If He Knows
1193 Words
Ariana’s POV
She knew before he said a word.
The silence was different tonight.
Thicker. Louder. It pressed against the walls of her apartment like a warning. The air tasted like metal—sharp with panic. Ariana hadn’t turned on the lights yet. She stood by the window, watching the streetlamp flicker outside like it was trying to blink her back into the present.
Liam knew.
He had to.
Her phone buzzed again.
Still no message.
Just the echo of the one he’d sent earlier, the one she couldn’t stop rereading:
> We need to talk. Soon.
She had tried to eat. Failed.
She had sat beside Noah’s bed for an hour after he fell asleep, tracing the lines of his face with her eyes, memorizing the shape of his lashes, the tiny snore he always made when he dreamed. He looked just like Liam when he was peaceful.
That was the thing—he was Liam. In so many ways.
The stubborn chin. The sharp intellect. The fierce protectiveness over his toys.
She had spent four years imagining this moment.
Not like this.
She thought she’d have more time. More control. A choice.
Instead, fate had shoved the door open, and now she stood on the edge of the past and future, bracing for impact.
A knock at the door.
Three times.
Steady.
Her heart nearly stopped.
Her feet moved before her mind did. Like some part of her had been waiting all this time for him to knock.
She opened it.
And there he was.
Liam Hawthorne.
Older. Broader. Haunted.
His jaw was clenched. His eyes? Wild storms are hiding behind restraint. She could see it all—rage, sorrow, betrayal—folded tight into the lines on his face.
He looked like a man who had walked through hell.
“Hi,” she said softly.
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Just looked at her. And maybe that was worse. Because in that silence, she saw what she feared most.
Confirmation.
“You know,” she whispered.
He gave a small nod. “I do.”
The words were ice. A confirmation. A collapse.
Her fingers tightened on the doorframe. “How?”
“Surveillance. Text records. The hotel is from four years ago. I had a PI dig into the timeline after Vanessa slipped up.”
Vanessa.
Of course.
Ariana stepped aside silently. “Come in.”
He did, slowly. Like he wasn’t sure how to walk in this space that had never been his but should’ve been all along.
Liam looked around, taking in the framed photos, the scattered toys, the warmth of a life she had built in his absence.
He paused at the fridge.
Crayon drawings. A magnet that said #1 Mom. A photo of Noah, face covered in cake on his first birthday.
A soft breath left him, pained.
“He’s beautiful,” Liam said.
Her throat closed.
“I tried to tell you,” she said quietly. “I did. I texted, I called once, I... I waited for you to come. For months.”
“I didn’t get anything,” he said. “I thought you left because you didn’t want me.”
Her laugh cracked. “No, Liam. I left because I thought you didn’t want us. Because the message I got from your number said, 'Don’t contact me again.'”
His eyes flared. “I never wrote that.”
“I know that now,” she whispered. “But back then? I was alone. I was scared. I was pregnant and twenty-two and the man I loved had just vanished. I thought... maybe I was just a mistake you didn’t want repeating.”
He walked closer, voice trembling. “You were never a mistake.”
Ariana’s lips quivered. “Then why didn’t you find me?”
“I tried. My team said you’d gone abroad. Vanessa said... she said you needed space. That you didn’t want anything to do with me. That you—” He broke off, jaw flexing. “I believed her. I let myself believe it because I was hurting too much to hope otherwise.”
“You trusted her over me.”
“I was blind.”
He reached into his coat and pulled out something folded. A printed message log. Texts sent from Ariana’s number—the ones she never wrote.
“I know the truth now,” he said. “She blocked your number. Responded from your phone. She made me think you abandoned me.”
Tears blurred her vision.
“And she made me think you abandoned me,” Ariana said, voice breaking. “She played us both.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “God, I’m so sorry, Ari.”
The nickname made her chest ache.
She turned away, wiping at her face. “You don’t get to just come back and say sorry. You missed everything. His first word was ‘star.’ He walked at ten months. He had a fever once that nearly landed him in the ER, and I was alone on the bathroom floor, praying he wouldn’t stop breathing.”
Liam swallowed hard, pain etched in every line of his body.
“You should’ve been there,” she said. “But you weren’t.”
“I know,” he rasped. “And I can never get those years back. But if you’ll let me—I’ll spend every day trying to earn whatever comes next.”
She turned back to him, eyes burning. “And if I can’t forgive you?”
“Then I’ll still show up,” he said. “For Noah. And for you. Not because I deserve to—but because I love you both. I never stopped.”
Her breath caught.
“You still love me?” she whispered.
His eyes glistened.
“I never even tried to stop.”
The words hit her like a tidal wave—fierce, relentless, undeniable. Her walls buckled.
Ariana moved before she could overthink it, stepping into his chest, burying her face in his shirt. He held her instantly. No hesitation. Just arms around her like they’d never left.
And she cried.
For the years lost.
For the nights alone.
For the family they were meant to be.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“So am I.”
She looked up at him.
“What if we can’t fix this?”
“Then we’ll build something new.”
She searched his face and found no lies, no doubt—just a man devastated by truth and determined by love.
He leaned in slowly, giving her time to pull away.
She didn’t.
Their lips met softly. Not with fire, not yet—but with ache. With memory. With a promise.
He pulled back just enough to press his forehead to hers.
“Let me see him.”
Ariana blinked, breath hitching.
“You want to—now?”
“I need to,” Liam said. “I can’t go another night not knowing his voice.”
She nodded and took his hand.
They walked together toward the hallway.
Toward their son.
Toward something finally real.
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