I’m glad to hear that, but I still lift an eyebrow at her. “That’s not exactly what I was asking.” The words hang in the air between us and I’m sure she knows exactly what I was getting at, but I don’t push her on it. She’s finally sitting down and opening up to me a little bit, so the last thing I want to do is push too hard and watch her retreat behind those walls again.

The waitress interrupts the tension when she appears with the onion rings I ordered to get us started. But when she slides them across the table and they stop between us, sizzling fresh from the frier, it feels like the energy starts to sizzle with them. Hannah thanks the waitress and impatiently reaches out to grab an onion ring from the stack, breaking the tension.

“I’m ravenous,” she says and takes a bite, but she makes a pained face and exhales sharply at how hot the onion ring is. “Oh my god, that’s scorching.”

“Yeah, you should probably let it cool down a bit first. Did you not have lunch?”

Hannah shakes her head. “I don’t always get the chance to eat during the day between classes and teaching, so I’m usually starving by the end of the day.”

“Can’t you bring a lunch with you?”

“Sure, but when would I have time to eat it?” Hannah asks as she lifts the steaming onion ring to her mouth and takes another bite. But she’s at least prepared for the heat this time, so it doesn’t look like it’s as much of a surprise. I pinch a ring from the stack myself but blow on it a few times before I even think about biting into it.

“School sounds pretty stressful.”

Hannah scoffs. “That’s putting it lightly. I have a big test coming up that’s really freaking me out. But school in general stresses me out.”

“Really? You seem like you’re on top of things, at least from the outside.”

Hannah smiles as she chews, then covers her mouth with her free hand. “I guess I’m good at faking it then.”

I bite back the obvious joke, and I can tell from the way Hannah’s watching me that she’s waiting for me to take the bait. “I can relate. I struggled in school a bit too,” I say instead and take a bite of the onion ring, hoping she won’t ask me to elaborate. It’s not that I don’t want to be open with her about my experience, I’m just not ready to share it with her yet.

“Honestly, I don’t know how I’d get through it if I didn’t have yoga. It really helps me clear my head when everything’s piling up and getting intense.”