POV: Ava Sinclair
I stand in front of my mirror at seven in the evening and I have an honest conversation with myself that goes like this.
I ask: are you ready for this?
I answer: that is the wrong question.
I ask: what is the right question?
I answer: whether you are going to keep using not ready as a reason to stay inside a perimeter that stopped being necessary weeks ago.
The answer to that is no. The perimeter was real and it was useful and I built it for good reasons and I am done hiding behind it.
I get dressed. I look at myself in the mirror one more time. I say out loud to the empty room: you walked out of a field and kept walking and built something. You are allowed to want something now. You are allowed to walk toward it.
I go.
He has chosen a restaurant that is quiet an
