In physics, an object will remain on a straight path unless an external force compels it to change.
For five years, Faira Adrianna believed she had successfully altered her own trajectory. She built walls at ECSAT, buried herself in satellite data, and convinced her logic that the thousands of miles between Oxfordshire and Jakarta had withered every memory of Hero Campbell.
However, physics never accounted for a variable called longing.
The marble floor felt as cold as ice beneath her shoes. Faira walked behind Sarah, but her gaze felt pulled by an invisible magnet toward the end of the altar.
There stood Hero Campbell.
Hero wasn't looking at the bride. Nor was he looking at the crowd. His eyes were locked on Faira, as if the entire world around them was merely a background losing its focus. The face that now frequently graced the silver screen wasn't acting. Hero knew exactly why Faira had left five years ago—about her mother's diagnosis, about the burden those small shoulders had carried alone in Indonesia.
Hero held no grudge against Faira's decision. He was simply broken because he was never given the chance to fight by her side—Faira Adrianna, the center of his gravity, the heart of Hero Campbell's universe.
When Faira reached the altar, her steps faltered. The distance between them was now barely a meter. Faira saw Hero's Adam's apple move—a nervous tic that hadn't changed since that night in Oxford.
There was no cynicism; instead, Hero gazed at her with a painful tenderness. It was the look of someone realizing that five years had utterly failed to erase a single feeling.
"You're back," Hero whispered. His voice wasn't sharp; it was hoarse, like someone who had finally found oxygen after drowning for a lifetime.
Faira tried to stand tall, even as her world began to tilt. "I'm back for Sarah's wedding, Hero."
Hero gave a faint smile—a sad smile that made Faira's heart feel as though it were being squeezed.
"I spent five years convincing myself that I'd stopped looking for you in every crowd. I starred in dozens of films, embraced other women in front of cameras, and pretended my heart was dead."
Hero took a shaky breath, his voice nearly drowned out by the grand swell of the organ music. "But seeing you here... I realize I'm just a massive liar. I'm still at the exact same spot where you left me on that balcony. I still love you too much, and it's terrifying."
Faira felt her eyes burn. Her logic screamed at her to run, but the gravity in Hero's eyes locked her in place.
Hero wasn't angry for being left behind.
He was only angry at himself because, despite all his achievements in the entertainment world, he still couldn't stop wanting Faira.
Under the cathedral dome, Faira finally surrendered to one reality: five years was just a number, and their love was not a variable that time could delete.
They were two objects destined to revolve around each other, trapped in the same orbit forever.
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In the stories often found in metropop novels, weddings are always the most ironic settings for a reunion.
Here, everyone celebrates the future, while Faira and Hero remain trapped in a past that neither has finished writing.
The round table felt too small to contain their egos and their wounds.
Ironically, as Maid of Honor and Best Man, they sat side by side. No one passing by would have guessed that these two were former lovers who had once been so profoundly in love.
Faira could smell the scent of sandalwood from Hero's suit—the same scent from that night in Oxford, though now it felt more expensive, more distant.
"Don't drink too fast, Ra. You have a terrible alcohol tolerance when you're stressed," Hero's low voice jolted her.
Faira set her glass down with a clink that was slightly too loud. "I'm not stressed. And I've changed a lot in five years."
Hero turned, studying Faira's profile bathed in the dim light of the chandeliers. "You can lie to everyone in this room with your Astronomy degree, but that doesn't work on me, Fay. You're still picking at your thumbnail because you feel cornered. It's a glitch in your system you can't seem to patch."
Faira froze. She immediately hid her hand under the table. "Why are you doing this, Hero? Why not just be cynical or ignore me? It would be much easier for both of us."
"Because I'm tired of pretending, Faira," Hero cut in quickly.
He turned his chair slightly, narrowing the space between them until Faira could feel the heat radiating from him.
"Do you know what the most painful part of these five years has been? It wasn't when you left; it was when I realized I didn't even have the right to be angry at you. You left to save your mother, while I was here, never given the chance to prove that I could be your home in the middle of that storm."
Faira swallowed hard; her throat felt dry. "My world was collapsing then, Hero. I didn't want to drag you into the ruins."
"But you don't understand," Hero reached for Faira's hand under the table—a movement strictly forbidden by logic, yet craved by instinct. His rough but warm fingers interlaced tightly with hers.
"I would rather be destroyed with you than be whole alone at the top of the world without you."
The touch felt like a static shock, scrambling all of Faira's coordinates.
Amidst the guests' thunderous applause for the newlyweds' first dance, Faira realized one thing.
She could calculate the distance of millions of stars in the sky, but she would never be able to calculate the distance required to truly break free from the man beside her.
"Hero, there are cameras everywhere..." Faira whispered, referring to his status as an A-list actor.
"Let them be," Hero replied calmly, his eyes challenging the world while his voice was meant only for her.
"Let them write the news tomorrow—that Hero Campbell has finally been found by his universe."
The reception table suddenly felt like a glass prison. The blow of reality on Hero Campbell's face was more painful than any paparazzi flash.
He pulled Faira's hand firmly, ignoring social protocol, and led her away from the dance hall toward a dark corridor in the back of the five-star hotel.
"Hero, what are you doing? Everyone..." Faira tried to protest, but her voice caught in her throat.
Hero pinned her in the corner of a dimly lit marble wall. His breath was ragged, as if all the oxygen in London had just run out.
In the faint light, Faira saw a shadow of desperation so thick in Hero Campbell's eyes.
This wasn't Hero Campbell the movie star acting for a camera.
This was the Hero Campbell who had lived in denial for five years.
Hero took a trembling breath, leaning his forehead against hers until the lingering scent of champagne and desperation mingled between them.
In that dim hallway, the great actor's mask completely crumbled.
"You know what's the craziest part, Fay?" Hero whispered, his voice breaking and hoarse. He cupped her face with fingers that shook violently.
"I have everything. Awards, money, popularity. But every night I have to go home to an apartment that feels more like a black hole. I'm depressed because I can't let you go, even when I know the world has changed."
Hero stared at Faira's lips with a terrifying intensity—a look filled with both agony and an ancient longing.
"For five years, I tried to convince myself that my feelings for you had died. That I had finally moved on. But I haven't, Fay. Seeing you, knowing you're finally back in England... I realize I've just been busy lying to myself. And I'm tired of living in denial because I know my heart never went anywhere."
In that second, all logic in Faira's mind evaporated. Hero Campbell's gravity was too strong to resist.
Hero leaned down, and the kiss happened—a kiss that possessed no formula of mathematics, physics, or anything Faira had ever studied.
Their kiss was deep, intimate, demanding, and full of despair, as if Hero were breathing his last bits of oxygen directly from Faira's lips.
He kissed her as if trying to weld the pieces of his soul—shattered for five years—back together inside her.
Faira crumbled. She returned the kiss with the same intensity, letting her fingers tangle in Hero's hair, drowning in the warmth she had only ever encountered in her nightmares.
However, just as the kiss grew more demanding, reality hit Faira like a cold supernova.
She remembered the woman sitting next to Hero at the banquet table earlier.
With what little strength she had left, Faira broke the kiss first.
She pushed against Hero's chest, gently but firmly, pulling herself away from an embrace that had nearly made her forget the ground beneath her feet.
"This is so wrong, Hero..." Faira whispered, breathless, her eyes beginning to well up as she tried to take a step back.
Hero recoiled. His face, flushed with passion and hurt, looked devastated.
He tried to reach for her arm again, his fingers pleading for just one more second of togetherness.
"Faira, please, don't go..."
Faira took another step back, moving out of his reach. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand—a gesture that cut Hero to the core.
"I know what we're doing is wrong, Hero. So wrong," Faira said, her voice as steady as she could manage despite her breaking heart.
"Because no matter how strong the gravitational pull is between us, the reality doesn't change. There is another woman waiting for you to go back to that table, and I will not be your reason to betray her."
Hero stood frozen in the hallway, which now felt silent and hollow, as if the surrounding oxygen had been sucked away along with Faira's retreating footsteps.
He leaned his back against the cold marble wall, letting his body slide down until he sat on the floor, looking exactly like a man who had lost his entire fortune in a single night.
Exactly like the day Faira left him five years ago.