The silence was shattered by a bolder question, a request that tested the boundaries.
"Elara," Kael whispered, his voice hoarse with pent-up emotion. "May I hold your hand?"
The question hung between them, sharp and unexpected. Elara felt the world spin faster. On one side, a voice in her head screamed about betrayal, about the wedding vows she had made to David, about the life they had built. It was a sin, and she knew it.
But on the other side, there was a longing deeper and more primal than logic. A longing that had been gnawing at her soul for weeks, that made her cry on the balcony and lie awake at night. A longing for the touch of this one man.
The internal battle was fierce, but brief. The heart had defeated reason.
With eyes still glistening, Elara nodded. A nod that was almost imperceptible, filled with hesitation and surrender.
Kael then reached out his hand. Slowly, as if approaching a frightened bird, he encircled his fingers around Elara's hand, which lay helplessly on the table.
The moment their skin touched, a jolt of electricity shot straight to Elara's heart. It felt like coming home after a long, exhausting journey. It was the same hand that had always held hers firmly, in a way that made her feel both safe and alive at the same time. The texture of his skin, its warmth, it was all too familiar, a sensory memory that instantly transported her ten years back, to being the young and passionate Elara once more.
And then, uncontrollably, another one of her tears fell. No longer a slow trickle, but a large drop that landed right on the back of Kael's hand as it held hers tightly.
Kael saw that teardrop, and his face contorted with deep pain. Without hesitation, he raised his free hand and gently touched Elara's wet cheek. His calloused yet soft fingertips wiped away the trail of tears.
"I'm still the same, Elara," he whispered, his eyes never leaving hers, piercing directly into her soul. "I'm still the man you once knew. The same man who fell in love with you on that rooftop."
Elara sobbed, but still couldn't utter a single word. Her mouth felt locked shut by the storm of guilt, longing, and a love that had never truly been extinguished.
Seeing her speechless, Kael continued to speak, his voice a low, confident murmur, pouring out the contents of his heart that he had kept locked away for ten years.
"My feelings for you," he continued, his fingers still softly resting on her cheek, "to this very day, are exactly the same as they were back then. They never changed, El. They never faded. I tried to move on, to marry, to have a family... but in here," he tapped his chest with the hand still holding Elara's, "there was always an empty space that only you could fill."
He took a deep breath, his own eyes growing watery now.
"Finally," he said, with the utmost relief and triumph, "I've found you again, Elara."
And for the first time since their encounter in this cafe, Elara closed her eyes. Not to escape, but to absorb every word, every touch, every truth that was finally being revealed. In the darkness behind her closed eyelids, she didn't see David. She only saw her twenty-year-old self, and the man sitting across from her, who felt as if he had held her hand for the last time only yesterday.