Before the Beginning
Some stories don't start with a first kiss.They don't begin with longing glances or stolen touches or promises whispered in the dark.
They start with a disappearance.
A boy vanishes into distance and calls it protection—because leaving feels safer than staying when you know you're capable of ruining everything you love.
A girl is exiled into perfection and calls it discipline—because obedience has always been easier than asking why love must hurt to survive.
They are separated not by choice, but by design.
By fathers who mistake control for legacy.By systems that reward silence and punish attachment.By the unspoken rule that feelings are liabilities when power is at stake.
And somewhere between Switzerland's clean silence and France's golden lies, two names become dangerous to say out loud.
Aras Atalyas — the heir raised to believe that survival means distance, that love is a weakness men like him cannot afford, and that desire must always be buried before it becomes leverage.
Naiya Hollingsworth — the girl who learned too young that affection can be weaponized, that loyalty is conditional, and that being loved often comes with a price she never agreed to pay.
This is not the story they wanted.
They wanted distance to dull the ache.They wanted time to erase memory.They wanted silence to turn feeling into something manageable.
Instead, distance sharpened it.Time made it restless.And silence taught it how to wait.
This is the story that happened anyway.
It begins after the chaos—after the planes leaving without goodbyes,after the threats disguised as concern,after the promises made in moments of fear that they would never cross the line again.
It begins after they both tell themselves the same lie:
This is over.
Because the truth is—
The first time wasn't the end.
It was the trigger.
The moment where restraint cracked.Where everything carefully buried learned how to breathe again.Where choice replaced obedience, even if only for a night.
And when the world finally circles back to collect what they owe,it won't come for their hearts first.
It will come for their decisions.Their silences.Their willingness to walk away—or to stay and burn.
This is a story about what happens after love is denied.About the damage done in the name of protection.About the consequences of choosing distance over truth.
And about how some loves don't fade when you leave them behind.
They wait.