The sky was a dull gray the morning after An met Khánh again. Clouds hovered low, threatening rain, and the streets were quieter than usual—muted, as if the city itself was holding its breath.
An sat on the balcony of her apartment, a light sweater draped around her shoulders, a notebook in her lap. She hadn't written anything new since her last draft stalled weeks ago, but now her pen moved slowly, not with purpose, but with the weight of everything she didn't know how to say out loud.
She wrote his name. Just once.Khánh.
And then she stared at it for a long time.
The memory of their conversation in the café lingered in her mind like the scent of old perfume—faint but unmistakable. His voice, the way he looked at her like he was remembering everything they had tried so hard to forget. It unsettled her, but not because he had lied or said something shocking.
No.
It was the sincerity that frightened her most.
He hadn't asked for forgiveness. He hadn't begged for another chance. He'd only spoken—softly, honestly. And somehow that made it harder to hate him.
That afternoon, An received a text.From Khánh.
"Can I see you again? There's more I should've told you. But only if you want to hear it."
She stared at it for a while before replying.
"Same café. Tomorrow. 7 p.m."
Short. Neutral. Safe.
But her heart wasn't neutral at all.
The next evening, An arrived early.
The café was quieter than usual. A few university students sat in the back, hunched over laptops. The same jazz music played softly, and the air smelled like cinnamon and rain.
She ordered green tea this time. No coffee. Her nerves couldn't take it.
When Khánh walked in, he looked like he hadn't slept much. His shirt was wrinkled, hair slightly damp from the mist outside. But he smiled when he saw her.
Not the confident smile of the man she once loved—but something smaller, more uncertain. Almost shy.
He sat down without speaking. For a while, they just listened to the music and the distant clinking of cups.
Then he said, "Thank you. For coming again."
She nodded. "You said there was more."
He exhaled. "There is. I just… I didn't know how to explain everything last time."
"You could start now."
He took a sip of his coffee and began. "When I left, it wasn't just because I was scared of commitment. That was part of it, yes, but… the truth is, I got a job offer overseas. In Berlin. A chance to work on a film set I'd always dreamed of. It came out of nowhere."
An's brow furrowed.
"You never told me that."
"I know. I didn't tell anyone. Not even my parents at first. I was afraid that if I told you, you'd tell me to go—and I didn't want to hear that. I didn't want to leave you."
"But you did leave," she said quietly.
"Yes," he admitted. "I left because I didn't trust myself to choose you over the dream. And I hated myself for that."
An looked down at her tea. It was no longer hot.
She remembered the nights she had waited by her phone, wondering if he was hurt, sick, or simply done with her. All those possibilities had hurt. But none had included the truth: that he had chosen something else.
"How long were you there?" she asked.
"Almost a year."
"And then?"
"The project ended. I stayed a bit longer. But nothing ever felt right after that. I kept thinking… this wasn't supposed to be the way things turned out."
An met his gaze. "You could've just told me. We could've figured it out."
"I didn't believe in 'figuring it out' back then," he said. "I thought if love was hard, maybe it wasn't love."
She smiled sadly. "Then you didn't know anything about love."
He nodded. "I didn't. But I think I'm learning now."
A moment of silence passed between them. Then she asked, "So why now? Why come back?"
He didn't hesitate. "Because I never stopped thinking about you. About the way you used to laugh at the dumbest jokes. How you corrected my grammar when I texted too fast. How you held my hand like it was something sacred."
An swallowed. Her chest ached, like someone was carefully peeling open a wound she had hidden for too long.
"I thought you moved on," she whispered.
"I tried. I dated someone else. But it didn't last. She wasn't… you."
"That's not fair to her," An said softly.
"No. It wasn't," he admitted.
An leaned back in her chair. "Do you think this—us—can just resume where it ended?"
"No," he said instantly. "I don't think we can go back. But maybe… we can start something new."
She looked at him, really looked.
There were creases near his eyes now. A quiet tiredness in his posture. But also, a gentleness that hadn't been there before.
He wasn't the same man who had left her.
And she wasn't the same girl he had walked away from.
She thought of all the stories she had written, the characters she had created who were brave enough to risk everything for love. She had never seen herself in them. Until now.
Maybe the point wasn't to avoid pain, but to understand it.
To grow through it.
She stood up. Khánh blinked in surprise.
"I need time," she said. "You told your story. Let me write mine now."
He nodded slowly. "I understand."
"I'm not promising anything."
"I'm not asking for anything."
They stood there for a moment, unsure whether to hug, to shake hands, or to simply leave it there.
Finally, An said, "I'll message you. When I'm ready."
And then she left.
Outside, the first drops of rain had begun to fall.
She didn't open her umbrella.
She walked slowly through the drizzle, letting the cold soak through her sweater, through her skin.
And for the first time in a long time, she felt something lift from her chest.
Not quite joy. Not yet.
But something softer.
Like peace.
The following morning, An woke up with a strange ache in her chest. Not the sharp pain of heartbreak, but something duller, heavier—like her heart had been bruised from too much remembering.
She sat at the edge of her bed, staring at the curtains swaying gently in the morning breeze. The events from the previous night played in her mind on repeat—Khánh's voice, his confession, and the rain outside as she walked away. Her thoughts were like watercolors bleeding into one another, no clear edges, just feelings and fragments.
She reached for her phone.
No new messages.
She wasn't sure if that disappointed or relieved her.
Later that day, she met Linh at their usual brunch spot.
"You saw him again, didn't you?" Linh asked, the moment An sat down.
An didn't reply immediately. She stirred her orange juice with a straw, watching the pulp swirl like storm clouds.
"I did," she finally said. "We talked. He told me why he left."
"And?" Linh leaned forward, eyes narrowed with concern. "Was it enough?"
An shrugged. "It was honest. But I don't know if that's the same thing."
Linh sighed, tapping her spoon against her plate. "People always come back when they think they've learned something. But the truth is, the damage doesn't go away just because they feel sorry."
An smiled faintly. "I know. And I'm not saying I've forgiven him. I haven't. I just… I needed to hear it."
Linh studied her for a long moment. "So what now?"
"I don't know," An said honestly. "Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. I think I need to figure out who I am without all the old stories weighing me down."
That night, An found herself pulling out a dusty photo album from the back of her bookshelf. She hadn't opened it in years. Its leather cover had faded, the pages slightly yellowed.
Inside were memories: snapshots of university life, silly selfies, pictures of festivals, nights out with friends—and of course, Khánh. Smiling. Laughing. Holding her close.
She paused at one photo of them in Đà Lạt, standing by the pine forest. She was wearing his scarf. He had his arm around her shoulders. It looked so simple, so happy.
She remembered how cold it had been that morning. How he kept blowing warm air into her hands. How he whispered that he wished time could freeze.
Funny. Time had done the opposite.
It had moved too fast. And now they were strangers who remembered too much.
She closed the album and set it aside.
Some stories, she realized, don't need to be rewritten. They just need to be respected for what they were—and left behind.
But that didn't mean she couldn't start something new.
The next day, she wrote again. Really wrote.
The words came slowly at first, hesitant. But then they flowed—pages and pages of a new story. A woman learning how to forgive without forgetting. A man learning how to return without expecting anything.
She didn't name the characters.
She didn't have to.
She knew exactly who they were.