I wish I could say I avoided him after that.
That I changed routes, deleted numbers I didn't yet have, prayed harder, loved less.
But love like ours does not listen to reason.
It lives in reflexes. In instincts. In the quiet choices we make before fear catches up.
So when I saw Aditya again, I didn't walk away.
He was in a bookstore—of course he was.
Every lifetime, he is drawn to words, to stories that almost explain the ache inside him. He stood in the philosophy section, brows furrowed, fingers tracing spines as if one of them might answer a question he didn't know how to ask.
I watched him from a distance.
In one life, I had watched him from behind prison bars.
In another, from across a wedding hall that wasn't mine.
In another… from a battlefield where he never came back.
And here I was again. Watching. Waiting. Remembering.
"Do you always stare at people like that," he said suddenly, without turning around, "or am I special?"
My heart stopped.
He looked at me then, amused, curious—and something else. Something faint. Like déjà vu wrapped in confusion.
"I was just… lost," I said.
He smiled. "Same."
And just like that, we were walking out together, rain replaced by sunlight, past lives screaming in my head while this one pretended to begin.
---
We started talking.
Not dramatically. Not like soulmates reuniting after centuries. Just two people sharing coffee and awkward pauses and laughter that came too easily.
That's the cruelest part of reincarnation.
It doesn't feel epic.
It feels normal.
And that makes it harder to escape.
He told me about his job, his family, his fear of wasting his life without knowing why he felt restless all the time. He said some nights he woke up with his heart racing, convinced he had lost something important.
I said nothing.
Because I knew what he had lost.
Me.
Again and again and again.
At one point, he reached across the table to move my cup away from the edge—an unconscious gesture.
I flinched.
In another life, that same hand had pulled me out of a burning house.
In another, it had signed the paper that sent me away.
"Sorry," he said quickly. "Did I—?"
"No," I interrupted. "It's just… you remind me of someone."
His eyes softened. "Yeah?"
I forced a smile. "Someone I loved."
He didn't joke about it. Didn't deflect. Just nodded, like he understood something deeper than words.
"I hope," he said quietly, "they loved you back."
I looked at him.
In every lifetime, I wanted to say.
Enough to destroy us.
---
That night, memory betrayed me again.
I dreamed of a life where I had tried to stop loving him.
I avoided him in that life. Crossed streets. Chose silence. Married someone kind and safe and empty.
I lived.
For the first time… I lived.
But I died hollow.
No tragedy. No blood. No heartbreak.
Just an old woman staring at the ceiling, whispering a name no one answered.
I woke up screaming.
---
The old woman from the temple appeared again three days later—this time in my reflection.
"You're already choosing him," she said.
"I don't know how to stop," I whispered.
She sighed. "Love is not the curse. Attachment is."
"What's the difference?" I asked bitterly.
She looked at me with something like pity. "You'll learn. Or you'll repeat."
Then she vanished.
Leaving me with a truth I wasn't ready for:
Loving Aditya wasn't the problem.
Needing him was.
---
The next time I met him, I did something different.
I didn't lean in.
Didn't flirt.
Didn't let my heart race ahead of my mind.
I set boundaries like fragile glass between us.
And it hurt.
He noticed.
"You feel far today," he said, walking beside me.
"I'm just tired."
He stopped.
"Aarohi," he said, saying my name like it mattered, "did I do something wrong?"
In another life, I had begged him to ask that question sooner.
Now, I shook my head.
"No," I said. "You didn't do anything wrong."
You never do.
That's what makes loving you so dangerous.
He studied me for a moment, then smiled—sad, accepting.
"Well," he said, "if you ever feel like being less tired… I'll be around."
Something in my chest cracked.
Because every lifetime, he always waits.
Even when I am the one walking away.
---
That night, I wrote his name in my notebook.
Once.
Then crossed it out.
If the curse could only be broken by letting go…
Then Chapter Two of this life had to be different.
Not a love story rushing toward tragedy.
But a war—
Between memory and choice.
Between destiny and courage.
Between a heart that remembers everything
and a soul that desperately wants peace.
And for the first time in all my lifetimes…
I wasn't afraid of losing him.
I was afraid of surviving without him.
Some loves fade with time.
Ours sharpens.
And maybe the universe isn't asking whether I can love him again—
but whether I can finally learn how to love… without drowning.