The next day dawned far too bright and far too quickly.
Ariella awoke to a pounding headache and swollen eyes, feeling the familiar weight pressing against her chest. For a moment, she lay still, absorbing the sounds from the street—keke horns blaring, voices raised in argument, and a vendor selling bread as if battling the very air around him.
Life was bustling all around her. Everyone was in motion. Except for her.
Finally, she reached for her phone, deliberately ignoring the avalanche of unread messages in her class group chat—the same class she hadn't set foot in for years.
But one message caught her eye, freezing her in place.
"I'm back in town. We need to talk."
The name attached to the message twisted her stomach in knots.
Jordan.
The last person she wanted to see. The last person she ever imagined would reach out again.
She sat up abruptly, her breath hitching in her throat. Her hands trembled as she dropped the phone, treating it as if it were searing hot.
Jordan was meant to stay gone.
He belonged to her past, locked away in a chapter she wished she could incinerate and forget.
He was the reason her first year unraveled.
The reason she stopped attending classes.
The reason she learned how swiftly love can morph into a wound.
And now he was back?
"No, no, no…" she whispered, pacing the confines of her room.
Why now? Why today? Why at a time when her life felt precariously balanced on a thread so thin it could snap at any moment?
Her mind flooded with memories she had buried so deep, hoping they would never resurface—late-night conversations, promises whispered in the dark, the betrayal that tore her heart open, the night everything fell apart.
Her phone buzzed again.
Another message.
"Ariella, please. It's important."
Important?
The last time he claimed something was important, she lost everything.
Without hesitation, she turned off her phone and tossed it onto the bed, her heart racing against her ribs.
She wasn't prepared. She could barely confront her own reflection, let alone face the boy who had dragged her into shadows from which she still hadn't emerged.
Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten since yesterday. She approached the small stove in the corner of her room, but her trembling hands made cooking impossible.
Instead, she sank into her plastic chair, staring at the door as if she expected Jordan to walk through it.
No.
He couldn't know where she lived.
She had never told him.
She had changed hostels.
She had changed everything.
So how had he found her number again?
Her heart raced.
A knock echoed through her door.
Once.
Twice.
Soft. Familiar. Chilling.
Her breath caught in her throat.
No one visited her. No one knew her well enough to check on her.
The knock came again, more insistent this time.
"Ariella… I know you're inside."
Her blood ran cold.
It was his voice.
Jordan.
Here.
Here.
Her throat tightened as panic surged, filling her like water rising in a sinking vessel.
This wasn't supposed to happen.
He wasn't meant to return.
He wasn't supposed to know where to find her.
Ariella stood slowly, her bare feet cold against the floor.
She moved toward the door—each step feeling heavier than the last.
Her hand hovered just above the handle.
And for the first time in three years, she understood:
Running from a mistake doesn't mean it stops pursuing you.
Sometimes… it knocks.