So Wrong It's Right

PROLOGUE

ZEN AF

I generally think of myself as an even-tempered person.

Calm.

Composed.

Collected.

Cool under pressure.

Hell, I teach yoga, for god's sake. And if ever there was an occasion to not be cool, it's when you're in a 105 degree Bikram studio with your whole body weight resting on your elbows and your legs bent backwards over your head in an inverted sayanasana pose.

Talk about getting bent out of shape for no reason...

Sorry.

What was I saying?

Oh, right.

Me.

Sedate, serene, steady-as-she-goes Shelby Hunt. The quiet woman who lives on the quiet corner of the quiet tree-lined street in the quiet Boston neighborhood. The very picture of suburban bliss, with her two-hundred-dollar haircut, a walk-in-closet full of designer clothes, a new car in the driveway every year, and a handsome, successful husband in her bed every night.

It's such a pretty lie, even I almost believe it.

Almost.

The truth is, there's nothing remotely perfect about my life, or than man I've spent the past decade sharing it with. And there's certainly nothing even slightly quiet about the past few days, given the sheer hell that's broken loose...

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Before I fill you in on the series of unfortunate events that have, for all intents and purposes, flipped my whole world on its axis, I need you to understand something. I'm not some swooning damsel who faints at the first sign of danger and waits for a man to swoop in and save her. I am no delicate flower, wilting in the heat as soon as things don't go my way. It takes a lot to get me worked up; to ruffle the glossy feathers I take such painstaking effort to present to the outside world.

I mean...

I meditate. I garden. I own not one but two aromatherapy candles. (Granted, I only burn them once a year since they smell a bit like patchouli and make my eyes sting... But that's not the point.)

What is my point, you ask?

Simply this: that I, Shelby Hunt, have never been the kind of woman who screams or throws tantrums when life doesn't go her way — which, despite what an outsider might think looking in on my seemingly perfect life, is more often than not.

I take things as they come and don't complain, because, in my experience, complaining rarely accomplishes much of anything. Why bitch over life's many unfortunate twists and turns when, instead, you could take all that useless angst and channel it into something productive? Like, say, the ability to breathe deeply through a head-to-foot sirsa padasana pose, even after your pelvis has lost proper circulation from contorting into a veritable pretzel?

See — I'm totally chill.

Cool as a cucumber.

No.

Cooler than a cucumber.

Placid as a pickle. Even-keeled as an eggplant. Untroubled as a... a...

Curse the lack of produce beginning with the letter U.

Whatever. Fruits and veggies aside, my point remains.

I am zen. Zen as fuck. It's not easy to rattle me.

And yet, I must admit...

Today, I am rattled.

I am not calm.

I am not collected.

I am not cool.

Honestly, though... can you blame me?

I am, after all, currently locked in the trunk of a car with my hands bound together by zip tie and my mouth covered in duct tape, being taken god only knows where by god only knows who, for god only knows what purpose. (Call me crazy, but I have a hunch it doesn't have to do with my rather impressive yoga skills or my impeccable home decor taste or my unparalleled fashion sense.)

The car jolts to a stop.

Trying not to pee my favorite pair of Lululemons, I hear a door open and attempt to draw from that bottomless sense of calm that's gotten me through some rather sticky situations in the past. Like that summer afternoon I blew out a tire on the highway in my two-seater convertible and nearly bit the dust beneath the carriage of an eighteen-wheeler. (Thank god for airbags.) Or the day of my wedding when a flock of pigeons shat all over my ten-thousand dollar white dress as I walked from the limo to the chapel. (Looking back, that was definitely an omen from the universe I shouldn't have ignored.) Or Christmas morning, when Paul hurled my favorite Tiffany-style lamp against the wall six inches from my head in a blind rage. (See what I mean about ignoring that bad marriage omen?)

All those times, I managed to make it through without much more than the faintest uptick in my resting BPM. And yet, as I listen to the crunch of boots on gravel approaching the trunk, I feel my heart thundering like a battering ram, hard enough it could splinter my ribs and tear itself right out of my chest.

My deep breathing techniques have officially fled.

My chakras are decidedly unbalanced.

I am full-on, no holds barred freaking the fuck out.

It's almost ironic. I mean...

Who would've ever in a million years thought I'd wind up here?

Sedate, serene, steady-as-she-goes Shelby Hunt.

Putting the om in OMG, I've been kidnapped.