He worked through the left shoulder first, his thumbs pressing into the muscle there and holding, feeling it resist and then slowly give way under the sustained pressure. Grace made small sounds into the mat with each specific point he found, the sounds of someone experiencing the specific relief that only arrived when something that had been held too long was finally being addressed.
He moved down the center line of her spine next, his palms flat, working slowly downward, feeling the tension sitting in layers along it, some of it recent and some of it older, the kind of tension that had been added to week after week without anything being removed.
"That's been there a while," he said.
"I know," she said into the mat.
He worked on it until he felt it change under his hands, the muscle softening slightly, the resistance dropping from something fixed to something that was at least willing to negotiate.
Then he got to the lower right.
