Violet’s POV
Adison corners me in the kitchen while Elijah naps in the nursery.
The conversation I've been avoiding arrives with the precision of someone who learned interrogation techniques in corporate boardrooms. She leans against the counter, arms crossed, watching me pretend to be interested in the contents of her refrigerator.
"Are you going to tell me what happened, or should I start guessing?" Her voice is calm. At the same time, it’s also patient and terrifying.
"Nothing happened." I pull out a bottle of water I don't want. "I told you, I just needed some air last night."
"Air." She repeats the word like she's examining it for defects. "You needed air for twelve hours. And came back looking like someone ran you over emotionally and then reversed to make sure they finished the job."
I close the refrigerator and meet her eyes. I feel my defenses crumble because lying to Adison has never worked anyway.
"I saw Zachary."
"I know you saw Zachary. He was here too." She tilts her head. "I'm asking what happened after you left without saying goodbye."
The accusation lands where she aimed it. I take a breath that doesn't help.
"We went to his place." The words taste like confession. "We talked. We didn't talk. We—" I stop because finishing that sentence feels like handing her ammunition.
Adison's expression softens into something that looks like understanding dressed as concern.
"Violet." She moves closer. "What broke?"
The question cracks something open I thought I'd successfully sealed.
"Everything." My voice comes out smaller than I intended. "Seeing him broke everything. One night reminded me exactly how much I've been pretending not to feel, and walking away this morning was the right choice and also the hardest thing I've done since leaving for university."
Adison doesn't flinch. Doesn't even judge. Just listens with the patient intensity of someone who understands impossible love from the inside.
"Why was it the right choice?"
"Because wanting someone doesn't mean you get to have them." I set the water bottle down hard enough to make it thunk against the counter. "Because our lives don't fit together. Because I'm supposed to be building something at university that doesn't include him."
"That sounds like logic." She moves to stand beside me. "How does it feel?"
"Like I'm dying slowly and pretending it's fine."
She reaches for my hand. Squeezes once.
"Feelings don't follow logic, Violet." Her voice is gentle but unsparing. "And pretending they do only delays the reckoning. Trust me on that."
"What am I supposed to do? Drop everything and move to Manhattan for a man who hasn't asked me to stay?"
"I don't know." Her honesty cuts cleaner than platitudes would. "But I know that burying what you feel doesn't make it disappear. It just makes it fester."
I don't have an answer for that. Neither does she.
* * *
Later, I find Jake on the balcony staring at a skyline that clearly feels like a cage.
His shoulders carry tension I recognize from months of watching him navigate a world that doesn't fit his body. The city glitters beneath us, indifferent and endless, and Jake looks at it like he's searching for something he knows isn't there.
"How are you managing?" I ask it directly. Not the polite version—the real question.
He turns and studies my face like he's deciding whether I actually want the truth.
"You want the answer I give Adison, or the honest one?"
"The honest one."
He exhales, turning back to the skyline.
"There's this restlessness that lives under my skin here." His voice is rough with admission. "Constant. Like my body knows it's in the wrong place even when my heart doesn't."
"You miss the ranch."
"I miss land." He grips the balcony railing. "I miss horses and physical work and the rhythm of days that make sense. I miss knowing what I'm supposed to do with my hands."
The confession settles between us with the weight of something he doesn't say often.
"You love Adison."
"More than I knew I could love anyone." He doesn't hesitate. "And I love Elijah. God, that boy—" His voice cracks slightly. "I'd rearrange the whole world for him if I could."
"But loving them doesn't make this feel like home."
"No." The word is quiet. Honest. "Loving them makes me want to find a way to make it work anyway."
"How?"
He finally looks at me. Really looks.
"We're figuring it out together. Building something that honors both worlds instead of forcing either of us to shrink." His jaw tightens. "Some days it feels possible. Some days I want to throw myself off this balcony just to feel something that isn't concrete."
"Jake—"
"I'm not going to." He manages half a smile. "But the wanting is real. The displacement is real. And I'm learning that pretending it isn't doesn't make either of us happy."
I nod. Say the right things about compromise and patience and the life they're building. But later, alone in the guest room, the doubt resurfaces with familiar certainty.
Adison and Jake have a child binding them together. They have years of history and a marriage built on choosing each other through crisis after crisis. When the world tried to separate them, they had foundations strong enough to rebuild on.
What Zachary and I have is heat and history and a chasm neither of us knows how to cross.
Jake talked about figuring it out together, but he and Adison started together. They had Texas. They had the ranch. They had months of learning each other's rhythms before Manhattan ever entered the equation.
Zachary and I have six months of silence and one night that proved distance changed nothing except our ability to pretend we were fine.
I lie in the dark and examine the architecture of impossibility. His life is here—managing Adison's empire, anchored to this city by responsibility and ambition. My life is at university—friendships and routines and an identity I built in a world that doesn't include him.
I don't believe I could exist between two worlds the way they do. Some distances aren't meant to be bridged. They’re only accepted.