form.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)