Gemma is waiting when I get back.
She's sitting cross-legged on her bed with the particular expression that means a serious conversation is coming whether I want it or not. Her laptop is closed beside her, textbooks stacked in a way that suggests she's been here a while, preparing for whatever version of me walks through the door.
"How'd it go?" she asks, watching me drop my bag and sink onto my own mattress.
"About how you'd expect." I pull my knees up to my chest, making myself smaller. "He saw me with Zachary. At the café. That's why he moved on so fast."
"Shit." Gemma unfolds her legs and leans forward. "Did he yell at you?"
"No. That would have been easier." I press my forehead against my knees. "He was kind about it. Told me he deserved someone who chose him in daylight."
"He's not wrong."
"I know he's not wrong. That's the problem."
Silence settles between us, but it's the comfortable kind—the kind that exists between people who've learned to share space without filling it. Gemma watches me with an expression I can't quite read, and I wait for the advice I know is coming. The lecture about communication. The gentle reminder that I brought this on myself.
Instead, she says something I don't expect.
"I ever tell you about Marcus?"
I lift my head. "Your ex from freshman year? You mentioned him once, I think."
"I didn't tell you the real story." She shifts position, tucking her feet beneath her in a way that looks like she's settling in for something longer than small talk. "We dated for six months. He was perfect—or at least he seemed perfect. Smart, ambitious, came from money but didn't act like it. My parents loved him."
"What happened?"
"He proposed." The word lands between us with weight I wasn't expecting. "Six months in. We were nineteen, Violet. Barely old enough to buy cigarettes, and he wanted me to promise him forever."
I stare at her. "You never told me that."
"Because it still embarrasses me." She laughs, but the sound carries more pain than humor. "Not the proposal. The way I handled it. He did this whole elaborate thing—restaurant, flowers, got down on one knee in front of everyone. And I just sat there frozen, trying to figure out how to say yes to something I wasn't ready for because saying no felt impossible."
"What did you say?"
"I told him I needed time." Her expression shifts into something distant, remembering. "Which was true. I loved him, or I thought I did. But I was nineteen and terrified, and forever felt like a cage dressed up in a diamond."
"How did he take it?"
"Like I'd stabbed him." Gemma's voice goes quiet. "He couldn't understand why I needed to think about it. In his mind, hesitation meant rejection. If I really loved him, I would have said yes without question. The fact that I wanted time proved I didn't want him enough."
I recognize the logic. It's the same logic that made Marvin's patience wear thin—the assumption that real love should be immediate and certain, never cautious or scared.
"The relationship collapsed after that," Gemma continues. "We tried to keep going, but the proposal hung over everything. He kept waiting for me to change my mind, and I kept feeling like I'd already failed a test I didn't know I was taking. We broke up two months later."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. That's not why I'm telling you this." She meets my eyes with the particular intensity she reserves for things that matter. "I'm telling you because I spent the entire next year convinced I'd destroyed something real. That if I'd just said yes, if I'd trusted the feeling instead of overthinking it, we'd still be together and I'd be happy."
"Were you wrong?"
"Completely." The certainty in her voice surprises me. "Marcus wasn't the right person. The proposal wasn't romantic—it was pressure disguised as romance. He wanted me to prove my love on his timeline, in his way, without caring whether I was ready. That's not partnership. That's performance."
I turn the observation over in my mind, looking for the places where it applies to my own wreckage. "You think that's what I did with Marvin? Refused to perform?"
"I think you refused to perform for the wrong reasons." Gemma's voice is gentle, but the words carry weight. "You weren't protecting yourself from pressure. You were protecting yourself from being seen at all."
The accuracy of it makes my chest tight. "That's different."
"Is it?" She tilts her head, studying me. "You hid Marvin because visibility scared you. You ran from Zachary because intimacy scared you. You've spent months making decisions based on what frightens you instead of what you actually want."
"That's not—"
"The problem isn't that you wanted Zachary," she continues, cutting off my deflection. "It's not that you hurt Marvin or ran when things got real. People do those things all the time. The problem is you keep making choices from fear instead of desire, and fear is a terrible architect for a life worth living."
The observation lands somewhere deep, in the place where I store truths I'm not ready to examine. I want to argue. Want to explain that fear has kept me safe, that protection was necessary, that the walls I built exist for good reasons.
But the words won't come, because some part of me knows she's right.
"I don't know how to stop being afraid," I admit, and my voice comes out smaller than I intended.
"You don't have to stop being afraid." Gemma's expression softens. "You just have to stop letting fear make the decisions. Feel it, acknowledge it, and then ask yourself what you actually want underneath all that self-protection."
"What if I don't know what I want?"
"Then figure it out. But figure it out because you're curious, not because you're running from the alternative."
I don't have a response to that. Don't have arguments or deflections or any of the tools I usually use to avoid uncomfortable truths. I just have the weight of her words settling into my chest, rearranging something I've been holding wrong for a very long time.
Gemma pats the space beside her on the bed. "Come here."
I move without thinking, crossing the narrow gap between our mattresses and settling beside her. She wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close, and I let myself lean into the contact—let myself be held by someone who expects nothing except my presence.
"Heartbreak isn't permanent," she says into my hair. "The mess you've made is recoverable. I promise."
I don't know if I believe her. But I want to, and for the first time in weeks, wanting feels like enough.