The confidant
Adrian's POV He didn't go to Maya. He watched her through the diner window, watched Serena leave, watched Maya sit alone with a secret she wouldn't share. He saw her type something on her phone. Saw her stare at the screen. Saw her walk out into the cold without looking for him. He didn't call out. Instead, he went to the one person who had known him before the architecture fully took. Before Maya. Before Elena. Before the seat and the scandal and the burning. "Ethan." The apartment was familiar. Messy in the way of people who had never been trained to perform order. Textbooks stacked on the floor, a guitar in the corner that Ethan couldn't play, posters from concerts they had attended at sixteen — before the Cole name became a burden, before Adrian learned to calculate every breath.
- Writer
