Zachary’s POV
The bookstore encounter metastasizes into something I can't ignore.
I spend the weekend in the campus apartment, laptop open on projects that don't require my full attention while my mind replays the same scene on an endless loop.
Violet's careful introduction—This is Zachary, someone from my life in New York—landing with the precision of a scalpel designed to excise me from anything that matters. Marvin's hand on her waist, proprietary and confident. The way she leaned into him like gravity was involved.
Someone from my life in New York.
Not friend. Not colleague. Not even former anything. Just someone. A ghost she's explaining away to the man who's replaced me.
I close my laptop and stare at the wall I painted three months ago, back when proximity felt like strategy instead of self-destruction.
I should leave.
The thought arrives with increasing frequency now, carrying the weight of logic I can't argue against. Staying here serves nothing except my own inability to let go. I rented this apartment believing that being near her would eventually become being with her. That patience would transform into opportunity. That loving her from a careful distance was somehow different from obsession.
It's not different. I see that now.
But leaving feels like surrender—like admitting that the strategy was always delusion dressed in reasonable clothing. Like accepting that I lost her before I ever really had her.
Monday morning, I force myself back to Manhattan for meetings I can't postpone. The train feels like escape and defeat simultaneously, each mile between me and her campus registering as both relief and failure. By the time I reach Ward Enterprises, I've constructed something resembling professional composure.
It lasts approximately forty minutes.
Adison notices something wrong immediately. I see it in the way her gaze sharpens during our first meeting, the particular attention she reserves for problems she intends to solve. But she doesn't ask directly—gives me space to offer or refuse—and I appreciate the restraint even as it makes my silence heavier.
The second meeting passes. The third. Each one requires a performance I'm barely managing, my mind drifting back to bookstore shelves and Violet's expression when she saw me standing there. Surprise bleeding into something carefully neutral. The walls going up before I could read what was behind it.
After the third meeting ends, Adison closes her office door behind the departing department heads and turns to face me.
"Sit down."
I remain standing. "I'm fine."
"You look like someone who's been sleeping in a burning building and pretending the smoke doesn't matter." She crosses to her desk but doesn't sit either, leaning against it with arms folded. "How long are we going to pretend I don't notice?"
"Notice what?"
"Zachary." Her voice carries warning and concern in equal measure. "I've known you for years. You're not fine. You haven't been fine for weeks. And whatever's happening, it's affecting your work."
"My work is impeccable."
"Your work is mechanical." She tilts her head, studying me with the analytical precision that makes her terrifying in negotiations. "You're going through motions. Executing tasks. But you're not actually here. So tell me what's going on, or I'll start guessing, and we both know I'm good at guessing."
The silence stretches between us. I could deflect. Could manufacture an excuse about stress or workload or anything that doesn't require confession. But Adison has earned honesty from me, and lying to her feels like a betrayal I'm not willing to add to my growing collection.
"I rented an apartment near Violet's campus."
Her expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind her eyes. "When?"
"Months ago. After she came back from visiting you and Elijah." I move to the window because looking at her feels impossible right now. "I told myself it was strategic. That being nearby would give us opportunities to reconnect. That proximity would eventually become something else."
"And has it?"
"She's dating someone." The words taste like ash. "I saw them together. At a bookstore near campus. He had his hand on her waist like he owned her, and she introduced me as 'someone from her life in New York.' Not a friend. Not anything. Just someone."
Adison is quiet for a moment. "What did you expect her to say?"
"I don't know." I turn back to face her, and the honesty costs more than I anticipated. "I've been existing in her orbit hoping that would mean something. Hoping she'd see me there and understand that I hadn't given up. But she's clearly chosen someone who isn't me, and staying feels pathetic now. Like I'm haunting a life she's already moved past."
"So leave."
"I should." My jaw tightens. "But leaving feels like admitting that loving her from a distance was always a delusion. That I wasted months pretending patience was a strategy when it was just cowardice dressed up as something noble."
Adison pushes off from her desk and crosses to stand beside me at the window. The city spreads below us, indifferent to the particular shape of my devastation.
"Let me ask you something," she says quietly. "And I want an honest answer, not the one you think sounds reasonable."
"Fine."
"What do you actually want?" She turns to look at me directly. "Not what's rational. Not what's respectful or appropriate or strategically sound. What do you want?"
The question lands like a blade between my ribs.
I want her to choose me. Want her to look at Marvin and see everything he lacks compared to what we could be. Want her to show up at my door and tell me that six months of silence was a mistake she's ready to correct. Want the future I've been imagining since she first walked into my life—messy and complicated and worth every obstacle.
But saying any of that out loud would sound like desperation. Would confirm what I already know: that wanting someone who doesn't want you back is its own kind of madness, and I've been living inside it for longer than I want to admit.
"I don't have an answer that won't sound pathetic," I finally say.
Adison nods slowly, like my silence told her everything my words refused to.
"Maybe that's your answer," she says. "Maybe you need to figure out what you want before you can figure out what to do about it."
She returns to her desk, pulling up the afternoon's agenda, giving me space to reassemble whatever's left of my composure.
I stand at the window a moment longer, watching Manhattan pulse with the lives of people who probably know exactly what they want.
I used to be one of them.
I'm not sure what I am now.