Mira stopped believing in coincidences the night she found the file.
It wasn’t dramatic.
No secret vault, no blinking alarms.
Just a thin black folder slipped between outdated books in the university archive where she worked part-time. The label on its spine was simple.
VALE. A.
Her heart reacted before her mind did.
She shouldn’t have opened it. She knew that. But curiosity had long crossed into something deeper something personal.
Inside were newspaper clippings.
Research notes.
Photographs.
And one impossible detail.
The dates didn’t make sense.
A photograph showed Aarav Vale standing in front of a laboratory in Berlin.
The year stamped at the bottom read 1998.
He looked exactly the same as he did now.
Same face. Same eyes. Same calm expression that carried too much weight.
Mira swallowed.
Another photograph.
2007.
Another one.
2014.
Same man.
Unchanged.
Her hands shook as she turned the page.
There were notes written in precise, controlled handwriting.
Timeline stable.
Subject alive.
Avoid direct emotional attachment.
Her chest tightened.
“This is not real,” she whispered.
But deep down, something in her already knew it was.
Across the city, Aarav felt it.
That sharp, familiar shift in the air.
The kind that warned him the rules were bending.
He stood abruptly, heart pounding for the first time in years.
“She found it,” he said quietly to himself.
This was how it always started.
Knowledge led to memory.
Memory led to emotion.
Emotion led to collapse.
He had sworn this time would be different.
Mira confronted him the next evening.
No tears.
No accusations.
Just quiet determination.
“I need the truth,” she said, standing in front of him under the dim streetlight.
“Not the version where you disappear. The real one.”
Aarav looked at her like a man standing at the edge of a cliff.
“You don’t want it,” he replied.
“I already have it,” she said, lifting the folder slightly.
“I just need you to explain why you’re in photos older than me.”
Silence stretched between them.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
Aarav exhaled slowly.
“There is a rule,” he said at last. “And it exists for one reason.”
He stepped closer, close enough that Mira could feel the heat of him, the restraint, the pain buried behind control.
“If I love you in this timeline,” he continued, voice steady, “you will not survive it.”
Mira stared at him, refusing to step back.
“Then stop deciding for me.”
His jaw tightened.
“I’ve watched you die too many times to risk being wrong.”
Her voice softened, but it didn’t break.
“And I’ve lived my entire life without knowing why my heart feels half-empty.
If loving you is dangerous… maybe not knowing is worse.”
Aarav closed his eyes.
This was the moment every universe tested him.
When distance stopped working.
When sacrifice started to feel like cowardice.
He opened his eyes.
“Stay away from me,” he said quietly.
“If you don’t… this world will make us pay.”
Mira didn’t move.
Instead, she asked the question that changed everything.
“How many times have you loved me?”
Aarav didn’t answer.
Because the number would have destroyed them both.
Above them, the streetlight flickered.
Some rules were never meant to be broken.
And yet some were made only to be challenged.
Hey my lovely readers 🤍
My name is Aarushi Singh Rajput, you can call me Aaru.🥰
Thank you for reading The Universe Where I Let You Go.
If this chapter made your heart race even a little, then Mira and Aarav are doing their job.
1.What do you think will happen now that Mira knows the truth?
2.Should Aarav keep following the rule—or break it for love?
3.Would you choose love if it could change everything?
