The city lights blurred into long streaks of gold and red as I drove home. My life was finally quiet. It wasn't the silence of loneliness anymore; it was the silence of peace. I had spent two years rebuilding the pieces of my soul that she had scattered. I had a new job, a new routine, and most importantly, a new heart.
I stopped at my favorite café, the one I never visited when I was with her. That was my rule: New life, new places. As I waited for my coffee, I looked at my reflection in the glass door. The girl looking back was stronger. Her eyes didn't carry the weight of tears anymore. She looked like someone who had finally won a war against her own memories.
"One Black Coffee," the barista called out.
I reached for the cup, but another hand reached for it at the same time. A hand with a familiar silver ring on the thumb. A ring I had bought in a small shop three summers ago.
My breath hitched. The air in the café suddenly felt too thin to breathe.
"I believe this is mine," a voice said.
That voice. It was lower than I remembered, but it still had that sharp edge that used to make my world spin. I turned slowly, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
There she was.
She looked the same, yet entirely different. Her hair was shorter, her style more refined, but those eyes—they still held the same power. She looked at me, and for a second, the coffee shop disappeared. The two years of healing vanished. I was back in that rain-soaked alleyway where she had left me.
"Hi," she whispered, her gaze scanning my face. "You... you look different."
I tightened my grip on my bag. I wanted to scream, to run, or maybe to ask her why. But I didn't. I stood tall, channeling the person I had become.
"I am different," I replied, my voice steadier than I expected. "The person you knew isn't here anymore."
She stepped closer, the familiar scent of her perfume hitting me like a physical blow. "I know. But I've spent months looking for this version of you."
Before I could respond, my phone buzzed in my pocket. A message from my current life. A reminder that I didn't belong to her past anymore.
"I have to go," I said, turning away before she could see the crack in my armor.
"Wait!" she called out, her voice desperate. "I didn't come back to haunt you. I came back because I have the truth you deserved to hear two years ago."
I didn't stop. I walked out into the cold night air, the engine of my car being the only thing louder than the pounding of my heart. She was back. And just like that, the wall I had built around my heart had its first major crack.