[Epilogue. Six Months Later]
Turns out I'm pretty fucking good at astrophysics.
UT Austin accepted me with a research assistantship. Grad student stipends are basically legalized poverty, but combined with ranch income? We made it work.
Mornings at five. Jake handled livestock while I knocked out problem sets in his office—our office. Business accounts, vendor invoices, feed schedules. Managing a ranch used the same skills as surviving Manhattan society. Just with more mud and fewer passive-aggressive socialites.
"You coming to the barn?" Jake's voice through the window. "North fence needs attention."
"Ten minutes. Finishing this regression analysis."
"That's what you said an hour ago."
His laugh carried across the yard. "Nerd."
"Cowboy."
Six months of learning each other's patterns until we moved like one organism with two bodies. He knew I needed morning silence for studying. I knew he needed afternoon help with heavy lifting. We met in the middle and built something that worked.
My thesis advisor, Dr. Blake, had been skeptical. Twenty-one-year-old Columbia dropout? Not promising. Then I submitted my first paper—stellar evolution models with new computational approaches—and she'd called me in looking personally offended.
"This is publishable."
Oh. Well then.
Three papers now. Two published, one under review. My name in actual academic journals that actual scientists read. Professors asked my opinion in seminars. Requested my input on research. Treated me like someone whose brain mattered more than my last name.
That's all I'd ever wanted. To be seen as the person I actually was.
Came home to Jake asking real questions. What did you learn? Explain stellar nucleosynthesis again because I definitely didn't understand the first time.
We cooked dinner together. Talked about everything. His expansion plans. My mathematical frustrations. Whether Tommy would ever ask out the feed store girl.
The bunkhouse-turned-observatory became my sanctuary. Star charts on walls. Textbooks in precarious towers. Telescope pointed at whatever celestial object I was obsessed with. Most nights though, I ended up in our bed anyway. Sleeping alone felt wrong after six months of tangled limbs and whispered conversations in the dark.
Tommy had loud opinions about this.
"You two are disgustingly in love. It's offensive."
"Ask out the feed store girl, Tommy."
"What if she says no?"
"Then you'll know. Better than wondering forever."
Sarah stopped by weekly. Told me over wine that she'd never seen Jake this happy. That he looked at me like I was the only thing in the room worth seeing.
"Don't fuck it up," she said.
"Planning not to."
The local community adjusted. Age gap that raised eyebrows became just part of our story. Diner waitresses asked about classes. Feed store owners wanted conference updates. Tommy's mom brought casseroles and said I needed feeding.
Being known. Being accepted. Being Adison. Finally.
Sunday morning. No alarms. Sunlight streaming through windows that needed cleaning but wouldn't get cleaned because we had better things to do.
Jake traced lazy patterns on my shoulder while I read from an astrophysics journal. Something about neutron star collisions.
"So the r-process nucleosynthesis occurs during the merger event—"
"You're so fucking smart." Sleep-rough voice. Reverent.
"You don't understand a word I'm saying."
"Don't have to. Just like watching your brain work."
I set down the journal. Turned to face him. "Do you regret it? How complicated everything became?"
"Only thing I regret is not admitting I wanted you sooner."
"But would we appreciate this as much? If it'd been easy?"
"Probably not." He pulled me closer. "Though I could've done without your father trying to destroy my life."
Dad had called three weeks ago. Stilted conversation. Asked how I was doing. Didn't apologize—Richard Ward didn't do apologies—but the call itself was something.
I'd told him I was thriving. Didn't need his money or approval or his version of my life.
He'd been quiet. Then: "Your mother would be proud."
Highest compliment he knew how to give.
"What about the future?" I asked. "We never really talk about after."
"After what?"
"After my PhD. After you expand. After everything."
Jake was quiet. Then he shifted, reaching for something on his nightstand. When he turned back, there was a small box in his hand.
My heart stopped.
"Was gonna wait," he said. "Make it perfect. Fancy dinner or sunset or some romantic bullshit. But this—" He gestured at us, the rumpled sheets, the sunlight, the absolute ordinary perfection of it. "This is us. This is real. So fuck waiting."
He opened the box. Simple gold band with a small diamond. Nothing ostentatious. Nothing Manhattan. Just—right.
"Marry me, Adison." Not a question. A statement. "Not because it makes sense or looks good or anyone expects it. Marry me because I love you. Because you're brilliant and stubborn and brave enough to burn down your entire life for something real. Because I want every morning like this one for the rest of my life."
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Could only stare at this impossible man who'd built me an observatory and supported my dreams and was now asking me to choose him forever.
"That's not actually a question," I managed.
"Will you marry me?" Corrected. Small smile. Nervous energy I'd never seen on him before. "Better?"
"The ring—"
"Was my grandmother's. Only valuable thing I own. Same one I was gonna give your mother before—" He stopped. "But this isn't about her. This is about you. About us. If you don't want it because of the history—"
"I want it." The words came out fierce. Certain. "I want you. Want this. Want every morning and every night and every complicated, messy, perfect moment."
"Is that a yes?"
"Yes, you emotionally constipated cowboy. Yes."
He slid the ring on my finger. Perfect fit. Like it'd been waiting for me all along.
Then he kissed me—deep, thorough, full of promise and relief and love so big it didn't fit in the room, in the ranch, in the entire state of Texas.
"We doing this?" I asked when we came up for air. "Really doing this?"
"Already did it the day you chose me over everything else. This is just making it official."
We lay there as sun climbed higher. Neither rushing to start the day. His hand found mine, thumb tracing the ring, and we talked about the future—post-doc somewhere nearby, expanding the ranch, the life we'd build together that belonged to no one but us.
"What're you thinking?" His voice was soft.
"That I traded a penthouse for a ranch house. A trust fund for calloused hands and early mornings. Everything I was raised to value for everything I actually needed."
"Regret it?"
"Not even a little. I'd make that choice again every single day."
"Even though you're stuck with me now? No returns, no exchanges?"
"Especially because I'm stuck with you."
Outside, Texas stretched forever. Inside, we'd built something that belonged only to us. No father's approval required. No trust fund needed. Just two people who'd chosen each other despite everything saying it was impossible.
I thought about Manhattan. The life I could've had—safe, predictable, suffocating. Thought about Charles and political campaigns and charity galas where I'd have smiled and slowly died inside.
Then I looked at Jake—scruffy, impossible, mine—and the ring on my finger and the ranch that had become home and the telescope waiting and the research papers with my name and the future spreading wide and uncertain and beautiful ahead of us.
This is what freedom feels like.
THE END