I felt him before I saw him.
That quiet, sinking feeling in my chest—the kind that doesn't ask permission before it hurts. The kind that only one person in the world had ever given me.
I stopped walking.
The street noise faded into a dull hum as my eyes locked onto the familiar shape standing across the road. Tall. Still impossibly calm. Still carrying himself like he didn't know what it meant to lose something precious.
Daniel Adebayo.
The man who taught me how to love… and how to survive heartbreak.
Five years ago, he disappeared from my life without an explanation. No goodbye. No closure. Just silence so loud it followed me into my sleep.
And now he was here.
My hands trembled slightly as I clutched my bag. I told myself to turn away. To pretend he was a stranger. But my body refused to listen. My heart had already recognized him.
He laughed into his phone, unaware that the past had caught up with him.
That laugh nearly brought me to my knees.
Then—like fate had whispered my name—he looked up.
Our eyes met.
The smile fell from his face.
His phone slipped from his hand and hit the pavement.
In that moment, I knew.
He hadn't forgotten me either.
"Zara…" he said softly, crossing the road without thinking, cars honking angrily behind him. He stopped just a few steps away, breathing hard, like he had been running toward something he didn't know he needed.
I said nothing.
I didn't trust my voice.
"You're here," he whispered, like he was afraid I'd disappear if he spoke too loudly.
"I could say the same," I replied, my voice sharper than I intended. Pain had a way of doing that.
His eyes searched my face, desperate and apologetic all at once. "I've thought about this moment more times than I should admit."
A bitter smile tugged at my lips. "Funny. You never thought about calling."
The words landed between us like broken glass.
He flinched.
"I didn't have the right," he said. "Not after what I did."
Rain began to fall—slow and deliberate—like the sky was mourning with us.
"What exactly did you do, Daniel?" I asked quietly. "Because I woke up one morning and you were gone. No explanation. No warning."
His jaw tightened. "I left because I thought I was protecting you."
A sharp laugh escaped me. "From what? Loving you?"
"No," he said, stepping closer, lowering his voice. "From the truth."
My heart skipped painfully. "What truth?"
He hesitated.
That hesitation was everything.
Thunder rumbled above us as rain soaked into my hair and clothes. People rushed past us, but the world had shrunk to just two people standing in the middle of a mistake neither of us had healed from.
"Zara," he said, his voice breaking for the first time. "If I tell you now… you might hate me."
I should have walked away.
I should have protected the peace I fought so hard to build.
But curiosity—and something dangerously close to hope—held me still.
"Try me."
His eyes darkened, heavy with a secret he had carried alone for years.
"Then meet me tomorrow," he said. "Because once I start… I won't be able to stop."
Rain poured harder.
And for the first time since he broke me, I felt it again.
Fear.
Because whatever Daniel was hiding wasn't just about the past.
It was about why loving him had almost destroyed me.