Owning up before you’re caught is the cleanest kind of nerve. It leaves nothing hanging over you.

Waiting adds a second thing. The original mistake stays the same size, and on top of it goes the hiding, which people judge far more harshly and which you cannot explain away later. Going first keeps the whole episode as one event. It also ends the background hum of wondering when it surfaces, and that hum usually costs more than the consequence does.

Say it today, before anybody asks, in one go. What happened, what it affects, and what you are going to do about it.