The spa smelled like eucalyptus and warm towels, the kind of clean that made your shoulders drop even before the masseuse touched you. Mya lay face-down on the table while a quiet instrumental track hummed from hidden speakers. When the therapist pressed her palms along Mya’s spine—steady, grounding—she felt tension she didn’t know she’d been carrying begin to unspool.
“This,” Trina murmured from the next room over—the walls were thin enough for friendly eavesdropping—“is the only church I recognize.”
Mya almost laughed into the cradle. “Amen.”
They floated out an hour later, relaxed and slightly dazed, hair swept up, skin glowing. Trina adjusted her wrap dress in the full-length mirror by the exit. “We’re getting smoothies,” she declared, “because wellness is ninety percent delusion an
