Violet’s reflections accompany each chapter as she looks back on her experience and puts the pieces together.
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Before I ever met Jack Stallings, we spent a week messaging on a popular dating app. I don’t have screenshots from that time, but I remember the tone: warm, attentive, a little flirty for someone I’d never met but not completely out of the ordinary.
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The second date with Jack Stallings felt easy in a way that surprised me. After twenty‑five years in a marriage where emotional connection had become thin and uneven, the sudden warmth of someone paying attention felt energizing.
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I felt wanted. Not casually, not politely — intensely. The late‑night texts, the way he kept the conversations going long after midnight, the mix of flirting and tenderness — it all felt like momentum. Like something building. I felt chosen.
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The election night gathering felt like another step forward — familiar, warm, and strangely intimate for how little time had passed. Jack Stallings picking her up felt thoughtful.
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By this point, the connection was no longer just moving quickly. It was beginning to feel full. The conversations moved easily between humor, flirtation, sex, work, parenting, faith, values, and ordinary life.
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At the time, the messages between the sermon date and the sunset date felt like connection deepening. Jack Stallings was attentive. He was specific. He noticed things about me that felt small enough to matter: baseball, my credo, my humor, my socks, the way I kissed him, the way I…
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At the time, the messages between the sermon date and the sunset date felt like connection deepening. Jack Stallings was attentive. He was specific. He noticed things about me that felt small enough to matter: baseball, my credo, my humor, my socks, the way I kissed him, the way I…
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I was furious. Not jealous. Not possessive. There was no confusion about whether I had some claim on Jack after two weeks. Furious. Because the issue was never
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I was still not planning to continue dating Jack. The problem from the gazebo had not disappeared. I knew he had difficulty being honest. I knew he had withheld information that should have been mine before we became intimate. Spending a lovely Sunday together did not change that.
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By the time Jack came over that Sunday night, I was exhausted. The week had not gone the way I expected. I had been trying to make room for a conversation I knew we needed to have, and then life interrupted. I had to travel unexpectedly. I came home emotionally…
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By the time Jack finally told me what had happened over Thanksgiving, I was already frustrated. The warmth had been there. He had stayed over. He had left his clothes at my house. He had told me he wished we could have two Saturdays a week. He had flirted with…
