Violet’s POV
I tell Adison at breakfast that I have plans with friends and might stay over, and the lie tastes like cowardice in my mouth—familiar and bitter.
"Just some girls from the office." I push eggs around my plate without eating them. "We're doing dinner and drinks, might crash at someone's place after."
The words come out smooth because I've had years of practice. I've weaponized lying into an art form, turned deception into armor I wear so naturally most people never see the person underneath.
But somehow lying to Adison now feels different.
Feels worse.
She takes a sip of her coffee, studying me over the rim of her mug with the kind of attention that makes my skin prickle. Then she sets it down with the careful precision of someone who's done being performed at.
"You've been different since last Friday." Her voice carries no judgment, just observation. "Distracted. Jumpy. I'd bet five hundred dollars you had a sex with Zachary."
The statement lands like exposure under surgical lighting.
Every instinct I have screams to deflect, to laugh it off, to construct another lie that's just plausible enough to sell.
But I'm staring at Adison's face—at the exhaustion she's wearing like a second skin, at the loneliness Jake left behind when he chose Texas over showing up—and something in me breaks.
"Yes." The confession scrapes out raw. "I did."
Shame floods my chest in ways I didn't expect. Not shame about the sex itself—that was honest and wanted and mine to choose. But shame about hiding it. About defaulting to deception when honesty might actually be an option now.
I brace for judgment or concern or the kind of protective older-sister intervention that would make this whole thing feel smaller and more shameful than it already does.
Instead Adison smiles.
Actually smiles.
"I'm happy for you." She reaches across the table, squeezing my hand once. "Both of you. I hope you have a great weekend."
The acceptance is so unexpected that I feel something crack open inside my ribcage. Permission I didn't know I needed. Validation from someone whose opinion suddenly matters more than it should.
"You're not going to tell me I'm making a mistake?" My voice comes out smaller than I intended. "That he's too old or I'm too young or this is going to end badly?"
"Would you listen if I did?" She raises an eyebrow, and there's something affectionate in her expression.
"Probably not." I admit it because what's the point of lying now. "But I thought you'd at least try."
"Violet." She leans back in her chair, one hand resting on her barely-there belly. "You're an adult. You get to make your own choices, even the complicated ones. Especially the complicated ones."
The statement hits deeper than it should.
Because she's giving me something no one else ever has—autonomy without conditions. Trust without requiring I prove myself first.
I seize the vulnerability before I can talk myself out of it.
"What even is this thing between us?" The words tumble out too fast. "University starts in three weeks. How does this survive when I go on campus and he's here and proximity becomes impossible? When the age gap stops being romantic and starts being a logistical nightmare nobody can solve?"
Adison takes another sip of coffee, and I watch her choose her words with the care of someone who knows they matter.
"Enjoy the moment." Her voice is gentle but certain. "Stop catastrophizing the future when the present is right here offering itself up. You'll figure out the rest when you need to."
The advice sounds simple but feels revolutionary coming from someone who's currently pregnant and alone because she couldn't follow it herself. Because she and Jake spent so much time negotiating the impossible that they forgot to just exist together while they could.
"Is that what you wish you'd done?" I ask quietly. "With Jake?"
Something flickers across her face—regret mixed with resignation. "Maybe. Or maybe some things are just hard no matter how you approach them. But at least if you focus on right now, you get to have right now. The future's going to come whether you spend the present worrying about it or not."
The wisdom in that undoes me.
"Thank you." I stand up, moving around the table to hug her. "For not making this weird. For just—for letting me have this."
"Always." She holds me tight for a moment. "Now go get ready. I assume Zachary's picking you up soon?"
"An hour." The admission feels like confession and celebration combined.
She releases me with a smile that looks almost maternal, and I disappear into my room feeling lighter than I have in days.
* * *
Zachary picks me up exactly on time, and there's something different in his expression when I slide into the passenger seat.
Anticipation mixed with nerves. Like he's planned something that matters.
"Where are we going?" I buckle my seatbelt, studying his profile.
"Somewhere." He pulls into traffic with deliberate focus. "That's all you're getting."
"That's not an answer." I try to sound annoyed but it comes out playful instead.
"It's the only answer you're getting." His mouth quirks slightly. "You'll see when we get there."
"You're infuriating." I settle back in my seat, watching Manhattan blur past the windows.
"You like it." He glances at me briefly, and the heat in his gaze makes my stomach flip.
"Maybe I do." The admission tastes like truth.
We drive in comfortable silence, the city giving way to the highway, buildings shrinking in the rearview mirror. I watch him drive—one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his thigh—and realize with terrifying clarity that something fundamental has shifted inside me.
I've stopped trying to protect myself from whatever this is.
Stopped cataloging all the ways it could hurt me. Stopped building escape routes for when it inevitably falls apart.
Somewhere between last Friday night and this Saturday morning, I started hoping instead.
Hoping this might actually be something worth the inevitable wreckage. Worth the complications and age gaps and impossible timelines. Worth showing up for even when every logical part of my brain is screaming that I should run.
"You're staring." Zachary's voice pulls me back.
"I'm thinking." I don't look away.
"About?" He merges onto a different highway, heading north.
"About how terrifying this is." The honesty comes easier than expected. "How much I want it anyway."
His hand finds mine across the center console, fingers threading through mine with casual certainty that makes my chest ache.
"Me too." He squeezes once. "On both counts."
We keep driving, leaving Manhattan farther behind with every mile, and I let myself sink into the moment without demanding it promise me a future it can't guarantee.
Just this. Just now. Just the two of us heading somewhere unknown together.