I’d fasted for the first twenty-four hours, and it’d been pretty awful, but I’d pushed myself past the point where I wanted to quit, and it’d been amazing, just like my mentor, Margo, had said it would be. I’d fasted before, but only cleansing diets that asked me to give up food or replace it with a weird powder. Love International didn’t consider that fasting. A true fast meant giving up everything, even water. I’d omitted telling Scott I had planned on doing it this weekend. He hadn’t liked when I’d drunk nothing but raw juice on a thirty-day cleanse once, so he definitely would’ve freaked out about this.

I plopped back down on the bed I’d just made. I wasn’t in any hurry to get home to him. It was getting harder and harder each time, and last night had been especially powerful, which only made it more difficult to leave. Ray had given one of his best talks yet. He had spoken at the end of each day. We’d gathered around him on the grass, sprawled out on blankets.

“Let me ask you this.” His booming voice carried throughout the crowd. “Would you die for what you believed in?” His eyes scanned the crowd. Nobody moved. “Would you?” His voice grew angrier, more intense.

Still nobody spoke. The silence grew. I welcomed it, invited it into my space. I focused on my breath as it left my body and the air that returned to fill it.

“Would you die for what you believed in?” People shifted uncomfortably. All my senses were alert, tuned in. I could feel the vibrations from the people on each side. We all hung there waiting for whatever came next, where all this had been leading. “This isn’t a rhetorical question. Are there any of you out there who have that kind of faith?”

“Yes!” a man finally shouted from the back. I turned around. It was the guy who was going through a rough and bitter divorce. He’d shared his story at the opening gathering, eager to have people shoulder his pain as he walked through it. That’d been his goal for the retreat.

Ray searched through the crowd before spotting him. “You?” He pointed at him. The man nodded, and Ray motioned for him to come forward. The group parted, creating a pathway for him to the front. Ray put his arm around his shoulder when he reached him. The man’s strawberry-blond hair was parted down the middle and tucked behind his ears with perfectly trimmed sideburns.

“What is your name, young man?” Ray asked, even though the man was obviously older than him.

“Kevin,” he said. He puffed his chest out proudly as he stood next to Ray.

“Hi, Kevin, nice to meet you.” He patted him on the back. “And what beliefs would you die for?”

He made a swooping motion across the crowd. “This.”

“Tell me, how many retreats have you been on with Love International?”

“This is my first one.” He beamed.