Mira couldn’t focus for the rest of the day.
It annoyed her how one stranger could rearrange the furniture of her mind without even touching it.
She sat at her desk, laptop open, emails unread, cursor blinking like it was mocking her inability to think straight.
She kept seeing his back.
Straight.
Controlled.
As if carrying something invisible but unbearably heavy.
Aarav Vale.
The name tasted unfamiliar, yet wrong in a way that felt personal.
She didn’t remember hearing it before, but her heart reacted like it had known him for years and was offended by the lie of forgetting.
Across the city, Aarav stood in his apartment, lights off, tie loosened, hands braced against the cold glass of the window.
Below him, the world livedi gnorant, loud, fragile.
He had come here to observe.
To make sure the timeline was stable.
To confirm that she was alive.
He hadn’t planned on seeing her eyes again.
That had been a mistake.
In another life, she used to look at him like that curious, open, trusting.
In that universe, he had taken her hand without hesitation.
The sky had cracked open three days later.
Aarav closed his eyes.
Memories flooded in, uninvited.
Mira laughing under rain-soaked streetlights.
Mira screaming his name as the ground collapsed beneath them.
Mira dying quietly, apologizing to him for something that was never her fault.
Different worlds.
Same ending.
Except this one.
This universe was fragile. Balanced on a knife’s edge.
And Mira alive, breathing, real—was the center of it.
If she fell in love with him here, the loop would restart.
Aarav straightened, jaw tightening.
I won’t be the reason again.
Back at her apartment, Mira sat on the floor, back against her bed, knees pulled to her chest.
The city lights spilled through the window, but she felt oddly alone like someone had walked out of her life without ever being invited in.
She hated this feeling.
She wasn’t someone who clung to strangers. She believed in logic, in timing, in not romanticizing moments that meant nothing.
So why did it feel like something had been taken from her?
Her phone buzzed.
A message from Ethan sweet, reliable Ethan asking if she wanted dinner.
She stared at the screen longer than necessary.
“Yes,” she typed back.
Then paused.
Then deleted it.
Then typed it again.
Somewhere deep inside, guilt stirred
unearned and confusing.
At the restaurant, Mira laughed when she was supposed to, listened when she was expected to, nodded at the right moments. Ethan was kind.
Safe.
Present.
And yet, every time the door opened, a ridiculous part of her looked up.
Aarav wasn’t there.
He never would be.
Because Aarav was busy fighting something far more dangerous than love.
That night, the dream came.
Mira stood in a field she didn’t recognize, the sky split into colors that didn’t exist.
Aarav was there, closer than he had been in waking life. He looked at her with an intensity that made her chest ache.
“Do you remember me?” she asked him.
He reached out—then stopped, hand hovering inches away.
“I remember you enough for both of us,” he said.
She woke up gasping, tears already on her face.
Across the city, Aarav jolted awake at the exact same second.
Same dream.
Same words.
Same universe warning him that distance was failing.
He sat up, breathing hard, realization sinking in like cold water.
She’s starting to feel it.
The bond didn’t care about rules.
Time didn’t respect sacrifices.
And Mira unknowingly was walking toward the truth.
Aarav pressed his forehead to his knees, a broken laugh escaping him.
“This is why I let you go,” he whispered into the dark.
“And this is why the universe never listens.”
Outside, thunder rolled low, distant, inevitable.
Two hearts, aligned across lifetimes, had begun pulling toward each other again.
And this time, the universe was watching closely.
