If Only I Had Told Her

After the SAT, I come across a post online. Someone posts, "If you could make a choice all over again, which major would you choose this time?" The comments are filled with people wishing they had chosen a different major. They all have their own regrets. One response stands out from the rest. "I would choose literature. That way, he and I wouldn't have missed out on the four years we should have spent together because of that unwanted baggage." I chuckle and am about to scroll past when I suddenly notice the profile picture and username. They are identical to those of my childhood sweetheart, Winter Andersen. I click into the profile. Everything matches her current account exactly, except that the age is ten years older. My heart sinks to my stomach. This has to be her ten years in the future. No wonder I am the only one celebrating when we are admitted to the same major. No wonder she zones out for so long after seeing my best friend, Simon Brown, receive his acceptance letter from the literature department. It turns out I am the unwanted baggage responsible for so many of her regrets and disappointments. Since that is the case, I quietly press "Accept" on the admission offer written entirely in a foreign language. I shall end this mistake ten years ahead of schedule.

For two years, Maya loved a man who looked like forever. Caramel-skinned, radiant, loyal to a fault she gave Daniel her heart, her time, her prayers. But while she was building a future, he was building secrets. Three of her friends. Whispers at her workplace. A pregnancy he denied. Public charm. Private betrayal. She knew. She just waited. On the very day he planned to meet her parents for her knocking, Maya chose dignity over drama and walked away without ever looking back. Six months later, she meets Ethan. Steady. God-fearing. Intentional. The kind of man who prays before he pursues and protects before he possesses. With him, love feels different, safe, consuming in the right ways, and deeply passionate within covenant. But healing isn’t linear, and the past doesn’t stay buried forever. When Maya relocates for work and unexpectedly finds herself face-to-face with the woman Daniel once denied and when Daniel himself resurfaces desperate, broke, and full of regret old wounds threaten new peace. This time, however, Maya is not the woman who stayed silent. She is married. She is chosen. She is covered. And she will not be moved. She Knew, But She Waited is a powerful faith-based romance filled with betrayal, suspense, guilt, sensual covenant love, dramatic confrontations, and the kind of passion that only comes from being truly seen and truly safe. Because sometimes the greatest revenge isn’t exposure. It’s elevation.

Three years ago, my childhood sweetheart, Eleanor Carter, left me at the altar to marry Dillan Perez—the adopted son of my family. The church erupted in whispers. I became the laughingstock in a single breath. Then Victoria Brown—the aloof, formidable CEO of the Brown Group—stepped forward. "I'll marry you, Lambert," she said, her voice cutting through the wreckage of my pride. I said yes. For three years, she was the perfect wife. Gentle. Attentive. She was my salvation. But there was one thing that always hung between us like a quiet ache—we never had a child. The doctors found nothing wrong with either of us. Victoria would just smile softly and say, "It will happen when the time is right." Today, I came home early. The door to our bedroom was slightly open. I heard her voice. She was on the phone with her best friend. I didn't mean to listen. But then I heard my name. "Lambert wants a child with me," she said. "But he doesn't know I've been on birth control the whole time. That's why we never got pregnant." My blood turned cold. "As long as he has no heir," she continued, "Dillan's place in the Clark family stays secure." I stood there, frozen. My hands went cold. My heart shattered into pieces. I was just a tool to protect the man she truly cared for. I didn’t confront her. Instead, I calmly planned my death—a quiet disappearance from her world.

She fell inlove for the very first time and she thought she could peacefully live with her new personality and name. She thought that she could keep her secret for the rest of her life. But in an instant, all that she had worked hard for was completely GONE. *** Beforeicalledhername 2021AllRightsReserved_Catlyn/Latte

When my wife's first love was injured in a car accident and urgently needed a kidney transplant, she gave me an ultimatum. If I refused to donate my kidney, she said she would take our daughter and die alongside him the very next day. Crying, she begged. "Can you stop being so selfish? It's only one kidney. "It's not like you'll die! Are you really going to force me and your daughter to our deaths?" With a bitter smile, I agreed. What she didn't know was that our daughter had already died in the very same car accident that injured her beloved first love. And I was suffering from end-stage kidney failure. Once I went through with the surgery, I wouldn't be far behind from death either. Since she was willing to sacrifice everything for the man she loved, then I would give her exactly what she wanted. I would make her the person responsible for both my death and our daughter's so she would have to live with that regret for the rest of her life.

Three days before the wedding, I was cleaning out some old boxes when I remembered the time capsule Natasha Rowe and I buried ten years ago. When I mentioned it, her face stiffened for a moment. She quickly tried to talk me out of going. "It's been so long," she said. "Someone probably dug it up already." I didn't think much of it and went back to our old high school alone. At the spot where we buried it, I started digging. Instead of one box, I pulled out five metal containers of different sizes. Two of them were the ones Natasha and I buried ten years ago, their surfaces rusted and worn. But there were three others. One of them was just as rusted as ours. The other two looked almost brand new. The old extra box had a name scratched into the lid. Vince Houle. On it were the words, [My secret crush was a war I fought alone. Natasha, I hope you're happy.] I remembered him then. He had been a quiet guy who sat behind us in class. The kind of student no one really noticed. The two newer boxes had names carved into them, too. Natasha and Vince. The date etched into both of them was today. On Natasha's box were the words, [The greatest regret of my life is that I couldn't marry you.] On Vince's box were the words, [The greatest regret of my life is that I can't openly congratulate you on getting married.]