The Tortoise and His Sunrise | ✓

31. Freedom

Beside Nolan, who was sipping from his mug of hot chocolate, I looked across the booth we were sitting in at Ashley and Cody, who were—from what I could tell—arguing about the plot of a book. It was good to know that some things never changed.

At Ashley's insistence, all four of us met up together for dinner or supper once a week to catch up on each other's lives. Although she and I saw each other pretty often, I was still all for this since I felt it was a good way to maintain our friendship as a group.

While Ashley had her own flourishing social circle here, I could tell that she missed the way it used to be when we were at Fairwood Academy. Back then, we saw each other all the time.

I nudged Nolan. When he glanced over, I blinked rapidly at him and jerked my chin in their direction.

Before we came here, Nolan and I had already talked about this in private—we were going to let them know that they no longer had to accommodate to Nolan's photosensitivity when we were all making plans together.

"So, guys," he said, instantly drawing their attention to him. "You know how I can only go out in the evening? Just wanted to let you all know that I'm fine now. If you guys want to eat breakfast or lunch or anything like that, we can do that."

A huge grin surfaced on Cody's face. "Whoa, that's great, man!"

"What?" Ashley blurted out with wide, excited eyes. "That's amazing! How come?"

"Um ..." both Nolan and I said in unison.

I genuinely hadn't predicted this question. I had kind of thought that they would just accept this and be happy about it.

They looked mildly confused when his eyes darted to my face before returning to theirs.

"Well ... it's kind of personal," Nolan said slowly.

Perfect. There wasn't much anyone could say to refute that.

"Oh, of course!" Ashley said hastily. "I'm not pressuring you to share. It's just great to hear. I'm so happy for you. And now we can even go on road trips and stuff!"

Upon hearing that, I did a double take. "You wanted to go on a roadtrip?"

She gave a half-shrug. "It was actually more of Melissa's idea, but yeah. Wouldn't it be nice?"

"I like the sound of that," Nolan said.

I beamed.

"Let's tell Melissa and Derek," Ashley said, pulling out her phone, "since we're still planning our next outing anyway."

"Oh, yeah! We should." I leaned over a little to nudge Nolan's side. "Do you want to be the one to tell them?"

He shrugged. "I don't mind either way, but sure."

He typed up a message informing Melissa and Derek and sent it in our group chat. Their respective responses arrived relatively quickly, exclaiming their delight in the news.

True to form, Melissa wasted no time in suggesting going on a road trip or a day hike as a group. Nolan agreed and everyone began discussing it in the group chat.

The huge weight sitting on my chest for the last few months had mostly disappeared on the day that Nolan regained consciousness after the sunrise, but now that we had broken the news to our friends, a sense of lightness floated through me.

All of our previous struggles were finally, and truly, over. We no longer had to worry about hiding this from our friends, or family, or any other people we would possibly meet in the future.

We could just be together.

"Wow," Ashley said, looking down at Nolan's already half-empty plate. "Your appetite is really good today."