If I loved You Again

If I loved You Again

Petray

5.0
Comment(s)
118
View
21
Chapters

Kim had thought she could live without Ari. Without the laughter, the late night talks, the quiet warmth of someone who felt like home. But Ari returned changed, apologetic and impossible to ignore. Loving her once nearly Kim. Loving her again might just heal her. Some loves never really end...they just wait.

If I loved You Again Chapter 1 The Cafe When Time Stood Still

Kim had thought she had mastered the art of living without Ari.

For three years, she had built a life that didn't include her quiet mornings walking to her favorite café, predictable afternoons at work, evenings spent sketching or reading until sleep came. It wasn't the life she had imagined once, but it was safe. And safety was all she trusted now.

She had learned not to look for Ari's face in crowded places. Learned not to replay the way she had left without a goodbye, without an explanation like a wound that refused to close.

So when Kim looked up from her coffee and saw Ari standing a few steps away, her first thought was that her mind had betrayed her.

Ari looked almost the same. Calm, composed, her dark hair falling neatly around her shoulders. Only her eyes had changed softer somehow, heavier, as if time had carved something deeper into her.

Kim's fingers tightened around her cup, the warmth doing nothing to steady the sudden chill spreading through her chest. This café had been her refuge, the one place where memories stayed quiet. Ari didn't belong here. She didn't belong in Kim's carefully rebuilt life.

Their eyes met.

The moment stretched, sharp and breathless. The clatter of dishes and low murmur of conversation faded into nothing. There was only the woman who had once been Kim's entire world and the silence she had left behind.

"Kim?" Ari's voice was hesitant, almost afraid.

Hearing her name like that soft, familiar made Kim's heart stumble. She had imagined this moment countless times, usually ending with anger or tears. Instead, all she felt was a painful, aching awareness of everything she had never said.

"Yes," Kim answered.

Ari stepped closer, cautious, as though one wrong move might send Kim retreating. "I didn't expect to see you here."

Neither did I, Kim thought, but she said nothing.

They stood there, strangers shaped by shared memories. Kim remembered the nights they had talked until dawn, the laughter that had felt like home. And then she remembered the day Ari had vanished, leaving her with questions that had haunted her ever since.

"Can I sit?" Ari asked, nodding toward the empty chair.

Kim hesitated. Letting Ari sit meant letting her back in even if only a little. But the truth was already clear in the tightness of her chest.

"Okay."

Ari sat across from her, close enough for Kim to feel her presence. The space between them felt fragile, charged with everything unsaid.

"I'm sorry," Ari said quietly. "For leaving. I handled everything wrong."

Kim's throat tightened. For years, she had wondered if Ari even realized the damage she had done.

"You disappeared," Kim said. "I thought I didn't matter to you."

Ari's eyes lifted, filled with regret. "You mattered too much. I was scared, scared I'd ruin what we had, scared I'd hurt you even more."

The words struck deeper than Kim expected. Fear. It was the same fear Kim had lived with ever since Ari left.

Silence settled between them, heavy but not empty.

Then Ari's phone vibrated. Her expression shifted, shadowed.

"I have to go," she said reluctantly. "But... can we meet again? Tomorrow. Please."

Kim nodded, unable to trust her voice.

Ari stood, leaving behind a folded piece of paper. "I meant what I said," she added softly before walking away.

Kim waited until the café door closed before unfolding it.

I never stopped loving you.

Her breath caught. Her heart pounded painfully against her ribs.

For the first time in years, Kim felt the fragile walls around her heart begin to crack.

But as hope stirred, fear followed close behind.

Because seeing Ari again might finally heal her

or destroy everything she had managed to survive.

Continue Reading

You'll also like

The Mad Billionaire's Genius Undercover Wife

The Mad Billionaire's Genius Undercover Wife

Mischa Taube
4.0

I arrived at my uncle’s mansion looking like human trash, clutching a one-way bus ticket and a duffel bag stuffed with old newspaper. My aunt looked at me with pure disgust, as if she could smell the poverty on my skin, but they needed me for one thing: to be a sacrificial lamb. They told me I was getting married to Julian Sterling, a man the elite circles called a violent monster locked in a cage. My uncle forced me to sign away my soul to save their failing fortune, while my cousin Kayla laughed and threw a torn dress at my feet, calling me a "rat from the Rust Belt." At the Sterling estate, the nightmare only deepened. Julian’s stepmother treated me like a horse she was forced to buy, ordering the staff to "burn off" my hair before locking me in the West Wing. I was thrown into a padded cell with a man who lunged at me, his heavy chains rattling against the floor as he roared with an animalistic rage that had already killed two nurses. They thought I was a pathetic, uneducated girl who "didn't read so good." They didn't know I had extorted two million dollars from my uncle before walking out the door, or that I was secretly recording every slap and insult they threw at me for future leverage. I huddled in the corner of that dark cell, letting them watch me tremble on the security feeds. I let Julian’s sister strike me with a riding crop and splash water in my face, playing the role of the clumsy, sobbing idiot to perfection. But the moment the cameras looped, the scared girl vanished. I pinned the "monster" to the floor, cut the neural tracking chip out of his neck with a hidden scalpel, and whispered into his ear as his blue eyes finally cleared. They thought they were sending a lamb to the slaughter. They had no idea they were sending a wolf to hunt a beast.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book