Then he leaned in until our foreheads touched. His breath was warm against my lips when he whispered, "It would be an honor."
And then, his lips were on mine.
Unlike the kiss in the kitchen, which had been desperate and reckless, this one was slow. Careful. The kind of kiss that comes when you’ve already lost everything once and refuse to rush the second chance.
He kissed me like he had all the time in the world. Like he’d been waiting for this moment since the day he lost me.
And I kissed him back with all the things I never said, with the apologies, the longing, the years of wondering what if.
This kiss unlocked so many memories from our past, of us, of how much I'd loved him then, and with each passing second, I felt more and more things stirring inside me. No one had ever kissed me like this, as if they desired me with an intensity that made our souls connect in the process. And maybe that was exactly what was happening. Maybe I'd never stop being his, just as he'd never stopped being mine. And I knew in that moment that Kyle had never truly left my heart.
His hand moved to the back of my neck, holding me gently, as if I were something fragile. I could feel his heartbeat against my chest, racing, syncing with mine. Every second, every brush of his lips, felt like a memory returning home. I pressed my body closer to his, as if I weren't close enough, as if nothing would ever be enough. And my mind finally stopped thinking about everything else.
The world faded. The air, the noise, the pain, everything melted away until it was just him and me.
Just us.
When we finally pulled apart, I was breathless, my lips tingling, my heart pounding so hard it hurt.
He looked at me, dazed, smiling, and then he kissed me again. And again. Little, gentle kisses. The kind that felt like promises whispered against my skin. The kind that said:this time, I’ll stay.He kissed me like he was making up for every day we’d been apart. For every message unsent, every word swallowed, every chance missed.
And I let him.
Because it was never going to be enough. Because we were always going to need more of each other, more time, more touch, more chances to rewrite the ending we never got right the first time.
"You know this makes it impossible for me to stay away from you now, right?"
"You've done it before, and you're very good at it," I whispered, smiling.
He shook his head slowly, his thumb tracing the curve of my cheek. "You have no idea how wrong you are. I spent ten years pretending I was fine, trying to convince myself that I could move on, that I could build a life without you in it. But every day felt like I was missing a piece of myself. Every person I met was just a reminder that they weren’t you. I can’t do thatagain, Lily. I can’t go another minute pretending I’m not still yours."
And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel the weight of our past or the fear of our future.
Just warmth. Just him.
Somehow, love always finds a way back, even if it takes years or lifetimes.
Kyle took me home an hour later. Our hands were intertwined the entire drive. It was as if he didn't want to let go for fear that I'd slip away from him again. But I knew I didn't want to live without him anymore. The mere thought of losing him again scared me.
I still didn't know if he was going to love this version of Lily, the real one, the one that existed right now. But I was willing to do everything possible to make this work, to make everything okay.
And why wouldn't it be? It was over now. Everything was okay now. We just had to focus on getting back to our reality.
And if we didn't get back, we had a whole new life to try again.
It was incredible how the idea of living in the past didn't terrify me in the slightest anymore; on the contrary, it excited me. Here I had everything I wanted and loved. Here I had a chance again. Who wants a future with nothing to hold you back when you have a past that always made you happy?
I knew now that my life before returning to the past would never make me happy. But I was never brave enough to go back and heal what was broken. We spend so much time running from our past, afraid of what we'll find there, that we forget the past also holds our greatest loves, our purest joys, our most authentic selves. The key isn't to live in yesterday,but to take the wisdom of today and give yesterday the ending it always deserved.
Kyle parked in front of my house, but none of us moved.
"Do you ever think about how different things could’ve been?" he asked quietly.
"All the time," I admitted. "But then I think maybe… if things hadn’t gone wrong back then, we wouldn’t be here now. And maybe this version of us is better. Maybe we needed the time apart to become who we were supposed to be."
He exhaled a shaky breath, his fingers tracing slow circles on my arm. "I wish I could believe that. But sometimes it just feels like I wasted too much time trying to fix what I broke."
"You didn’t waste it," I said. "You were learning. That’s what regret does: it teaches you. Sometimes painfully, sometimes too late, but it still teaches you."
